Lahaina, as I Remember it...

It has taken me the better part of a week to process the horrific tragedy that is the wildfires and destruction in Lahaina, Maui. I couldn’t fully process it at first - -I was simply walking out onto a pickleball court on the morning of Wednesday, August 9 here in Davidson, NC, when a playing partner noticed my “Maui 86” shirt. It’s a football-like jersey I was wearing. A souvenir that my Dad purchased on one of the 3 trips he made with Mom to visit me and my then-wife when we lived there in the 90s. It could have even been when they came out for our wedding.

While I gave little thought to the shirt when I put it on that morning, it represented a big and important part of my life.

Grace is a senior, as am I, and with a strong Asian accent, and she, broached the topic. “Oh, did you see the wildfires on Maui…?” “No, but are you sure it wasn’t the Big Island …?” It was a knee-jerk reaction. After all, the wide-open spaces and landscape of the island of Hawaii are more natural environments for something like a wildfire. I left it at that and we played as planned.

It wasn’t until later on that I saw the headlines and learned that it wasn’t just the Big Island of Hawaii as I assumed that was impacted but also the West Maui town of Lahaina. My visceral reaction was one of shock.

My first thoughts were of the experiences of everyday life. Rise and shine each morning at 4:30, walking to the dive shop at 5:30 am, loading 40 - 50 tanks aboard either Endeavor or Reliant

and walking that day's customers to the harbor and onto the dive charter boats.

There was the feel of the pavement beneath my 'slippers' on each step on Front St. It was a much different feeling than what those visiting Lahaina on vacation would experience. It is what I used to call ‘digging ditches’ - the physical labor exerted each morning by 6:30 am, just to get the boat charter and divers (20 or more) to Molokini or Lanai underway.

Then there was ‘turning the boat over’ at 12:30 on the dock for the smaller afternoon 2 dive charters complete with instruction for students. The day would wrap up with the breaking down and cleaning of the boat for the day between 5 and 6 just ahead of the consistent year-round sunset.

My exuberance for this labor was fueled, in my case, by all the pent-up energy saved while wearing a suit and tie, riding the train to and from Grand Central Station. I conducted my business in a cubicle or at a trading desk. Indoors. Tied to a phone in said cubicle or multiple Reuters screens on Madison Ave. or Wall St., for almost a decade.

My adventures in Lahaina were my chance to change the order of my life- while making the most of the last decade of my youth. I used all my physical strength to be the best that I could be in this new environment. At the center of a thriving business operation to take people to the undersea world. And I did it with a level of expertise that most of our customers would never have.

What developed in my years working on Front St., Lahaina, Maui was a camaraderie with those divers, deckhands, and Captains who saw the early mornings and late afternoons, day in and day out - as I did. I took great pride in the product and service that we delivered. It also fueled a strong desire to further explore more remote parts of the Pacific to see if there was some way for me to develop my own entrepreneurial venture.

When one toils as hard as we did in the 90’s on Front St., on Dickenson St., and in Lahaina Harbor, it's natural to get a feeling that you ‘own the town’ so to speak. From the romantic vision of Lahaina and the arrival of Whalers and Missionaries in the early 19th century depicted in Michener’s ‘Hawaii’, to the still standing 150 yr. Old Banyon Tree; you began to feel a part of the history of this subtropical paradise. However, if you stay long enough in Hawaii you will likewise be reminded, as was eloquently put in the storytelling of Garrison Keeler when he visited Lanai, that you are just a visitor. And, as a ‘Haole’- that’s all one would ever be. Needless to say - experienced firsthand;

Living and working in Lahaina, from dawn to dusk you also become acutely aware of the homes and structures in the community that are not born of wealth and are not there for the tourists, but for those who do the work to make paradise possible for visitors from around the world. It is for those people that the prayers and assistance are most needed. As by now should be clear, all of Lahaina has been destroyed. I do not know how some of these families will move forward, as I’m sure that many of them do not yet know either.

MRE