That’s been the norm in Honolulul for much of the last century. Could it be different this year?

It’s a few minutes after 2 p.m. on December 31.

There has not been a the sound of single firecracker in our part of Kahala–not one pop. Not today, not yesterday. It is, well, just quiet out there.

I checked with a friend in Kaaawa, where in years past it sounded like a war zone on New Year’s Eve, complete with bombs and aerial displays, and what sounded like an occasional exchange of gunfire for several days before. This year, she says, nada. Not so far, at least. Not here. Not in Kaaawa. I wonder what it’s like in Palolo right now?

Is this just the calm before the storm, or is the obsession with illegal fireworks really fading a bit?

We won’t really know until later tonight, but we can hope!

In the meantime, I went back looking for photos from past years, and came up with a few.

1955 My parents celebrating at the Hilton Hawaiian Village on New Year’s Eve with my dad’s cousin, Bill Fairley, and his wife. Left to right, my dad, John Lind, Fairley’s wife, my mom, Helen Lind, and Fairley. It was the first New Year celebration after the Hawaiian Village opened.

1962 My mother served a meal featuring laulau and poi at a table on the lanai that was covered with ti leaves from the yard. Joining us were my parents’ good friends, Charlie and Libana Crabb, and three of their four kids. I’m in back on the left stuffing my face. The mango trees, not visible in the dark, would have had at least some small strings of firecrackers ready to be set off at midnight, with some odds and ends to be lit by hand and tossed onto the grass earlier in the evening.

1969 This was my first new year celebration after graduating from Whitman College, getting married and starting graduate school at UH. Meda and I were sharing an apartment in the Circle Jade apartments on 9th Avenue in Kaimuki with a friend of mine from high school, so it was just a short drive to spend the evening with my parents. The two mango trees in the back yard seemed large then, but were nothing compared to what they’ve grown into today!

1971. Meda and I were still living at the Circle Jade, but had moved to a less expensive apartment on the 4th floor which we could afford without a roommate. We lived there until it was converted to a condominium in 1978. In those early days it was a rental building owned by retired dentist Dai Yen Chang, who had once been an elected member of the Honolulu Board of Supervisors, the predecessor of the city council.

From our 4th floor apartment, we watched the drunks pouring out of the old Kolohe Lounge downstairs at closing time, and had a view up towards Palolo Valley. We looked over the parking lot of Zane’s Market on the corner of Waialae, now the Brew’d pub. Across 9th Avenue was the old W&M Hamburgers, and another bar, the Aloha Lounge. On the far side of Waialae, a Hawaii National Bank branch was on the corner, with 9th Avenue bakery next to it, where Miro is now. A rival, Choice Bakery, on our side of Waialae next to Zane’s Market.

Towards midnight, we went out by the elevator experience the thunder of all the fireworks, and I got this picture of the corner of 9th Avenue and Waialae, with the thick fireworks smoke very much in evidence.

In any case, I’ll repeat one more time: Happy New Year! Bring it on!

This essay about the life of James Frederick Moore Yonge, was written and prepared for publication by my late sister, Bonnie Pauahi Stevens. I found it among her files after her death in 2016.

Yonge was my mother’s paternal grandfather, and my great-grandfather.

Many readers have said they have appreciated earlier bits of my family’s history, so I’m taking the liberty of sharing this extended look at his life. It’s kind of a sprawling saga, beginning with his birth in Germany to English parents, operating a pharmacy in Tombstone, Arizona at the time of the infamous shootout at the OK Corral, and living through the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Quite a life, demonstrating how much mobility there was during the 19th century. The next time you cringe at the prospect of a long airline flight, think of these globetrotters who traveled the world by ship seemingly without hesitation.