Way back in 2013 this cat started showing up on our deck. I guess he/she figured my husband fed the birds and squirrels and so why not feed him/her as well? But … cats and birds generally don’t get along and so hubby shooed him/her off the deck and out of our yard. We couldn’t imagine such a beautiful cat was homeless. And then the weather turned cold and we discovered the cat had been taking refuge under a pile of plant covers left on the bottom deck. Long story short, we ended up dragging the beast, by this time, its long fur matted in filthy dreadlocks, off the deck. For two weeks the cat hid out downstairs but thankfully knew how to use a litter box! Another long story short, the cat turned out to be a neutered male and unable to find his owners, we more or less adopted him.
Can’t you find a better name than Pretty Kitty?
For years we’ve tried to find a more appropriate name than Pretty Kitty but none has stuck. Then, last night … or rather early this morning … the name came to me in a dreamlike fugue. Percival. A noble but whimsical name, I think.
Percival Von Kitty from his royal perch.
Anyway, that’s how my week is starting out.
I’m hoping the cold weather will hold off long enough for these, my only tomatoes after months and months, to finally ripen.
But with a storm and a drop in temperature on Wednesday, I kinda doubt it.
We shall see. Only Percival the Perceptive knows and he’s not telling.
This daylight savings crap has got to go!
Let’s hope that, with Percival finally getting his name, things will start to improve in this stark raving mad country!
Hard to believe that we have reached the eleventh month of 2025. Only one more month until … yikes … 2026.
I’m guessing these are grapevines. What do you think?
This month there are apparently only two holidays in Japan: November 3rd which is Culture Day and November 24 which is Labour Thanksgiving Day. I couldn’t find too much on either. According to multiple tour guides, this month the main event in Japan is what we call “leaf-peeping.” But you have to get out early in the morning as it is very popular!
I found this guy very entertaining! However, so far I’m planning to visit my son in March or April. Did I tell you he bought a house? Yup. Paid the equivalent of $3,000 dollars so it is a doozy. Doesn’t have running water and he’s too tall to get in the front door. Lordie, lordie. Children. I try not to worry but …
Meanwhile, yes I did it. Ordered the very expensive Hawaiian vanilla. Now, what am I going to do with it?
A numbered bottle of vanilla. Sheez. I know, I know. There’s a sucker born every minute.
Please leave recipes (the easier the better) in the comments, and, have a great November!
Fellow blogger Yvette Prior over at Priorhouse has written a brilliant new book on a subject most of us know all too well: Working for a living. She didn’t do it alone. She invited thirteen other authors to submit pieces reflecting their experiences.
Many of these authors are bloggers whose paths have crossed with mine over the years and so I’m thrilled to announce the book is now available.
I haven’t read the whole book but the pieces I got an early glimpse of are definitely unique! Yvette allowed each author to express themselves in whatever form they wanted.
I’ll definitely download a free copy on their upcoming promo day!
Congratulations to all of these authors! And to Yvette for all her hard work!
Daniel knew that his boss would hate to see him go. Unlike the other men who came and went from the service station, Daniel was courteous, didn’t smoke, and helped with the bookkeeping. But the boss had mentioned retirement on many occasions and so perhaps Daniel’s leaving would provide the impetus to take that step. That would be a good thing; a happy conclusion.
“Mr. B, it’s time for me to go,” Daniel said. “I’ve seen it, you know, sailing through the fog. The winos were right. It has returned.”
The Connemoira
But his boss didn’t seem to be listening. “What are those stupid girls doing now? They’re going get themselves killed!” He was referring to the three girls from Nevada, who, loaded down with their things, were heading toward their funny little car. Remarkably, it had survived a night on the streets of lower Manhattan. Probably because it was a foreign job whose ancient parts weren’t worth crap.
“It’s all right, Mr. B. They’re leaving. Marcia talked them into going to an uncle’s house where …”
“Shit, not that asshole!” A vagabond known for aggressive panhandling had jumped out of the shadows and was blocking the girls’ path.
“Stay here, Mr. B. I’ll take care of him!” Daniel grabbed the broom from the garage and ran across the street swinging. “Get out of here,” he said swatting at the man with his broom.
The man looked around confused, “What the hell?” Then he took the spare change that one of the girls offered him and walked away.
“Oh no,” the Catholic’s Daughter cried. “Look at my car.” The passenger side window had been smashed and glass shards covered whatever remained inside, which wasn’t much. Just that sculpture of a man’s head looking wistfully up at them. “Oh no! My flute! My flute is gone! We’ve got to call the police.”
