We all get different kine experience growing up. Mine's wun weenah cause I wasz wun humbug buggah. Heah goes, while in grade school ouah playground was the "Camp". No'moh programs for us keeds thoes dayz except during the summah months wen we git summah sports and go to da beech with wun adult leadah. Uddahwise, the "Camp" is our fun place.
Wun of the games we played was "fight sword". We make our swords from wun hedge that grows tall 'n straight. Sum guyz crook and make theirs with pinetree branch (ironwood). Da buggahs use dem as whips instead and soah wen dey whack you. We gettum tho, cause we make long kine sword. Dey no can reach us but we can reach dem. Only ting was my sword was moh long den me and I git wun hard time swinging da buggah around while crawling underneath the camp houses.
Next, we played "Rubbah Gun". Surprising nobody had loose wun eye in dis game. First ting to make dis gun, we go look fo' wun bye lumbah and wun platpiece to make the gun butt. We shape the butt den eedah tied the barrel or nail it to the butt. Make notches on the barrel one to five depending how you like 'um. Find wun innah tube and cut dem wun inch wide crosswise. Put one end of the rubbah on da tip of the gun barrel and stretch da buggah until you gettum in the notch you had make. I going backtrack on making the barrel. Sum guyz go saw off the handle part of deyr muddahs broom. Dat make wun good gun barrel. I nevah do dat kine stuff but my boyhood fren, "Boy Son" da buggah he had da bes' gun. He also had the kine rubbah we called "diesel rubbah". I dunno whea he get dem, but wen he stretch the rubbah and notch them you bettah watchout if he stay on the udder team causz his rubbah can make you black and blue if it hits you. Da buggah can even kill birds with his rubbah gun. Anyways, that was the games times.
Now for the humbug times, I remembah once wen I was playing hide and seek in the camps. I was hiding in wun pilipino man's kitchen. He had rice cooking in the pot and like wun lolo I had put one falldown mango in the pot of cooking rice. I nevah seen the pilipino man but da nex day, my fuddah call me, took off his belt and bus' me up. I nevah do dat agin but I had get back at the pilipino mens cause wen dey stay sleeping during the day time aftah working the nite shift in the Sugah mill, I go get a whole bunch of falldown mangos, go hide sumplace and just chrow the mangos on the totonge roof. I can heah dem guyz swearing in pilipino and coming out to see who stay chrow mangos on deyr roof. I sho' had good fun doing dat. I was doing it foh' a long time until I jus' got tired doing it.
I used to make my own bow and arrow. I make da bows from bamboo and the arrows wid sugarcane tassel,I tink as wat dey call it. I insert nail in my arrows to give dem weight. Anyway wun day I had shoot my arrow at my frend and I almost hit his eye. As da last time I did dat and nevah played wid bow and arrow agin.
From 8th grade on I used to help my fuddah raise pigs. Aftah school, I go home change clothes and head for the pens. Sumtimes da pigs just make to much noise waiting for deyr food so I heat up da pigslop until da buggah stay just about boiling. Den slush'um in da trough and den watch wen dem pigs stick deyr face in da food. I tell you da buggahs no make noise aftah dat. Da food is deyr so dey no make noise but dey no can eat yet. Mean buggah eh me? But eh, you try go feed pigs everyday and see if you no get mad sum dayz wid dem pigs.
One moah ting mentionable in my youthful days. In high school a bunch of us Kekaha boyz used to work for Kekaha Sugah while still attending Waimea High. We had two classes den reported to the Sugah Plantation to be assign a work schedule for da day. Dis particular day, four of us guyz was assigned to plant "pulah pulah" das sugahcane seedlin' in the bare areas of a growing canefield. Well, wun of the guyz "Kawika" had to use the men's room. Since no'moh tolet whea we was he had to find a place down wun one valley to do his ting.
Wun uddah guy "CooCoo" was watching whea Kawika had go and den signal us by pointin' whea he was. We had two donkeys packed with "pulah pulah". I dunno how much pulah pulah deyr was but it was a bunch. Anyway we, not me, unloaded the packs of seedlin's and started to chrow dem to the spot whea CooCoo was pointin'. Needless to say, we had chrow all the cane seedlin's down the valley and we was caught by wun supervisor "Ralph" was watching us wid his binoculars from across the valley. Nex day we was kicked out of the program after only a couple of weeks in it.
Other hooligan mischiefs like trying to steal manju from one old chinese man who used to come around with his old pickup truck. Going to Mana to the watermelon patch at night. You know wat foh! "Borrowing" gas from plantation trucks. I can still taste the gas. But dat's all in the past now. I think like all you uddah buggahs we had wun gud fun time. Life now is wat we make of it. Do someting great!
About Author
Born and raised in Kekaha. Joined the AirForce. Stayed in for 4-years. After discharged, worked for Bendix at the NASA Tracking Station as a power plant Operator. After Space Tracking Station became operational, Ground Station folded I was picked up by ITT at PMRF Barking Sands doing the same job. Retired when I reached 62 years. Wife and I now own and operate a beachfront Vacation Rental unit. Life's what one makes of it.
