One day, my big bruddah had his friends over at the house. I had some of my friends hanging out too. My big bruddah and his "gang" used to call us small kids "maninis"...as in "eh you maninis no can follow us..." But us "maninis" use to tag along anyways...cuz..we like act beeg, eh?
Being bored on a hot sunny afternoon, my brother and his "boys" got some old corrugated roofing iron that was just lying around. You know da kine you can find all ova da place. Garanz going poke your feet if you step on it.. Use to use them on da Quonset huts like my sista, Momi, use to live in right across our place.
Anyways, I must have been about 10 or 11 at the time, us "maninis" were niele what they was doing with the roofing iron they had. We watched as they got some hammers out and a saw with a bunch of old 2x4's, old nails. Eh..you know da kine nails...the ones you pull out of old lumber and gotta straighten 'em out by pounding 'em with the hammer...usually you hit your finga' cuz...you trying for keep the nail from flying and poking your eye out....hooo I can tell you one story about dat...but that's anudda story !!
They got some tar and started building with this material. Us "maninis" could not resist all this activity !! We joined in. We was just copyin' them.. What we all eventually built each was a canoe. I guess we had maybe 5 or 6 of em'. You pound out the roofing iron till it was flat. Bend it together and hammer the ends together with a short 2x4 on each side which formed the canoe. With two 2x4's in the middle to work as a seat and to nail in an outrigger with longer 2x4's and an old log if you could find one as the outrigger or whateva kine stuff like empty plastic Clorox bottles.
The paddles was usually one piece of board if you was lucky or you use your hands. Now we'd fill in the holes and the two ends with the tar on da canoe. And presto, we had our own homemade local kine canoe !! Hoo da proud we wuz of our creations !! We had visions of paddling out between the sets...and then paddling to catch one wave...then cruising in on the white water crest just like in da beach boys at Waikiki...eh..if Duke Kahanamuku could do it...eh..we could too !!
Then it was off to Uleawa beach to test dem buggas out. But first had "trial run" out in da riva where it was calm to make sure it could float and check fo' leeks and patch em' up with more tar. No like make "A" down da beach, eh? Then it was off into da ocean. The canoes worked until you tried to catch one wave. Then it would slowly sink into the ocean. Ay Yah !! What would Duke do??
We had to pull the canoe out and dump the water out and go at it again. We all had a lot of good fun doing crazy stuff like that. It did hold up pretty good and we did paddle all over the place with it. We also had to stay in the water for a long time to get the tar off. We neva like go too far out because of the barracuda and the stingray in the deeper part of the ocean. Somewhere beneath the waves out at Uleawa there are a few metal canoes under all that sand made from tin roof panels, 2X4's, old nails and tar..... the genius of the creative imaginations of some kids on a hot sunny afternoon.
Later on in the years I joined the Leeward Canoe club down at Waianae. I guess everything comes around or influences you in some way or form. Living in Hawaii, most of us were children of the sea anyway. So naturally we did a lot of bodysurfing at first and later moved on to the Piafo board which also supplemented for the sand sliding board if you didn't have a skeg on it. It was a cheap sport at the time.
I mean what did you need then ? A pair of fins and you could bodysurf. An old piece of plywood to either piafo or sand slide. Us "maninis" use to stay in the water all morning and maybe come out wen we got little bit tired and cold then sit up on da wall at Uleawa in da sun and get so papa'a dat we look like one popolo.
Eh, wen we got hungry, we just wen go find some empty return bottle (da big one was 10 cents and da small one 5 cents) and turn em' in fo' get somthin' to eat. Like one bag see moi or one bag won ton chips or get one bunch penny candies (I guess no more dat kine) and then back to Uleawa and in da water again.
Eventually, I moved on to the standard surfboard and finally bought a kneeboard with the help of my sister, Lulu and stayed with that. You know what I see now? Kids that don't have the imagination to find something to keep them busy like we did with our imagination and very little money. I'm not so sure what happened. Was it the television that took the imagination away? Maybe it was the TV that did it !! TV did it ALL for you...just sit in front of it ...and it did it for you... you don't need imagination to watch TV.. just some eyeballs and ears....hmmmm...I dunno....something happened... what do you think??
As a kid, if you gave me a block of wood...I saw...a truck...an airplane... a racecar...suddenly I was on a ship on it's way to high adventure in the South Pacific !! I think if you gave a kid today a block of wood... he would ask "eh..wea do you put da batteries??"
It was special to grow up in Hawaii. I have a good friend from Hawaii who lives here in Germany, her name is Donna she says, "People really missing out... that was never raised in Hawaii." I have to agree... the older I get...the more I appreciate where I came from....I treasure the "Hanabuddah Days" ...Everytime my wife gets into one of her "clean-up-throw-out" moods...she asks me about the old block of wood in the garage...I tell her...."honey, don't even think about throwing away my imagination !! Did I ever tell you about the time my bruddah and I built some tin canoes??"
About Author
George K. Cabral was born in Wahiawa and raised in Nanakuli, Oahu. He graduated from Nanakuli High in 1973. He joined the Army thereafter and shipped over to Germany where he spent almost 22 years of service. He retired in 1996 and is now working in Operations as a Government employee for the Army in Bamberg, Germany. He and his wife have two girls and have settled down and made a home there. They try to get back to Hawaii every three years or so to visit the Ohana there and get that Aloha spirit and go back to Uleawa and maybe find one of those canoes.