“They won’t come down here. They won’t even take a police report.” Daniel said.
“That’s so awful.”
“That’s why you guys need to get out of here. Go across the street to the service station and ask the owner to help you. He’s a crusty old guy but his heart is pure.”
“How about you?”
“It’s time for me to go.”
They seemed perplexed. “We’ll never forget you.”
He grinned. “Get on your way now.”
The girls drove across the street and told the old man who’d been watching them: “Daniel said you would help us.”
“You saw Daniel? A guy about thirty, wears thick glasses, quotes a lot of scripture?”
“Yeah. That’s him.”
“Where is he?”
They looked across the street and Daniel was gone. “Well, he did say it was time for him to go.”
“He did? I guess that’s good. You wait here and then, yeah, we’ll patch those windows.” He disappeared into the station and then returned with some cardboard, duct tape and a newspaper folded neatly into a square.
He handed the newspaper article to the girl who seemed the most sensible.
“Terrible thing. What happened to him shouldn’t happen to a dog, no sir. And that poor woman,” he shivered. “Terrible. Unthinkable. Gives me the willies. You know, Daniel was a good kid, a little mixed up but then you should have met his mother. That lunatic held vigil here at the station for three days thinking her son was going to resurrect like the friggin’ Christ.”
The girls didn’t say a word, even amongst themselves. Perhaps I should have softened the blow, Buckley thought, but then he hadn’t had much experience with the so-called fairer sex. “It’s been a whole damn year and they still don’t have any suspects. Not a one.”
“Daniel’s dead?”
“Yup. And you know it happened not too far from here. A year ago. Yeah.”
“But we were just …”
“I told you there was something evil going on in that apartment.”
“Daniel, evil? Nay. He studied to be a priest. You know, the winos claim they’ve seen him too but then they also see rats the size of German Shepherds,” he laughed. “Okay, nuff said, let’s get you gals fixed up and outta here.”
He helped them sweep out the inside of the car and put cardboard over the shattered window. He even gave them a can of oil after checking the dipstick and sighing in disgust “women never check the oil, or the tires. We’d better check them as well.” When he was satisfied the little car just might make it to Massachusetts, he gave them directions on how to get out of town. He watched the little car as it sputtered down the road. They’ll never make it, he thought, but he waved back anyway.
Happy Halloween Everyone! Have you ever spent the night with a ghost?
Recap: Daniel assumes that his friend Marcia has talked the three wayward girls into returning home until he bumps into two of them on the street. They tell him that they’d left the third girl alone with a strange Englishman who arrived in the pre-dawn hours but whom Marcia seemed to know well. When he realizes who it is, Daniel returns to the Carriage House and confronts the man. After he leaves, Daniel, exhausted from a sleepless night at the YMCA, falls asleep on Marcia’s floor as the girls call their parents and finally arrange to return home.
Daniel awoke in the predawn hours slightly hungover and starving. Next to him the girls were heaped together like a team of sled dogs united against the cold Alaskan winds. Talking to their families and being reassured that they were still loved must have helped because they were sleeping peacefully and breathing almost in union. Yes, Marcia always knew exactly the right thing to do in any situation. He rotated the bean bag chair to face the dawn and sat back down. With luck he would be able to see the sun rise over the city skyline. What a grand start to the day that would be.
Sunrise by Charles Costello III
The quiet was broken by the rat-a-tat of footsteps in the courtyard, like a drum beat which grew louder and louder as the drummer approached until … Before he had a chance to react, someone had entered the carriage house and was climbing the stairs. He crawled into the kitchen and cowered behind the counter. Where was the phone? He couldn’t remember.
The door flew open silhouetting two figures.
“Well, lookie there. A whole pile of bitches.”
“Them? Oh no. Those sweet young things haven’t showered in weeks. I have something much better in mind.”
The taller figure was Theron. Next to him, a much shorter man twitched like a drunken marionette tangled in his strings.
Daniel rose and switched on the overhead light. The shorter man was an albino with only a pinprick of color in his eyes. Perhaps to compensate, he wore lime green trousers, a lemon turtleneck and flashy gold jewelry around his neck and wrists. “Shut off the damned light!” He squealed.
It wasn’t that bright. Daniel thought. The man must be on drugs. “No way.”
“Daniel, old man. Still here protecting your little flock? What a noble lad you are.”
