A Fraud on the Golf Course

Goats roam the King's Course at Waikoloa

December 22, 2016, WAIKALOA, HAWAI'I—At the King's Course at Waikoloa, John the cart attendant immediately sniffed us out as the frauds we were. We are not golfers. Caroline could be a golfer if she practiced more, and I could be a golfer if golfing didn't require a golf swing, which is something I do not have and likely something I will never acquire. But even by the loosest definition, we are not golfers. Nevertheless, John the cart attendant was gracious. He stared at our shoes and attire—which presented a stark contrast to the dapper, professional looking ensembles worn by the high-dollar Japanese business tycoons who were cementing million-dollar land deals during a casual round of 18—and told us to remember that the score was far less important than whether we were enjoying ourselves.

"Good to know," I said thoughtfully as we headed to the first tee.

Complicating our lack of practice and innate skill was the fact that neither of us were playing with our own clubs. We were using the ratty sets furnished by the condo owner. When we had arrived at the course, the guy at the pro-shop had hopefully inquired whether the owners had something newer than the sets stashed at the course. He winced when we said no. I suddenly understood the guy's look as I stood on the third tee holding a club with a slick and rotting grip, overlooking an expanse of jagged lava to the left and a waste area to the right. And while the King's Course had been dubbed a "Links-Style Course in Paradise" on the brochures, all I was seeing was a narrow chute of green sandwiched between the jaws of hell.

One sleeve of balls later I took a drop near the green. At least I got off with a two putt. As I moped toward the cart, I saw a Japanese man in a perfect Nike golf ensemble standing on the tee box behind us with his hands on his hips. I decided we'd let the vexed man play through, so I waved him toward us. His tee shot was flawless and landed within inches of the pin. He drove up and sneered at us with disdain as he grabbed his putter. Caroline, who had been feeling stiff from traveling, took the delay as an opportunity to loosen up by doing the downward dog yoga pose on the grass next to the green just as the man sized up his six-inch putt. I ran up behind her, grabbed her hips, and dry humped her from behind just as the man was beginning his stroke. The ball shot past the hole as I pretended to ride a bull and waved my ball cap into the air like a rodeo cowboy.

You can find two sleeves of these bad boys out there.

"Yippie cay-aye!"

The golf shark finished off with a bogey and drove onto the next hole muttering a string of what must have been obscenities.

It took me two holes to shake off the idea that I had messed with the wrong person and would suffer reprisal from the Yakuza later on, but those thoughts disappeared when I smacked an amazing drive within 40 yards of the pin on a short par 4. Two shots later I exited the green with a smile and a birdie.

On the next hole, Caroline hit a similarly amazing shot. As we approached the green, we were startled to see a gang of goats meandering near the flag. Caroline nailed the stick with her chip shot, and the ball landed with a thump next to the hole. The sound of the ball smacking the fiberglass pin had enraged a Billy Goat and he thundered up onto the green, taking an offensive stance with his horns pointed menacingly toward our private parts.

"God-damned Yakuza have their tendrils into everything," I muttered, waving the goat off with my putter. 

Lots of places to eat, but this should not be one of them.

The game took an entirely different turn afterward, and we stopped keeping score. As we made our way up the 18th fairway—an exhausting par 5 that seemed to be home to an army of goats—a light drizzle cooled us down just enough for a final push. Caroline hit an approach shot that miraculously checked up just short of a deep, gaping lava abyss that I had dubbed Pele's Asshole. My long putt for par nailed the cup but bounced off, coming to rest inches from the mark. Caroline stood at the edge of the lava bung-hole and chipped a beautiful shot onto the green, finishing up with a respectable bogey.

The course was nearly deserted and the clubhouse and pro shop were empty at the end of the long day. But John the cart attendant emerged cheerfully from the dark garage beneath the clubhouse.

"How'd it go?" he asked with a hopeful grin.

"It's not so much about the score, but rather whether we enjoyed ourselves," I said. "Right?"

I slapped a fine tip into his hand.

"By the way, you guys don't have the Yakuza on this island, do you?"

"Yakuza? What is that? A type of rum?" he asked. "If so, I'm sure it's here."

See you on down the road!

The Tub-O'-Soup Greeting

The cheese soup refugee

December 21, 2016, WAIKALOA, HAWAI'I—In celebration of completing two years of high-pressure work in the Atomic City, we fled to the islands for some rest and relaxation. The temperatures at home had plunged into the low teens, so the thought of being lulled into a state of supreme relaxation by warm winds, humidity, and softly waving hibiscus and bougainvillea flowers was particularly appealing. Instead, our island greeting was an immense tub of broccoli cheese soup.

