A shark country - U & me talking different times. My oldman told us was 25.00 a yr,. i hope u not calling me a liar. i just going on my oldman’s word. also i was right there when Mr. Roxburg told my fada he was paying $25.00 a yr least . Pal by the time Al Ahloo came into the picture it was yrs later. before the okamura’s came from kauai Tony or his brother John Lopes was living there & Darrel & his brother i think Rory Nelson was the brada name were there, i 4 get who else. i tell U something though. as a youngster i sure do remember alot. i’ll also tell U something about sonny cordes. we were @ the shack 1nite. he went out with mr glen kazuto okamura . when he came back , looked like he got ranover. mr okamura kicked the shit out of him. my fada told sonny good 4-U U probably deserved it . like i had said in a earlier blog . my dad took off when i was around 14 or 15 yrs old. so my mother & Tutu wahine took care of us. and let me just say my Tutu was pure Hawaiian. Kahu Cleigh Oxley and some ewa beach rd. guys know. that . i remember Moon Kalani from E.B. Rd. coming over my mother’s house to talk story in the Hawaiian language with my TuTu. that used to trip me out. anyway nough wala au Aloha T.P.
Hey Tommy, I think you are right $25/year, but then I think in the late 60’s early 70’s it was $25 a month. I remember that there was a jump from $25 to $250 and everyone was pissed that Al and uncle Kui’s wifes fight caused it. Campbell didn’t know that the lots were being rented to other people, they were supposed to be just for the original leasees. Francis Ching started it because he owned the lot next to seawall where the Okamuras lived. All the other lots were used by the poeple who leased them from Campbell. If Uncle Kui didn’t die, they wouldn’t have sub-leased the lot. Dad was pissed too cause he wanted to get that lot, but Ah Lan was only thinking about the money.
Uncle Sonny was an alcoholic. Got drunk all the time. One reason he let dad spend all the time at the beach house was because dad would take him on base and get plenty liquor, or dad would just take the order and get it himself. Every weekend uncle Sonny would come by our house or go to the beach house and pick up cases of booze. Not beer but wiskey and hard liqour. Our great grandfather had a bar in Honolulu before he moved to the west side. His kids all drank heavily, and that was passed on to my dad’s generation and somewhat to us. My dad’s generation drank more beer than liquor, but I seen them drink so much beer in one day it was crazy. I think they each could drink a case of beer a day when we were down at the beach. Lucky Freckles wasn’t there, Freckles used to watch over uncle Sonny. That was his job. I think Freckles could have taken Mr. Okamura, but maybe not cause he liked to get drunk too.
S.C. let me tell U about old freckles. real name james spencer. freckles was from makiki roundtop a.k.a. maunalaha valley. my tutu had a homestead property there next to the spencer family. my tutu & mother with her 10 or 11 more siblings were evicted or as the military would say displaced. from watertown Hickham A.F.B. my mom was born in a tent there, she was the oldest of all the kids born in 1917 Feb 12. my tutu had ma when she was 18. Tutu was born 1899. anyway i don’t know if spencer’s were from watertown also. as far as i know the queen or somebody that was in charge struck up a deal to place the Hawaiian families in the valley only 15 families were placed there. as of today we still have the lot there but nobody lives there. last family member there was uncle maka & aunty porky. last i heard rent there was $12.00 monthly. stupid kanaka’s my family nobody wants to pick up the slack. 1 more thing S.C. no get that japanee wrong that bugga could beef if he wasn’t drunk mr. okamura. Aloha T.P.
Tommy! Yes I do remember your Tutu. She was what kanaka called “Manaleo” those kanaka who were raised with the language, not like what they teach @ UH. Jus like my kupuna too! They could “Olelo Hawaii”. Mr. Kalani lived EB Rd. side. George Kaholokula’s dad could “olelo” as well as Ike Tanka dad too! Issac’s dad was one of many in my life that really inspired me to learn about ourselves as well as our culture and language. I remember a couple of times I came over with your brother Rick and your tutu addressed me in Olelo Hawaii. i spoke back to her in english. I respected the language and kupuna neva like say anything wrong so I would only speak english back. Rick came back and we left. Same with Issac dad… Today I get my youngest daughter that speaks as well as Cal’s keiki too!
Hey Tommy, I got one story about Freckles for you. Uncle Sonny owned, maybe still is in the family, the front portion of the hilltop at Pacific Heights. He had 1.5 acres and a shack on the land. The access was originally stairs that went from the bottom up to the top of the hill, but you could drive up and then through the neighbors yard to get to the shack.
