Category Archives: Personal

An old-timers gathering (before it’s too late)

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Meda began her long teaching career as a lecturer in sociology at Honolulu Community College back in about 1973. In 1974, she transitioned to full time teaching, and remained at HCC for a decade, surrounded by new friends as well as old friends she had been in graduate school with. Then she spent another five years or so split between half-time at HCC and half-time at UH Manoa, before finally joining the Manoa faculty as a professor of women’s studies, where she spent the next three decades.

But those years at HCC were special, mostly because of the personalities of the people who taught in the liberal arts program, based on the 6th floor of one of the classroom buildings. She still looks back on it as the most fun she had with colleagues, despite the heavy teaching workload.

On Friday afternoon, veterans of the HCC 6h floor faculty, former, retired, or about to retire, gathered in Kailua for what was billed as a “Final Hurrah” party.

From the host’s invitation:

The years are passing with increasing rapidity and our ranks are thinning – some have moved, some have passed away, some are incapacitated.

“Old professors never die, they just lose their faculties.”

The fact is that our cluster of talented, dedicated teachers/scholars was quite unique – we should make an effort to regather!

I am hosting a reunion of sixth-floor faculty at my home to celebrate the years we worked together to provide high-quality education to HCC students and to honor some recent retirees and about to be retired faculty who, as a result of pandemic restrictions, haven’t been properly recognized….

It is not likely that this cast of educators will assemble again.

“Most of our former colleagues who remain among the living and who continue to reside on Oahu will attend,” he added in a follow-up.

And they did. Most Meda and I had not seen in years, although the years seemed to shed away in the lively conversation the gathering yielded.

At the end of the afternoon, there was a general consensus that this should be considered “Not Quite Last Hurrah.”

In any case, here’s one of the group photos. Good colleagues and good friends.

For Mother’s Day

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I wasn’t home schooled, but I was definitely home educated by my mother, Helen Yonge Lind.

She encouraged me to read, and helped me break the rules when the librarian at the Kaimuki Library said I was too young to venture into the adult book section.

She also gave me the best single piece of advice ever, which I later found is applicable far beyond its original context. When she finally got tired of my endless questions how to make this or how to make that, she finally told me: “If you can read, you can cook.”

I’ve later applied that in many other areas of life.

This photo was taken on the steps from the living room of my parent’s house in Kahala, leading down onto the lanai. It’s a scene that no longer exists, because when we renovated the old house after her death, we built a back deck at the same level as the house, rather than a lanai at ground level.

In any case, I can still remember this scene, repeated many times, the anticipation when turning the crank on the little music box and waiting for the punch line, “Pop! Goes the weasel!” Somehow knowing how it was going to end didn’t take away from the pleasure I got from it!

My mother died at the end of January 2013, a few months short of her 99th birthday.

The morning after

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One thing about this morning after. It’s quiet in the house. We’ve been on our walk at dawn, and are sitting here with coffee and fruit. And it’s quiet. We had become accustomed to hearing Romeo make his way around the house, cry insistently to be fed, or to be gathered up to enjoy time in a lap, or to be assisted up onto a chair for a nap, sometimes yowling in pain or discomfort as he maneuvered his arthritic rear end so that he could lay in front of the door in a spot of sun. His absence is quite apparent. The other cats, Kali, Kinikini, and Bessie, are sort of knocked off stride. They notice the absence, I think, and are trying to process it. It seems like they’re waiting. For something.

Anyway, time moves on.

And that plover? It was still at the beach park this morning.

Here are a few photos from our morning walk.