A Hawaiian Celebration of Life
Everyone knew Charles at Kalani .
Or did they?
I have no idea what Charles' actual personality "disorder" was, if there was one, but words like savant, maybe autistic come to mind. Basically he was extremely brilliant but did not make eye contact, much less meaningless small talk. However if you asked him a question, he bubbled forth a world of knowledge: position of various galaxies in Hawaii, porn stars that had visited Kalani decades ago, New Orleans food and music, everything golf, hell he even knew the details of a breaking scandal that happened at the tony Glenmore Counrty Club back home in Charlottesville.
Charles had many responsibilities in his main job in the kitchen, but his hobby of sorts, well, science project of sorts, where he excelled, was in fermentation projects: making pickles, chow chow, jardiniere. sauerkraut, kim chee. The pro-biotic tribe loved him.
He also drove the vans to pick up guests and incoming volunteers. I have heard hilarious stories, after the fact, and once they had "gotten" Charles, of guests and volunteers' first impressions of what apparently was ahead for them in their new life in rural Hawaii.
Many people who come here have made huge changes in their lives, in order to seek whatever they were missing in their hometowns in whatever country they hail from.
So their first impression, after at best what is a disorientating and endless flight on the likes of United Airlines, is Charles in a Hawaiian shirt taking them to their new home. As the van leaves Hilo Airport, and the lights of the city fade, and the roads get smaller and smaller, until it is a slender strip of asphalt on a cliff with the Pacific pounding away in dramatic fashion.....and a word hasn't been spoken in 45 minutes...
WOO-WOO!
THIS IS TWILIGHT ZONE FOR REAL FACEBOOK PEOPLE!!
Fortunately, all's well that ends well.
For twenty years Charles gets them to their accommodations and they live happily ever after and love Charles and the fact that he was their first introduction to what would turn out to be one of the coolest experiences of their lives.
It was now weird walking by Charles' hale, one down the row from mine.
In ~ three weeks he went from being the aboriginal, always there Charles, to the hospital, to the box of ashes that was now resting on his bed in that hale.
As much as no one knew anything about Charles'personal life, they really knew nothing about how sick he was. I certainly saw no outward signs, and if he ever did anything strange, well that was Charles being Charles.
It also turned our that nobody really knew anything about his next of kin or much of his life before Kalani either. In my new role as an office guy, I volunteered to snoop on the internet using a few recollections people had and a few documents on the floor of his hale. This is all that I could find:
 |
| Mischa prepares to gather the tribe with his soulful blowing of the conch |
Charles Anthony Woods was born on July 26, 1961 in Glendale California. His mother was Alice Antoinette Allison, 26, and his father was Harold James Woods, 42, who was an aircraft tool specialist.
Charles graduated from Miami Carol City Senior High School in 1978. He studied Travel and Tourism with the class of 1990 at the Southwest Academy of Technology in Phoenix.
From 1981 until 1985 he was a golf cart attendant at the Port Labelle Country Club, where he developed his love for golf, allowing him to serve as a tour assistant until 1988 on the Futures Golf Tour. Charles continued in the Hospitality business near Mount Rainer and Snoqualmie Pass, Washington.
In 1995 he came to the Big Island of Hawaii and after bicycling around the island three times, he decided to make Kalani Retreat Center in Pahoa his home, where he remained until he passed away on February 20, 2016 at the Hilo Hospice.
For over twenty years, Charles shared his light, wisdom, presence, friendship and laughter with hundreds, if not thousands of volunteers and will be sorely missed.
We here at Kalani know that he is happy somewhere in this Universe, at that perfect golf course, sharing his outrage at the latest antics from the likes of Sarah Palin and Donald Trump, the nuances of New Orleans Zydeco music and occupying the nooks and crannies of the history of the world, over, of course, a half a dozen IPA’s.
He is known only to be survived by his worldwide Kalani ohana, who will miss him.
Mahalo Charles and A Hui Hou!
Richard, leads a Hula as the Celebration of Life commences
I guess the statute of limitations has expired on my Kalani felony involving Charles.
I had just moved from tent- land to a-frame land, one cabin down from Charles. We would converse amiably in the kitchen whenever I initiated the conversation.
However, whenever we would pass each other on the jungle path outside of our homes, he would avoid eye contact, but we would manage an awkward audible acknowledgement of our mutual existence.
One night there was a party a little further a ways up in the jungle than usual. As I was walking home, a recent downpour had left hundreds of puddles on the road shining like so many beams of light up into the universe.
Eventually on my sojourn home, I picked up a hint of some raucous and profane laughter at the upper smokers tent and how could I just walk by? It was boisterous, smokey and unruly, like I had stumbled upon a secret speakeasy where I knew every drunk in the place,
One thing led to another and I made sure I kept my feet high, torso leaning into into the wind, as I aimed for my bed at the wee hour of 1:30 AM.
