When I was growing up in the area known as “Old Kahala”, there were very few pretentious homes that were hidden behind walls.

Regular people had hedges. Panax seemed to be the most popular, as it seemed to thrive and took little care beyond somewhat occasional trimming. Mock orange seemed to be another favorite. Some had wonderful hibiscus hedges.

But walls, not so much.

That started to change in the 1980s. At that time we lived in an apartment at Tropic Gardens, a development mauka of Kahala Mall. We would take evening walks, and we started noticing as walls started going up. It bothered us at the time, indicating a change in the relationships between these residences and the community around them.

Now, it feels like walls have become the norm, at least in our part of Kahala. We’ve renovated the old house where my parents lived for over 70 years, and we’re among the wall holdouts. Walls and what they say to the world just don’t seem like a good match for Hawaii, at least in our opinion.

And we just had a rather rude introduction to one impact of all the walls.

During the thunderstorms on last Sunday night, our yard got pretty flooded, as you can see in this photo of the front yard on Monday morning. It had been worse during the peak of the rain.

It seems that water runs down Kealaolu Avenue, and runs past those properties with walls out front. And it accumulates as it runs down towards the ocean. Then it hits our yard. No wall, easy access. and the water rather happily flowed through the hedge and down the driveway, then around either side of the house into one corner of the back yard.

The flow seemed to be only a couple of inches, but it was a steady sheet of running water as it hit our yard.

The good thing is that the sandy soil seems to drain quickly. We’ll see.

But we’re now shopping for some additional landscaping in front of the hedge, including a small decorate wall perhaps 6 inches high. That should be plenty to ward off this type of rain, although more serious flooding will be a different story.

I do recall a few rare days when I was little, before flood control projects that put drainage canals through Kahala, when our yard would flood and my dad would paddle around on his long, hollow, canvas-colored paddle board.

Hopefully we’ll soon be able to put an end to this casual flooding.