We wanted to hear our friend John Keawe play slack key guitar, so arranged our day around a dinner date at the Bamboo Restuarant in Hawi where John plays every Saturday night, give or take some times when he is away touring.Hawi is some drive away from where we were bivouacked in Keauhou on the Kona coast. We arrived a little early, so filled the time by paying respects at the cigar store and the King Kamehameha statue in Kapa'au, a few miles up the road.
Story goes a relative of the Hawaiian alongside had been the model for this royal statue, which is identical to the famous statue standing in front of the judicial building in Honolulu on the island of O'ahu. The Kapa'au statue is in fact the original.
Commissioned by the Hawaiian legislature to commemorate the coronation of King Kalakaua in 1883, it was designed by an American living in Florence, and cast in Paris. En route to Hawaii, the statue was lost at sea when the ship carrying it was wrecked in stormy seas. Insurance money paid for a replacement casting.Some time later the captain of the wrecked ship spotted the original statue in a junkyard in Port Stanley, on the Falkland Islands, where it had been salvaged. This enterprising captain bought the statue and had it shipped to Hawaii to stand in Kapa'au.
There was a bit of damp drizzling precipitation and the light was low and flat the evening of our visit. The photographs are not the best, but I do like to visit this statue and absorb the lessons of survival and determination it offers.
We can think we have a firm control of the plan and organization of the pieces of our lives, but destiny has the over-riding hand. The connection with the Hawaiian alongside's bloodline is just a little bonus.
At the cigar store I realized that my old friend OC from the place of clear salt water could well have been the model for this particular cigar store injun scanning the horizon, warning of a bad moon on the rise. Always the 10 foot warrior who has my back. Thank you for standing guard the way you do, though whoever thought to give you blue eyes should take another look at the original.
Fidel, well, he wasn't abandoning fields and castles on the other side of the door, but he was just being Fidel: giving a form of maimed single finger salute. Another warning right there, of things to come.A weather bulletin from my old friends at the cigar store. When one is on a paddle journey, it behooves one to pay attention to the signs of bad weather up ahead.
I do not have the story to tell about the inscrutable little dark personage. Some things remain mystery yet, but happily the dark eyes are true this time around.
The other thing Kapa'au is famous for in my world, is that, in October 2010, the entire community turned out to help move the library a mile and a half down the road, passing each pile of books from hand to hand down the road, emptying one building, filling another.This evening both old and new buildings were closed, of course, but I did like to walk feet a little on the road where this wondrous human book chain had happened. There's a news story and video about it here.
Back to the mundane. The meal at the Bamboo Restaurant was a huge disappointment. The menu is not very vegetarian friendly to start off, and they even prepare their tofu with fish sauce. For the prices I would have expected to feel the artistry of a chef's hand and at least some consideration of enlightened ways of being and feeding.
Instead I was presented with noodles from a box, vegetables from a frozen bag and unadorned tofu straight from the package dumped amongst it in the most bland, soulless meal. The message I got was that I did not matter at all, was not worth any effort.
Luckily John Keawe has a lot of authenticity and integrity to make up for the emptiness from the kitchen.
I would not recommend the Bamboo Restaurant for food and will not be eating there again, though the ambiance in the historic old restored plantation building has a touch of magic, and John's music is worth hearing. My instincts a few years ago, first time around in Hawe were confirmed: an over-priced and ultimately disappointing evening as far as the food side was concerned.
We drove the long dark road back to Keauhou from North Kohala, myself behind the wheel, with John's latest cd playing on the hired horsepower's sound system.I definitely prefer Keawe instrumental pieces, and once drove 8000 miles around western United States with only a single John Keawe cd, Keaweualani, in my vehicle without tiring of the sounds. I can, however, live without the pieces with lyrics, especially the latest sweet, sentimental ones where his granddaughters join him. No offense meant, but no cigar. I never have liked children or animals in books or movies. Now I discover that I don't go along with them in music neither.