At a place where there is little amplified music and Puna "midnight" is 10:00 PM, this folks was an ungodly hour. Nonetheless, as I banged around the a-frame getting down to serious non-attire, I then decided it was time for a concert. I chose a live version of Donna the Buffalo known for their long intense Zydeco jams, especially in the last set of a live concert. Seemed like the prudent thing to do, no?
'Bout halfway through the last set, everything is pretty chill, another fresh Bud and a puff on the vape.... and I notice what looks like Charles' face pressed against the front screen of my a-frame cabin. My brain says to my rational self, "how could this be possible?". I mean why on earth would Charles, with me naked and he in his underwear no less, have his face pressed against the screen in my hale at this ungodly hour? (remember how scary faces look when crinkled up against a screen?). So I slowly close my eyes to re-set and as I slowly open them.....yup it's Charles.
Sweet reader, in putting on my headphones, I failed to push the plug all the way into the laptop, and this kick ass Zydeco has been blaring in my headphones AND throughout an area that you can hear a pin drop at 1:30 in the morning. I panic when I realize what I have done and in vain try to find "Settings" to turn it off. After much bumbling, I turn it off and realize that Charles has been trying to make contact with me for who knows how long, but cannot, because I have the headphones on. He states that he has to be up in four hours for his van run.
Egad! Kalani FELONY...against Charles no less!
The next day, when I see him in the kitchen, I apologize again profusely and he says, in his inimitable way: "great music, just the wrong time".
Charles, my man: A Hui Hou.
Silent procession, after the celebration, to the Point
Lilly, who you have met in this blog many times, almost since the day I arrived, is helped down the cliff in a gentlemanly manner with a ho'okupu filled with Charles' ashes. Lilly was probably Charles' best friend here. In her remarks, she talked about when she first started teaching yoga ten years ago and would be worried that no one would show up. She could always count on Charles attending, thereby assuring that she would have at least one student.
Ho'okupu are Hawaiian offerings given freely as an expression of gratitude, respect and aloha. They are usually small packages, wrapped in ti-leaves with thoughts of warmth and affection.The word itself conveys appreciation and a desire to strengthen the relationship between the giver and receiver, so the relationship can continue to flourish.
Speaking of Pu'o'o, she sure has been in the news lately. A long fissure extends eastward along that ridge in the background from the caldera of Kilauea. From time to time the eruptions along this fissure will localize and form a vent. These vents can move back and forth along the fissure. A nearby vent called Kupaianha caused the massive flow in 1990 that destroyed Kalapana.
Above is a view of the "path" over older pahoehoe flows on the way to this newest one. One basically aims for the smoke on that distant cliff. It was 10 miles round trip, 4 of it across this lava, where believe me, every step counts. It counts of course, if you don't want to have the shit scraped out of you, or roll your ankles into some crevice.
The 1990 flow buried two large subdivisions. I have heard that they can find the plats of the parcels from satellites that see through the 15 feet or so of lava. It is still the owners land, just no house, power or water and a few brave souls continue to live in the "subdivision".
I passed a few abodes like this on the way out
In 1983, the flow moved from Kupaianha to an area that is now called Pu'o'o. It has been in near constant eruption since then, the longest eruption since the 15th century. It is the source, through lava tubes, of the lava that is spilling over the pali (cliff) in its march to the sea.
Kipukas often become bird sanctuaries, because the fresh lava destroys so much of their habitat, that they all flock to the kipuka.
I took this picture of a skylight into a lava tube from about 12 feet away. Didn't feel safe going any closer, as who knows if the top of the tube would collapse under my feet, then what would I be thinking?
but this Austrian dude did it for me.
Pu'o'o's cousin Kupaianha produced voluminous flows that buried Kaimu, reportedly the most beautiful black sand beach in Hawaii. An effort has been made to re-coconut the new Kaimu and people have planted hundreds of coconut trees there. I am going to do my part.
I soaked two water filled coconuts in a bucket or water for two days.
Then placed them along a path, in front of Charles' old hale, in some damp jungle mulch. A booklet tells me they should sprout in two to three months. Many coconuts around here, fall off the trees and eventually sprout in the place where they fell. Coconuts floated the seven seas for eons and spread their progeny throughout the tropics in this manner. I will keep you posted as to the process from nut to permanent residence on the new Kaimu.
Ensconced in my hammock, equally absorbed in respiration....
...noting this reciprocal exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide between us.
Gentle reader, one could while away a whole goddamned afternoon pondering such things.
Thanks for stopping by.
Comments