O.K. den all da kids in da neighba-hood get bikes, but not me. Always gotta ask for ride your friends' bike. Make "A" wen you do dat.
The Yeun family lived up da road. The father had all kinds of bikes and bike parts but for some reason he just wouldn't give away any. Their house was in the lane that had all the Quonset huts off Farrington Hwy. where the old Feed Store used to be. The Quonset huts were built standing on four by four posts. That left a lot of room underneath the house. Most times that's where the family dog stayed tied up on a rope to one of the legs.
Mr. Yuen had the whole first half under his house full of bikes either whole or parts of them. You know back then, we had to go out looking for parts to build one bike. We would go all over the place. Like up Hakimo Road looking in the bushes or in the old abandoned Quarry. We never had enough money and we didn't even try to ask our parents for a bike. As always, money was tight back then. We knew better then to ask cause then you get the look like "you crazy" and run the risk of getting lickens for asking.
Eventually, Mr. Yuen gave me one bike from his "collection" and I was proud. A big old 26-inch red bike with huge balloon tires and no seat. You'd think he would have given me one seat with all those parts he had under his house. Nope. But hey, I was happy to get something for free. It did at least have the seat pole stickin' out, but no seat. Was kinda tricky to ride with no seat. I always had to sit on the middle bar to get relief on the legs. Having a bike back then was like having a car. We'd spend the whole day racing around on our bikes. Mostly up and down the road in the lane.
After awhile it got to the point where I knew the inside and out of a bike. When das all you got you gotta take care of it so it take care of you. I wasn't about to let my first set of wheels get kapulu. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't live like that anymore. I see it in today's generation. But then it's our own fault too since we give them everything we never had.
We'd travel all over the place with our bikes. We'd go as far as Waianae High School in the summer since we didn't have much else to do. Never had to be home for lunch since most of us kids didn't get any lunch at that age. In our search for bike parts, we would also find empty bottles to turn in. We would pool our money to share some kind of lunch from whatever store was in the vicinity.
With the bikes now, we were very mobile. It was like we had the world in our hands to explore. Really, it was only from Waianae to Kahe Point and as far as Waianae Valley. But at least we could do things other kids could not without wheels.
The Yuens lived two houses up from Harry dem. Now Harry was great. He was one comic book collector. He had Spiderman, Daredevil and I think he had all the Fantastic Four. He would only collect the ones from Marvel Comics. It was always great to play at his place and read comic books. Back then they only cost 12 cents. If he still has them they would be worth choke money today. I don't know what comic books cost now but they sure don't look the same.
Harry was an awesome street football player. We could never win against the team that had Harry on their side. Playing football was where most of us got our cherries. We use to huddle in the street and make "da plan". The game was always played on the coral street. You know the kine white dirt with the rocks in them and all flattened out to make em' smooth?
Our plays wasn't da kine run off numba's, everybody know da play, what fo' do and who fo' block. No, we put some rocks, bottle tops or whateva' on the ground in the huddle and figure out who going get da pass. Was always "da pass". When you playin' two hand touch no can run da ball without getting "out". They always going get you "out" if you run the ball.
So when we stay runnin' out for da pass and stay lookin' fo' da ball ... garans we going trip on da coral street and fall down. Us kids would skin up da knee's and da elbow's fallin' down. Nobody would worry about what happened to you but they sure rag you out cause you miss the ball! Anyway, the bugga hurt! You run to da nearest water faucet and wash the legs or the elbows (das where you usually get skinned up) as clean as you can get em'. Den it's up, go out and play some more. I sometimes wonder why we never thought to play on da beach. We would just fall on the sand and no get hurt.
Today, I still have scars on my knees and elbows. But we all had good fun. Anybody fo' one bike race or touch football?
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, Jutta have two girls and have made a home there. They try to get back to Hawaii every three years or so to visit the Ohana, get some of that "Aloha spirit" and maybe find more bike parts.