This culinary orphan had been marooned and abandoned by the previous tenants of the condo we have rented. And while there's a certain generosity in me that gives the previous owners some credit for not wanting the plastic Tub-O'-Soup to go to waste—instead of pegging them as lazy and harried people who hadn't planned well enough to dispose of the item before they fled just minutes before checkout time—I cannot, for the life of me, understand why in Hell anyone would want to eat broccoli cheese soup procured at Costco while staying on the islands in the first place?

Baptism in the sea: Be healed, sinner! Be healed!

It is a magical time in Hawai'i right now. And this island paradise is alive with the holiday spirit. The summit of Mauna Kea is covered in deep snow, and yesterday, while at the beach, we stared up in wonder at the handiwork of the Hawaiian snow goddess, Poli'ahu, who, according to local lore, controls the northern end of the Big Island and keeps Goddess Pele in check there. As people who come from a land of fire and ice, we will not choose sides while on this island, but instead we will marvel at the beauty that has resulted from the interplay of these two deities. Already we have feasted on local lime and papaya, apple bananas, pineapple, of course, sweet Hawaiian breads accented with the purple starch of taro root. Such delicacies would not be possible without the cascade of snowmelt across the harsh lava landscape, and the kiss of the sun. 

Rest and relaxation are in order

Or maybe that's just the rum talking. The drinks on this island are as beautiful as the landscape, and tropical fruits mix well with fermented sugar. The man in the car rental place admonished us from going to Starbucks—sound advice that we would have taken on our own—and instead to support the local economy. It is in this spirit that we laid in a fine bottle of Hawaiian-made Maui gold rum, a mountain of fresh local fruit, deliciously strong Kona coffee grown just down the coast from us, bags of macadamias, and Meadow Gold yogurt—old-school stuff flavored with tropical produce and produced right here on the islands.

We won't be finding the time to eat the broccoli-cheese castaway that welcomed us here, because that's something we can do if we choose back home. Our homage to mainland life will be rounds of golf on the resort course. I am pleased to say that it has only been a short while since I last checked in at work, but already the bags and dark circles under our eyes are starting to fade, we are growing some melanin content in our skin again, and the Vitamin D deficiencies that had resulted from spending our days under artificial lighting are starting to reverse their course. This is no time for store-bought soup.

Aloha, and we will see you down the road!

Unfinished business

The Menehune Fishpond is an ancient mystery.
Caroline is a beautiful addition to the landscape.

Poipu, Kauai, Hawai'i, Nov. 20, 2015—There are old stories here in Hawai'i about a race of industrious little people who live in the jungles far out of sight of modern civilization. These Menehune, as they are known, are credited with accomplishing remarkable feats during the course of a single night. What they could not complete while the rest of the world was sleeping remained unfinished and abandoned, according to the mythology. These pint-size Polynesians are thought to be descendants of the original inhabitants of the lost continent of Mu. In addition to their remarkable strength and abilities as craftsmen and artisans, they are rumored to possess supernatural powers. At one point, piggy-bank statues of these strong, unibrowed dwarves—who dined on bananas and fish—were handed out to children as a promotion for a local bank. Nowadays, the Menehune are discussed mostly in the context of the 'Alekoko Fishpond, which supposedly was constructed by this lost race of Hawaiian gnomes.

Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge

The celebrated Kauai rains visited us with a vengeance just after I had proclaimed in my last post that we hadn't seen a drop of moisture since our arrival. In some ways the rains were a blessing, because I had received a deep cut from the razor sharp coral on one of my feet the day before. After reading about the potentially serious consequences of a reef cut, we took no shortcuts in attending to the wound. Peroxide, colloidal silver, and some savage bandages, coupled with a strict protocol of keeping the wound dry and protected, have facilitated satisfactory healing so far. Waking up to a downpour, and with the doppler radar showing giant blobs of green over the entire island, a day of sightseeing seemed in order. We decided to head all the way up to the North Shore, though we would come to regret this decision later on.

The hillside is covered with boobies! (All the white specks)

While the Menehune Fishpond was mostly unremarkable in its jungle setting, other visitors were quick to point out that the bluff just beyond it was where George Clooney looked over the island landscape during a pivotal scene in The Descendants. Some say if you look closely during that scene, you can see several Menehune peeking out from the jungle flora. For us, the little people remained as well hidden as the legion of wild pigs that is rumored to cover the island.

