The ’70s and ’80s on this island — what a time it was!
Fields of pakalolo growing thick as forests, free rides to the mainland, Rastas and hippie girls dancing in the streets, as reggae bands played every night.
Luquin’s Mexican Restaurant was always jumping, and the Akebono Theater had couches. You could bring in your own beer and dinner and watch the shows.
Where do I start to tell the tales? Let’s start with the fragrant herb, pakalolo. From Kalapana to Kapoho, groves of the wacky weed swayed in the wind.
Marijuana growers had so much money from pot sales, they’d go into Hilo, pay cash for a brand new car, and drive back to the jungle to water their plants.
I was heading down to Kalapana one day and pulled over to pick a flower for my girlfriend. I stepped about 10 feet off the road, and what to my boggled eyes did appear, but about 10 6-foot-tall marijuana plants. It was everywhere.
It was a free love, Puna pot party until the helicopters came — the flying cops.
With all the choppers zooming over Puna it looked like Vietnam. A chopper would land, stormtroopers with big guns would pile out and start rounding up old hippies and chopping down plants. In a short time,the party was over.
As for the pakalolo plants those flying cops ripped off, a good portion never made it back to the station. Those pot police were flying high in their helicopters. That was the rumor, anyway.
But it was an innocent, trusting time. Those carefree days before 9-11, before the world got sneaky and weird and paranoid all over. Flying on a plane was a breeze.
You could get on a plane and not show your ID or even open your bags. All you did was show your ticket and get on the plane. You could take drinks on the plane.
People would fly to Hawaii with a round-trip ticket, get here and see it was so great they wanted to stay. So on every bulletin board were notes selling the unused flights back to the mainland. You’d pay about $20 or $40 to someone and get their unused ticket to the mainland.
You’d show the ticket at the airport, no one checked the name, it only had to be the same gender, and off you’d fly. I once got a free ticket to California.
Here’s a good one. In the ’70s and ’80s, if you were on food stamps or just told them you were broke, the welfare office would fly you to the mainland for free. A plane ticket was cheaper than paying for a welfare check.
I read in the paper recently they are thinking of flying people on welfare back to the mainland. Big new program. I guess COVID and 9-11 and the Trump madness blanked-out peoples’ memory. Hello, they did this for 20 years back then.
Those were the good old days when everyone trusted everyone, before the scammers and a wacky president who wants to buy Greenland.
Oh to be back in Puna, swaying in a hammock, not a care in the world.
Dennis Gregory writes a bi-monthly column for West Hawaii Today and welcomes your comments at makewavess@yahoo.com.