Freckles lived in that house until he died. Then after he died the shack burned down and the neighbors wouldn’t let them drive in to rebuild a new house. The land sat there for decades becuase it was so hard to do anything with it. The last time I talked to uncle Sonny’s daughter I asked what she was going to do with it and she said she was trying to work out a deal to sell it. There’s still a hole cut into the side of the mountain where the carport and the stairs were at the beginning of Pacific Heights Road.
Finally, Uncle Sonny’s daughter is really Freckles daughter. If you look at her she is a splitting image of Freckles.
Anyway he was a very loyal friend of uncle Sonny and I think he would have done anything for uncle Sonny. His other nickname was Red. Interestingly oneula means red sand, and there’s a story that the name came from someone who lived there by the name of Red. I don’t know how true it is, or if it is true if that Red is Jimmy Spencer who we all know as Freckles.
We all loved Freckles, he was a fun guy. He was in good shape even as an old man.
Your mother may know my dad’s friends from Watertown, the family name was Miller, and his classmate at Kapalama Elem and then Kamehameha was Ellen Miller who married a guy named Bloede. They graduated in 1941.
Take care, Harry
So Jim Greene is now Kimo Greene? I've only known him as Jim Greene for 45 years. But will try. Don't want to piss anyone off. Old dog, new tricks kinda thing.
This is how the world knows Jim Greene these days…
Kimo Greene is the famous internet shaper/owner of Kimo Green Surfboards on sand island and inventor of the surfboard band-aid
only the old Ewa Beach folks know him as Jim Greene
http://www.sandislandsurfboards.com/
here’s a good question…
how good a surfer was robbie husic?
talk was he would be the next big thing to hit surfing back then.
Anyone surf with him?
he was a surf god to those of us that went to elementary school with him but his death has always been a mistery to me…
was it an overdose from heroin or did he drown surfing on drugs?
He also wasn’t the only surfer in Ewa Beach that dissappeared surfing back then…
the way his parents sponsered his surfing reminded me of another haole kid named bobby owens who showed up years later in ewa beach with his two brothers and how their father would take them down to coves etc…
Gooney was with Robbie the night he died. He told me all about it, but I don’t want to repeat it here. Gooney was really shaken by that night. In the 70’s and 80’s the North Shore had a heroin, speed, coke problem. Quite a few people died and a lot of them were rising stars, like Rusty Starr and Robbie.
I remember going up there to shoot news stories about the problem of deaths and all the other things that accompany an area affected by serious drug abuse. In the 80’s coke was king and several people made serious money up there.
Speaking of Kimo Greene, I was at Fiberglass Hawaii one day and a guy was picking a lot of stuff and he said it was on Kimo Greene’s account. I told the guy that I was from Ewa Beach and tell Kimo that day we knew Kimo Greene as Jim Greene. He just laughed.
Wow cleigh, never knew issac’s pop could speak the language. i guess if they were raised with everyone around them talking Hawaiian U going talk too. i was intrigued @ the way they talked, especially Niihau Hawaiians. when i worked @ kwajalien atoll back in 1979- 1982 there were some boys from Niihau that worked & lived @ this atoll called Roi Namur. The islands or atolls there were beautiful. i never knew these things were that nice till i got there. anyway couple brothers from Niihau were the Nizo bros. Soloman & Willy. Rick told me one of them, i 4-get which 1 was u-guys class-mate Kamehameha. very very humble people. i used to love talking story with them. Tell U something. U neva saw so much tame fish such as akule, ama’ama, uhu, manini, moi. He’e, lobster, a’ama crab, pipipi, kupe’e & coconut crabs, unreal. Aloha T.P.
Robbie Husic ripped. He would just go for it, no matter how impossible it looked. He blew everyone's mind when he moved to the North Shore and paddled out there. That was a sad day when he died. That was a bad year for Ewa Beach friends and families; Robbie McDonald died the same year. I'm pretty sure that was 1976. He was the 1st close friend I ever lost, and it changed my life. RIP to them both.
There is another little story i’d like to mention, i think the older guys would remember this, but i not saying u had to B certain age, Nah only joke! anyway 1974 i was working as a Heavy Equipment operator apprentice for Oahu Const Co. @ ward ave & queen st. i was just a youngster around 19 or 20 yrs old. i was w/ 3 co-workers, drinking @ a korean bar next to Rich Parr surf shop, after leaving the bar we were fooling around sparring 1 another and once in awhile we would hit the outside of the shop not knowing Rich was inside shaping boards. all of a sudden here he comes from the back door shooting @ us. nobody went down so lolo Tom chases him followed by my 3 pals. as i broke down the door Vincent Tavares, Sonny Bush, & Eddie Pastrello went in these saloon style doors and got gunned down, killing Vince & Sonny. as i got up to tend to my friends Rich was pointing the gun @ me the whole time ,but i guess it wasn’t my time. anyway Rich got sent back to the mainland & i never heard or saw of him since. He thought we were trying to rob his shop. i still see brada Eddie around, that is 1 good Hawaiian. The moral of this story. . " NO FOOL AROUND SURF SHOPS NITE TIME" Aloha T.P.