“They poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan; and the land was polluted with blood. Thus they become unclean by their acts, and played the harlot in … ”
Theron turned to his perplexed companion. “Daniel left the priesthood because he had a bloodly crisis of faith. He couldn’t stand the thought that God loved him the best, which is what his mother drilled into him. God, in other words, is a prejudicial old duffer who plays favorites so you better be pure of thought and blah, blah, blah. Isn’t that right, Daniel?”
Before he could say anything, Marcia appeared in the bedroom door dressed only in a man’s white dress shirt, her strawberry blonde hair spinning about her face like a delicate spider’s web. “What’s going on?”
“Now you’re talking,” the albino said moving toward her. “Hi Honey. How would you like a couple thousand bucks in exchange for a quick roll in the hay?”
“Sweet Jesus!” The girl who was not a Catholic cried.
“Shut up you, fucking virgin.”
“I’m not a virgin!”
“Well then …”
Get out Theron!” Marcia said. “Take your drugged up friend and get out now.”
“But Jamie just signed a record contract, Luv. He’s got the cash. He just wants a quick shag. A thousand dollars, as you Yanks say, easy peasy.”
“Get out!” Marcia ordered.
The albino spun around like a cartoon dust devil. “That does it,” he said, turning to leave. “There are plenty of bitches in this town who won’t give me this kind of shit!”
Theron seemed to grow in size as he turned and directed his attention toward the girls … specifically, the one named Nora. “A few minutes with my pigeon and you wouldn’t have to return to Nevahda to live out the rest of your miserable life with the jackrabbits … the sagebrush, and … with that arse who got you preggers. Oh yeah, he’s a real arse.”
“Danny and I are in love. We’ll be in love –“
Theron threw his head back and howled. “Oh please, little girl … don’t say it. Forever. I’ll have to vomit all over Marcia’s carpet. You were forn-i-cating. Forn-i-cating! And you loved it. I bet she made you other girls miserable, didn’t she? You know, she never really wanted to go on your silly, little romp across country. But she felt obligated. The most pathetic of emotions. Obligation. Now, see how she despises you. Despises you because she wasn’t bloody strong enough to be honest and tell the truth.”
“Enough, Theron or whatever your name is. Get out.”
“With pleasure. Who knows, I might be able to catch up with our little friend and the night won’t be a total faff.” He slid out the door with a sharp whistle that lingered and echoed through the room.
Marcia marched over to the door, slammed it shut, and this time … locked it. They debated calling the police. Daniel argued that the albino’s life was in danger. The year before, the police had been looking for a man who matched Theron’s description, a man who’d befriended drug dealers and prostitutes and then viciously killed them. Marcia countered that they wouldn’t do anything. They hadn’t done much before. A whole year had gone by and they still hadn’t arrested anyone. Besides she was more concerned about the girl whose secret was now revealed.
“Theron must be a demon,” Nora said, massaging her rosary beads.
“You have options. If you are pregnant, you don’t have to have the baby … “
Daniel thought about the cycle they were trapped in. Hadn’t they both tried to save Connemoira so many years before and hadn’t they both failed? And they would again. And again. Fail.
Recap of the previous post: Daniel introduces the girls to his childhood friend, Marcia who works as a social worker and lives in a carriage house behind the Hari Krishna Institute. She agrees to help them.
By the time Daniel arrived at the gas station the next morning, the Volvo was gone, retrieved, his boss explained, by a couple of harebrained gals. Good, Marcia had worked her social worker magic. She’d either gotten them into some program or convinced them they were not prepared for life in the big, bad city and they’d left for home. That happy thought sustained him through a busy day spent fixing tires for teamsters (their only customers) and helping the boss keep his ledgers balanced. It would have been a good deed mentally rehashed for months. However … corned beef called, corned beef stacked on rye bread with sauerkraut and a drizzle of the kind of cheesy mayonnaise found only at certain delis. An indulgence he couldn’t afford every day but would be his reward. Corned beef on rye.
He savored the thought for several blocks, noting the cool October breezes as his stomach grumbled. Winter had come early and it would be a long one. He pictured the inside of the deli, the white-coated salami and barrels of pickles, as he turned onto Hudson Street. Maybe he’d eat just half the sandwich and give the rest to a street person, some poor soul seated on the curb or hunched in one of the alleyways
But it was not to be. Just outside the deli he ran headlong into two of the girls he’d rescued the night before: the ring-leader and the girl who reminded him of a young Eleanor Roosevelt. “I thought you guys left town.”
