The Return to Kona

Chapter Five - Hawaii, Take 2

When we got to Hawaii, we first anchored offshore at Kailua-Kona because they didn’t have a dock big enough for a ship. This was a very historic occasion for YWAM. The university and the ship were the two biggest projects. YWAM’s founder, Loren Cunningham called them the twins. Now, for the first time we were together. They put on a big welcome for us with the big wigs going ashore in canoes for a reception at the beach and up at the university. When they returned, we sailed about 35 miles up the Kona coast to Kawaihae where we could dock.

In Kona, I saw Leilani again (the girl I met in Samoa with King’s Kids) and she was still very attentive. She also had a sister a few years older than me and another sister a few years younger. I realized that they all had a flirtatious aura about them which gave me reservations. Nevertheless, I was attracted and she was so attentive that my misgivings were overcome and she captured my affections. 

Again, because of my relationship theology, I didn’t even talk to her about my feelings. Maybe with her flirtatious ways, I was just one of many to her. I was smitten anyway.

In those days there weren’t any home gaming systems. You had to go to an arcade if you wanted to play a video game. A single game usually cost about twenty-five cents each. We had the opportunity to play a little in New Zealand with the very limited amount of cash we could scrounge up. But now there was an arcade in Kona and our relatives had given us twenty dollars.

My second-favorite game was Galaga but my all-time favorite was Time Pilot. In Time Pilot, you controlled a fighter jet and started out destroying a series of bi-planes. When you destroyed enough of the bi-planes, the mother ship came along. When you destroyed the mother ship, you reached the next level. The next level was World War 2 planes, followed by helicopters, F-14s and finally, UFOs. All the while, various bullets and missiles are also being thrown at you.

I very rarely even got to the UFOs but never past them, so I could never find out what happened after that. After I left Hawaii, I would search for Time Pilot whenever I found an arcade but to no avail. Then one day, years later, I was back visiting my brother in Hawaii and I found it! And not only did I find it but I got past the UFOs and discovered what was beyond!…It just went back to bi-planes, although at a more difficult pace.

Anyway, when we first got to the arcade in Kona, I broke the $20 bill I had received from my relatives and blew through $5. I felt kind of bad at it being such a waste but it was only a quarter of my $20 so it wasn’t too bad. Then I went back the next day and blew through another $5. But I still had half left. The next day…another $5. Now I really felt bad but I just couldn’t seem to help myself. I was so addicted. Well now what was I going to buy with just $5? Yes, I may as well have just used it all up, seeing if I could break any of my records. 

So it was all gone. My parents weren’t very happy but I have a feeling that the relatives who gave me the money probably wouldn’t have minded. I did get my money’s worth of fun.  


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