I strive mightily to avoid visiting civilization except when necessity prevails, when the fresh salmon comes in, or the milk starts asking for my ID. Recently, during one of my anonymous excursions to town, I heard the following hilarious fictions:
1. The entire island is about to explode and shower refrigerator-sized boulders on California, Oregon, and Washington.
No doubt, people on the West Coast are wondering: “Will they have stainless steel doors, French drawers, or side-by-side?”
2. Puna is going to collapse into the ocean, creating a 1,000-foot tsunami that will engulf the entire island.
The big question is, how will all that marijuana affect the reefs and the marine life that they sustain? Will the humuhumunukunuku’pua’a start growing ponytails and hanging out at public beaches hawking little plastic bags filled with “oregano” to tourists?
In the local and national news, I’ve also read and heard these hilarious fictions:
3. The HDOD “Air Quality Index” in West Hawaii is “good.”
Apparently, no one at HDOD is in touch with the American Lung Association or bothers to read the real daily air quality ratings produced by actual scientific instrument readings. On the other hand, sticking a pinky in the air to gauge the level of toxic gases is in line with, say, using a forked stick to find a water source, obviously a long-adopted practice of our wonderful water department. Really, we have to keep the tourists coming, don’t we?
4. The cloying gray-black smoke layer over town scented with odeur de matchbox “looks worse than it actually is.”
The interviewed “spokesperson” omitted to mention that the most toxic chemicals are invisible; i.e., not able to be seen. Or, possibly, she missed class when her high school chemistry teacher was discussing this elementary phenomenon. Maybe, she was out sick.
It’s interesting that the official Hawaii-only maximum “OK” level of toxic emissions is 3.5 times higher than it was in 2003. Great marketing idea! As the air quality gets worse, just raise the limit so that the cruise ships keep on docking.
Returning from civilized Kona Town to my remote enclave on the slopes above, I have been basking all day in sunshine with clear blue skies, gifted to us and our neighbors by high winds. It truly rates as one of the most beautiful weather days of the year so far.
Earlier in the morning, there was a slight shiver of the ground, as yet another earthquake in Puna threatens to cause the entire island to explode and a 1,000-foot tsunami to engulf the island.
As beautiful as it is up here on the slope above Kona Town, the ocean view is ghastly, or more accurately, nonexistent.
Nevertheless, to quote a Honolulu semi-news station, “Lucky live Hawaii.” As a South African hot tub salesman once said to me, “It’s not perfect, but it’s paradise.”
(Don’t forget your asthma meds.)
Dennis Foster is a resident of Kailua-Kona.