“Left town?”
“Or something.”
“Oh no – we’re going to stay with Marcia another night. Nora’s really sick. After you left, she began puking and she puked all night long! We’d finally gotten to sleep around FIVE in the morning! And this other guy showed up. A guy with a funny English accent and a really weird name.”
“Theron?”
“Yeah! So you do know him. He said you would. He called you ‘Daniel Beloved of God’ but he said it kind of sarcastically.”
“Oh my God Daniel. You look totally freaked out. Nora’s up there all alone with him.”
“What?”
“Marcia went to work. She told him he could sleep in her bedroom but had to be gone when she got home. Oh my God, is Nora in danger?”
“You should buy some chicken soup for your friend. Lou makes the best …”
“Daniel!”
“And it’ll cure … listen, Marcia wouldn’t have left if she thought Theron was a danger. But I’ll come back up there with you. I owe her an apology anyway.”
“Daniel, old man!” Theron said after he realized he was being watched and moved away from the Catholic’s daughter, who, despite being sick, had spread herself over the bean bag chairs suggestively. From the beginning Daniel’d been leery of Theron’s tall, dark and handsome movie star looks. It wasn’t jealously. Something was missing. Something, thankfully, Marcia had soon realized but then … she had more experience.
Daniel laid the groceries on the counter as the other two girls crowded on the floor next to their friend. “Where’s Marcia?”
“Oh my. Marcia has had a nasty day dealing with the wretched underbelly of Manhattan. She’s in the shower. And this lovely young lady,” he said with a wink towards a girl who was not much more than a child, has been entertaining me with the stories of their travels. Did you know they are from Reno Nevahda? Have you ever met anyone from Nevahda? Quite unusual really, one only thinks of Nevahda as the home to sagebrush and jack rabbits, now doesn’t one?”
“What are you doing back here?
Theron slid along the wall toward the door. “Oh you mean, why aren’t I in jail. Blimey,I’ve been alluding coppers since I was fourteen. They’ll never catch me. They don’t even know my name. Speaking of stories, that was rather funny this morning, wasn’t it girls?”
“It was four in the morning.”
“Sorry Luv. That’s when me shift at the docks ends. So funny, once they heard my English accent, they weren’t at all afraid of me. It’s those bloody Beatles. Made life ever so easy for us British blokes!”
“You work at the docks?”
“Longshoreman, we’re called.”
It was a ridiculous lie, so ridiculous that Daniel couldn’t help but utter a loud “Ha!”
“Why do you scoff, Mate? I didn’t have the benefits of a seminary education — a mother who thought I was the Second Coming. I’ve been on me own since I was a lad and, aye, I’ve had to do things I’m not proud of but haven’t we all?”
The rumblings of the first evening prayers sounded across the courtyard. Hari Krishna, Hari Krishna, Krishna Vishnu. Theron turned towards the Institute. “Oh my, they’re finished with their supper. That means it’s time for me to head off to work.”
“Are you coming back?” Daniel asked.
“I thought you didn’t live here any more, mate. I thought Marcia got tired of waiting for you to fuck her and kicked you out on your arse.”
The girls gasped.
Don’t respond. Daniel thought. He’s just trying to bait you.
Theron continued. “You’re such a funny old sod. This isn’t the bloody desert. You’re not the friggin’ savior and I’m not the devil. Although I do appreciate the honor of your, shall we say, compliment. But this place is rather crowded with all of us sharing only one rather stinky loo. I think I’ll crash somewhere else. Perhaps at your buddy Frank Frank’s. I hear they always have fresh blood,” he paused and then froze Daniel’s heart with a howl. “Look at Daniel’s face, girls! Hahaha!”
With that, Theron slipped through the door.
After he left, Daniel stepped over to the window but saw nothing in the courtyard. Only shadows. He unscrewed the cheap bottle of wine he’d brought and took a swig just as Marcia emerged from the bathroom.
“Oh good.Theron’s gone Can you believe that guy?”
“Maybe you should lock your doors tonight.”
She ignored him and addressed the girls. “I’ve been thinking. We should call your parents. I bet they’re worried sick about you.”
“Oh yeah. Tell them their daughters are hunky dory. They just spent the day with the Devil.”
“Shit, Daniel! No wonder the girls look so freaked.”
“He killed someone.”
“The police weren’t sure. Besides I don’t want to talk about him anymore. He’s not coming back.” She noticed the bag of groceries.
