That’s what my favorite bumper sticker on the Big Island of Hawaii said. Surfer culture is perhaps less prevalent there than on the islands with the better waves (Maui, Oahu) and one local even suggested the saying might actually be an advertising slogan for Long Board beer (locally brewed) but the same woman said that Hapuna Beach, where we had stopped to catch the sunset one night, was unapproachable on Christmas day. Kids all bring their new boards, short and long, down for a first spin.
This was my first visit to any part of Hawaii and what I don’t know about local culture would cover the back of a green sea turtle but I honestly couldn’t see much wrong with it. The breeze was balmy, there were no bugs or snakes (the latter were taken care of by the abundant mongoose), and the people were nice. Least ways the ones we met. Since we were staying at the rather plush Mauni Lani Resort, where my wife had spoken at a conference, we were in that tourist bubble most of the time, benignly indifferent to the problems of the people who work in the hotels.
Like ice. Methamphetamine has cut a swath through island culture in the past few years, spurned in part by the need to work several jobs. The parents get addicted, we learned, and pass it on to the kids. On the local HI music station (a rather cloying mix of reggae muzak, most with pro-island messages) the members of a native band told kids to stay off ice, while someone running for local office listed it as one of the Big Island’s biggest problems (after affordable real estate). Why, other than working three jobs, you would want to be wired in that environment is beyond me.
We had ice cream one afternoon in Hawi with science writer Susan Ince and her partner, Andy. They had moved there eight years ago from New Jersey and hadn’t looked back. The biggest challenge, Susan said, was keeping up your vocabulary. They were both in a book group, and seemed keen to talk about everything. The town they lived in reminded me of a few places near SF — Bolinas, Olema, Stinson Beach. Sixties spots that time forgot, a place where you could find a good used book store, excellent ice cream and maybe a vintage Hawaiian shirt but not much else.
Come to think of it, what else is there?