Our polling place is in the Kahala Elementary School Cafeteria, along the lower end of Pahoa Avenue. It’s not much more than a 1/4 mile from home. And I’ve got a long history with the place.

I entered Kahala School as a 2nd grade student the first year that it opened (September 1954). Brand new school! There were just a couple of classroom buildings the first year or two. By the time I reached the fourth grade, several new classroom buildings had been finished. And the new cafeteria opened about the same time, at least by the time we reached fifth grade.

At that time, what is now the park next to the school was a field filled with rocks, boulders, and debris that must have been moved to make way for the new developments from Pueo Street up to Hunakai and beyond. I think I was in the 5th grade when I was “hired” to walk a new kindergarten student from a house just around the corner from us, along Pueo Street, along a path across the field of boulders, and to the school. I don’t know why his parents thought an escort was needed, but it meant $1.25 a week for me. Big money in those days.

In those days, students periodically spent the day working in the cafeteria instead of sitting in class. I actually don’t remember all the things that we were assigned to do during our cafeteria duty days, but I have vidid sense memories of certain things. The steam from the dishwashers, the smell of disinfectant, the sight and smell of industrial-size cans of green beans being opened and dumped into vast pots (I came away hating green beans for years before I discovered that they don’t always smell and taste like those beans did), the sour smell of old spilled milk that seemed to permeate the area where trash was collected. Those tastes and smells are still vivid. Then there were the cafeteria workers, some who we loved to see, others that had no rapport with the kids.

So it’s a little weird to be returning to the school to vote. The cafeteria has been very well maintained, and doesn’t look its age. I wish I could say the same thing about myself.

In any case, that’s where our votes will be cast in another hour or so.