“Forgive me?” Daniel hadn’t slept the night before. His sole window at the Y was cracked and provided little protection from the rain or the sounds of the city. The walls were so thin he could hear a fellow transient snoring in the next room. Five years he’d spent in New York City practically homeless, figuring it would free him. But it hadn’t. And so the wine quickly gained on him until a dizziness ⏤ borne of eating little and guzzling cheap wine ⏤ soon overcame him. He slumped into one of the bean bag chairs and closed his eyes. He could hear the girls on the phone. Yes, we’re okay. Yes we’re going to Grandpa George’s first thing tomorrow morning. Further and further away they slipped until either he or they were gone.
Two more episodes! Have you guessed the ending? I doubt it!
“Why, you might ask, does Marcia live behind this place,” Daniel asked, after they’d escaped out the back door of the Hari Krishna Institute.
They’d been lucky. The Krishnas were in the middle of a celebration and ignored the four potential converts in their midst. However, shepherding the girls through their orgy of the senses had been difficult. Men, women, and children swirled mindlessly around them, through clouds of burnt cooking oil and sandalwood incense to the rhythm of slapped bongo drums and rattled tambourines, intoxicating and hypnotizing the three road weary girls. Only out in the fresh air, had he allowed them to stop a forward motion.
“Believe it or not, they’ll keep swirling and twirling and banging those drums until they pass out and then, in morning, why, I’ve seen men leave that place in business suits and carrying brief cases. Investment bankers on Wall Street during the day. Krishnas at night.” Daniel joked as he led the girls across a cobblestone courtyard to the carriage house. “You’re kidding!”
“I am not.” The second floor was dark. Troubling. However, the doors to both the stairwell and to the flat were unlocked. That was a good sign. “Marcia thinks the Krishnas will protect her,” he chuckled as he led them inside. “She never locks her door.”
Looking around a room lit only by the Krishna’s celebrations, he recognized the two beanbag chairs they’d sewn together over popcorn and beer one night and a wooden coffee table left behind by a previous tenant for obvious reasons. The clincher that she hadn’t moved was good old Che still hanging on the wall next to the kitchenette. It was a poster of Guevara that Marcia’d had since college, the dead revolutionary, so young, so handsome, and so dangerous.
“Marcia?” He called as he flipped on the light over the sink. In response he heard two sets of voices coming from the bedroom. She wasn’t alone. What made him think she would be?
“It appears we’ve stumbled into something,” he said. The girl he’d called the Catholic caught his meaning. She was the tallest of the three and model-thin. Her long black hair and white skin seemed to set in marble a pair of blue eyes, unnervingly intense and crystal blue eyes. Compared to her, the ringleader (Venus of the Sewers) looked less like a goddess and more like the neighborhood tomboy. The third girl, who reminded Daniel of a young Eleanor Roosevelt, seemed to be trying to hide behind her friends.
The mumbling from the bedroom continued. “Marcia?” He repeated.
“Is that you Daniel?” Was the response.
“No, it’s Che Guevara.”
Marcia opened the door. She’d slipped a flowered house dress hastily over her head, which, on any other woman would look drab and shapeless but not on her. “My God, Daniel. How long has it been? I thought you’d finally given up on New York City and gone to live on Walden Pond.”
“No. I’ve been here. Well, around. Here.”
She spotted the girls and turned her questioning eyes on him.
“You remember what it is to be adrift in this city without friends?” he asked. “It hasn’t been that long.”
“My God Daniel. I haven’t seen you in over a year and now you show up with three runaways?”
“A year? No, that’s not possible. It hasn’t been that long, certainly not in meaningful days and you can’t count my useless days – for which I’ve had many – against me. For the angel who talked with me came again, and waked me, like a man that is wakened out of his sleep.”
“Daniel? Old Testament now?”
“Daniel saved our lives! We were completely out of gas —we had no place to go. We would have been killed or worse.”
“He can’t help himself. He’s a Jesuit.”
“Was…was a Jesuit. No longer.”
“That’s right Daniel, I forgot. Now, you’re the Anti-Christ. How old are you girls?”
“I’m eighteen. My name is Bronte and this is Nora and Ellie.”
“Bronte? That’s an unusual name. Did you make it up? You don’t look eighteen. Are you runaways?”
