Sibling Rivalry

 It was during the Kona-Kai days that I underwent the Christian sacrament of baptism in water. There is an old, defunct airport at the ocean that is now a park where we used to have events and that was where it happened. I usually always followed Samuel in these things but this time I made the decision myself and got baptized before him. My parents also believed in the present-day work and gifts of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. As part of that, they believed in a baptism of the Holy Spirit. My father sat Samuel and I down one day and asked if we wanted to do that. We did, together.

Earthquakes are not out of the ordinary in Hawaii. Early one morning we got hit. Samuel and Joy did not get along the best, so even though Samuel didn’t sleep anywhere near her, Joy told him to stop shaking the bed. As Kona sits on the coast, it is susceptible to tsunamis. As a precaution, we had to evacuate up the mountain to the public High School. I grabbed my two most valuable things - my Bible and my money (of which I had precious little).

It was all very exciting hanging out at the High School looking way out into the vast Pacific at what we thought was the giant wave on its way in. Alas (or actually, thank God), nothing came in. I guess what we thought we saw was just a figment of our imaginations.

The Big Island doesn’t have all that many good beaches because of all the lava but we used to go to one down the coast called Hapuna. It was a little bit of a drive through the lava fields. We owned a small car with three of us kids riding in the back who often didn’t get along all that well. 

I find that the closest kids in age fight the most. I got along okay with my sister but she and Samuel fought and I fought with Samuel. So with three kids riding in the back, there was no way for the two closest in age to be separated.

When my father got fed up, he used to threaten to stop the car right there on the side of the road and spank us. Then one day he did. These days someone would probably call Child Protective Services if they saw someone doing that but it had it’s intended effects…until we started up again. And it became another legendary family episode.

Meanwhile, back at the apartments, I had some more memorable moments at the pool. Despite not liking to eat fish, we used to go fishing down at the pier. You could see the fish nibbling on your bait in the crystal clear water. I didn’t have a pole, just a line with a hook and sinker.

One day, back up at the pool, I was swinging the fishing line around and there’s a reason you should never do that. The hook went right into my shin and because of the barb it couldn’t be pulled out the way it went in. I also had a string of white bait that was hanging from the hook down my leg. When my mom saw the bait, she thought it the insides of my leg oozing out. But once they cut away the bait, they realized the only way to get it out was to cut the eye off the hook and push the rest all the way through. That hurt.

I was into building small ship models but once you build them and they sit on a shelf for a while, it gets old. I decided to take a model and a firecracker to the pool, put the firecracker in the end, light it, sail the ship out into the middle and watch the fun. It wasn’t very spectacular but it did sink kinda cool as it upended and went down like the Titanic.

My mom, Joy and me at Hapuna Beach


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