How soon we forget August.
How soon we forget August.
A hundred spring days go by waking to the calm golden delights we call Kona mornings, each one more beautiful than the day before.
We live inside the haze of Hawaii, one perfect sunshiny day after another. We are groggy with sunlight.
We watch the occasional baseball game on TV, then pack the cooler and the kids and the pop-up and head to the keiki pond, blinded by spring.
The last thing on our mind is August and what it brings.
Spring melts into summer and the heat turns us into zombies, we move slower and slower as the temperatures rise higher, sinking deeper into Hawaii Land. Totally forgetting everything but the next cold drink.
Kona drugs us with her heat and her beauty so we forget all about dreaded August.
The entire island has memory loss. We take another sip of beer or soda and go blank. It is BBQ time, nothing time, nap time.
Something bad happens in August but is buried deep in our brain, dormant, hibernating. Then one day at the end of summer we turn on the TV and suddenly remember.
Oh yeah, hurricanes, that was it.
We try to remain calm, as the perky weatherman points to three or four massive, swirling thousand-mile-wide buzz saws heading straight for Hawaii. Like some oceanwide cloud monsters ready to swallow us like pupus.
We freak out and head to Walmart and stock-up on, water, bags of rice, wine, beer, ice, saimin, pet food. And everything else that goes inside a house. Once back home we stock the shelves and hunker down for the coming disaster. Our house is now a bomb shelter. We peek out the window in our mask and snorkel, ready for the big rains to come.
But like some cosmic curve ball, the giant cloud mass always veers off to go bother some other country somewhere.
The mountain saves us, is what we say.
But it still takes a toll.
Mentally, it’s the headaches thinking that maybe this time it will hit. Maybe this time our roofs will fly off and spin out over the bay. Maybe our luck has run out.
We really hate that perky weatherman forever pointing at those swirling white blobs on the screen coming to gobble us up.
We spend half a day dragging everything off the lanai and piling it inside,
Lounge chairs, fake palm trees, cushions, the BBQ, refrigerators. couches, auntie.
But it always fizzles, it’s always called off, and there’s a big pile of stuff we have to drag back outside.
Did I say they always fizzle out? Could be.
My trusted friend and source Wikipedia reports that in the past 180 years 65 hurricanes have hit Hawaii. And aside from one time when a few sailboats were damaged, in all of recorded history, not one hurricane has ever hit Kona.
But you better head down to Walmart just in case.
Dennis Gregory is a writer, artist, singer, teacher and Kailua-Kona resident who mixes truth, humor and aloha in his biweekly column. He can be reached at makewavess@yahoo.com