“No, we’re not runaways. We’re musicians. Ellie and I play the guitars and Nora sings and she’s got a really good voice, just like Cher. We tried getting jobs in Montreal but the Canadians wouldn’t give us work permits cause there are too many Americans up there trying to avoid the draft. So we came down here.”
“To New York City? Do you know anyone in the city? “
They shook their heads no. “See, even stupider than we were when you came here to save the world and I came here to escape from God.”
“Escape from God? Is that what you’re calling your mother these days.”
“Heretic!” Daniel returned. Her face, despite the years spent in New York City working on hopeless causes, had not changed. It was still springtime and fresh air. Freckles swam across her nose like wandering stars, making her look much younger than she was. Meanwhile his hairline receded, the lenses in his glasses thickened each year and, the grime of city air had rendered his complexion dull and grey.
Before she could respond, the door to the bedroom opened and what emerged, albeit shyly, was a lawyer. Of that fact, Daniel was one hundred percent certain.
It was then that he said things he never should have said, opened Pandora’s Box and let evil take flight.
I guess it’s time to finish posting the story of Daniel and the three girls he takes under his wing on the mean streets of New York City. I’ve been dragging my feet because it’s hard to shift gears from paradise to the Bowery circa 1969 but, I try to finish everything I start, so here goes …
First to recap:
A woman named Sandy has been invited to an art exhibit/memorial for a childhood friend. Once there she’s told by the woman’s son that, although the two women had drifted apart, there was something in each of his mother’s final and very disturbing paintings that she specifically wanted Sandy to see, a face from long ago. October of 1969 to be precise.
Flashback to a rainy evening in October 1969. The scene is a service station in Manhattan’s notoriously dangerous Bowery. Three young women drive up to the pumps and, spotting a young man in the phone booth, plead with him for help.The young man, Daniel, is an enigma: an intelligent and well-educated young man but a drifter. Although he works at the station, he cannot help them because the owner has shut down the pumps and left for the night. Then he remembers he has a friend who, at one time lived not far away, in a place of relative safety.However, getting there proves to be a challenge when a “behemoth” drags one of the girls back into an alleyway. Daniel, who is half the man’s size, is powerless to stop him. The girl waves a crucifix in the man’s face which causes him to roar with laughter and lose his grip on her.
Finally they reach the street his friend once lived on. The rain has let up but they have one more obstacle.
On a fine day, I took a walk in the hills with a friend.
Someone I’ve known for a long time and with whom I’ve shared many ups and downs.
We even dated the same fellow and worked at various times for each other which is the true test of any friendship and there were times, ah yes, many times. . . I was sure our friendship was no more.
Offshore a storm was posed to strike one rumored to slowly pass and drench the hills and flood the coast. But we did not talk about the weather. Only of the silly things, the frogs in a nearby pond frozen to silence by the loudness of her laugh. Frogs are shy, don’t you know? The way horses read your feelings (through your butt bones). And our adventures with cannabis, now that it is legal.
And we ended as we always do, finding it hard to say goodbye.
Looking west from the southern coast of Kaua’i just before the sun was swallowed by the ocean.
As I flipped through my photos of sunrises and sunsets on Kauai, I realized there really is no doubt which is which.
In the morning the clouds seemed like mischievous spirits (ghosts, if you will) dancing on the horizon.
In the evening, the clouds flowed together … like the curtain closing on another day.
On our last day we drove to the west side of Kaua’i which is drier and less touristy.
As you can see, my map was beginning to show signs of wear and tear (abuse)
Port Allen is where most tours of the famous NaPali coast originate and Waimea is the gateway for Waimea Valley, the Grand Canyon of Kaua’i. It’s also the spot where Captain Cook first landed and “founded” Hawaii. But don’t expect to see any monuments to Cook here. At that time the Hawaiians had a feudal society and Cook challenged one of the great warlords so he had to go. Beaten, stabbed, the whole shebang.
The greatest of the warlords, King Kamehameha, landing in Waikiki.
Our objective, however, was to pay respects to my father who died while snorkeling off the beach below almost twenty years ago.
Salt Pond Beach (on the map, near the Port Allen airport)
As you can see, they’ve had to post a warning about strong currents. I suspect this sign was posted for tourists who, like my father, discovered a “local beach” (one frequented primarily by local residents) and wandered out beyond the reefs. It’s not a place I would advise tourists to visit – there are no cafes, food trucks, trinket shops, etc. Just the locals picnicking, listening to loud music on boom boxes and watching their children splash about. Just the way my dad would have liked it.
Saying nothing in particular 