Hey Mike I think your right about the date. We were at my dad’s office Xmas party. Gooney’s mom married a guy that worked with my dad, Mr. Bobby Wong. It was during that evening that we were on the side talking and he told me about it. Bernie was already away at College, so it was after 1974.
That’s another thing I was thinking about. Gooney had 3 new member’s to his family, the Wong kids. I forgot the girl’s name, but I remember Kevin and Corbin. Kevin was in Hilo the last time I saw him. Corbin used to work at Kaiser hospital as a blood technician. Corbin was a pretty good surfer back then.
Tommy I remember that event. That’s the shop that I would see Harold Iggy at.
The more I think about it, the more I think I am wrong about the $250 a month rent for the beach. I think it may have ended up being $250 a year after the whole thing with Al Ah Loo. But it was something that uncle Ted would mention occassionally.
Robbie Mc Donald's mom was a teacher at Campbell. She was a cool lady. She used to feed us all when we came in from surfing at empty lot. She died 3 months ago @ 94 years old.
I remember that Tommy. We were all pretty young and that was big news in Ewa Beach at the time. Scarey stuff. Glad you dodged that bullet!
Speaking of crazy days and characters of that era, anyone know what happened to Geroge Rapoza? Jerry Hunter? Geroge DeClue? The Akiona brothers? Richard Murton (aka Murtle the Turtle), Leo Camanco? The Barney's Bench Clan. We probably got away with more than we should have. Whew..
Jessie Mizunaka;Tim Mccafferty; George Kaholokua; Dale Okamura; Danny Bell; Harry Gaynor; Debbie Gaynor; Randy Nii; Chris Gardner; Mark Gardner; Michael Oxley; Kevin Johns; Rick Johns; Mary Oxley; Robbie Husic; Rocky Kualapai; Stayton Siliado; Stephen Oasay; Mark Foo;. and God in Christ forgive me for any precious, precious names that I’ve failed to mention. Kahu Cleigh, “you’re the man”, can we remember these and whoever else I’ve missed that must also be remembered somehow when we meet in September? A moment of silence maybe, or even a paddleout? We who are still alive, especially after what all of us have been thru really shouldn’t even be alive; but God in His grace and mercy and love has allowed us to live. These who are gone now were much better souls than me. Just thinking of these folks makes me appreciate every single wave that I still get to surf now. Butch made mention of this idea in an earlier note.
Also, do you guys have an accurate head count of just how many people are really coming to this reunion? By the way everyone’s writing, it seems to be growing bigger all the time.
Kahu Cleigh thanks for your note on Page 35 about the original Ewa Beach Surf Club members. And Thanks for your clarifying to me about God in Hawaiian culture on Page 37 too. You’re the Kahu!
I had the honor of being voted into the Ewa Beach Surf Club too when it had already moved to Jan Husic’s house. After seeing the Club members and then having to go wait in the garage while they voted was insane nuts suspense if you know what I mean.
to be continued…
E hiki no! For sure. Mel and I are the MC’s so we do plan some recognition as well as for those who passed. We will open up with pule (prayer) I plan to do a Hiowai (cleansing ceremony) Ho’oponopono (setting things right) all in Ka inoa o Iesu (in the name of Jesus). Lets face it, some us may not be around for a next one if ever we make another one. Mike G., Mike N, Mel B., Ike T., Charlie M., Mike Bell, Paul S., Mike K., Rick P. Nate M., just to mention a few we all are in our early 60’s. The generation above is closing in on their 70’s. The guys right below are their 50’s. No we don’t have a list of names. Maybe people can rsvp here or at least tell someone they’re coming. We asked that everyone who does come provide enough mea ai ame na inu (food & drinks) for whomever is coming with them.
Kahu
I hope this isn't the last gathering of this gang of Ewa Beach friends, but we never know what tomorrow will bring, as we're all learning as we get older. Carpe diem! "seize the day".
A head count would be great. Any help we can get on that, much appreciated. Also T-shirt sizes. Thanks.
FYI, I wrote Danny McClaferty about a year ago when I read on this forum that Timmy had died. He laughed! and said Timmy is still alive and well in California. Good news.
Aloha,
Mike B