Pig meat is a big thing here, but no one really says where it comes from. During our drive past the northern most point on the Hawaiian island chain toward the Na'Pali coast to the west, we passed a house in the Hanalei colony that was decorated with the jawbone of many swine.  Apparently many of the locals hunt the wild pigs for sport or as a source of food, and many of the local restaurants serve pig meat as a barbecue item. Caroline enjoyed a rasher of tasty barbecue swine on her eggs Benedict at the Kountry Kitchen at Kapaa. The restaurant is renowned for its meat items. Given my recent choice to eliminate most meat from my diet, I settled for an omelet. 

This point designates the northern-most
point in the Hawaii archipelago. Moku'ae'ae
Island, uninhabited except for birds, is visible
at the top of the photo.

Several miles up the road we made it to Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge. A defunct lighthouse exists at the bird sanctuary, which is dotted with boobies, Nēnē, Frigate Birds, and Albatross—also known as Gooney Birds due to their ungraceful behavior while landing. The entire point stank of bird droppings, but it was great to see that the Hawaiians were preserving their flora and fauna. Earlier in the week, just before I was laid open by the coral, we came across an endangered Monk Seal on the beach. These animals were nearly hunted to extinction, and now an army of volunteers works diligently to ensure that the animals are unmolested. The Monk Seal had been cordoned off by one of the volunteers on Poipu Beach. Apparently people mistake their lethargy for illness. I guess an encounter with an angry Monk Seal is nothing to see up close, despite their friendly dog-like countenances. 

Earlier in the week we had come across other instances of the Hawaiians working to preserve their culture and their traditions. Just across the street from where we are staying, the Hawaiians have preserved ancient walls of lava as a tribute to Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole, also known as "Prince Kuhio." The prince was raised in the nearby community of Koloa, and the park paying tribute to his character honors his work in preserving the heritage and strength of the people of Hawai'i. He was elected as Hawaii's first Congressional delegate and served 10 consecutive terms. While in Congress, Prince Kuhio initiated the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, which provided locations for native Hawaiians to homestead. He served from 1903 until his death in 1922.

A monument to Prince Kuhio, Hawaii's first Congressional
delegate bears testament to the Prince's good works in
a small park near his home community of Koloa.

The road to Ke'e Beach on the Na'Pali coast is narrow and treacherous. The pounding rain didn't help things. We had pondered going to the extremely snooty St. Regis resort on Princeville for an afternoon cocktail and tapas, but the filthy vibe of the filthy rich drove us away. It was a good thing, too. The rains would soon come with a vengeance. On our way back, a pair of traffic accidents literally stopped traffic along the entire northern coast for three hours. We enjoyed local radio, which helped drown out the pounding of the rain and the curses of the motorists who were stopped dead on the only major road connecting the entire northern coastline. As the landscape around us began filling with water, I began to worry about the ability of our compact vehicle to make it through the lower regions of the island if they became flooded. 

A Monk Seal enjoys Poipu Beach along with
the hundreds of tourists sunning themselves.

My paranoia was on track. Kauai is home to Mt. Waialeale, the wettest spot on Earth, which averages 460 inches of rain each year. The mountain was off to our right, and rivers of rainwater were being disgorged from the jungles and into the sea all around us. The pounding rain was relentless and the rental car's windshield wipers did precious little to keep up with the deluge. Being from the desert, the idea of a "dangerous rain" seemed ludicrous, but here we were, right in the middle of one. It was easy to see why cars were crashing into one another and the frustration level of motorists was at its peak.

We inched along a few feet at a time before coming to a halt over and over again for the better part of two hours. During that time we covered about four miles. Both of us needed to pee, so we made a quick decision to detour out of our traffic predicament to find a bathroom. We got back on the highway just a few cars behind where we had started.

A few hours later, in complete darkness and under a driving rain so intense that it was nearly impossible to see, I crept back toward our condominium, staying close to the center of the road, which remained barely above water. Suddenly I understood why so many locals drive huge four-wheel drive vehicles with several inches of lift. 

Despite injury and rain, a good time was had
by all.

Just before our safe return, we passed a local crematory, which was hosting a funeral. The activities had begun earlier in the day while we were leaving. The ceremonies were continuing hours later after sunset. It's hard to imagine that death on such a small, close-knit island is taken for granted, and in some ways the traditions remind us of Native American practices back home. Death touches an entire community—rain or shine.

Strangely enough, while wading through this surreal day, I managed to keep my injured foot dry. Apparently the Menehune had constructed a tiny wall of lava rock around it that repelled the advancing waters.

See you on down the road.