Island Transportation (Part II)

The sliver of the moon had been erased by the rising sun. Clear nighttime skies left the morning air damp. I put on my sweatshirt and looked down Alii Drive. Traffic was still light when the HELE-ON bus rolled to a stop in front of my condos. Very convenient and very free, at least for a little bit longer, before the county in it’s never ending quest for more funds increases the rate to a buck.

The coach-like bus released a hiss of air pressure and the doors swung open. The driver, a plumb local lady wearing a faded green jacket greeted me with clipboard in hand. “Where are you going?” she asked. Did she just lick the tip of her pen?
I replied, “The Kuhio Plaza,” the shopping mall in Hilo, the last bus stop on the line. 104 miles from my condo. She scribbled down my destination.

It was 6:30 am. Scheduled arrival time was 10:10 am. Three hours later, at 1:10 pm the same bus returned to Kona. I slipped into a seat two rows back behind the driver and opened the morning paper. I settled in for the long ride.

The day was all about logistics. I had no idea if the bus had a bathroom or if the bus stopped anywhere long enough to use a restroom facility. So I drank nothing before boarding. At the other end of the trip I would have to pee in a cup, for my employment drug screen. I didn’t want to show up with the plumbing bone dry, but I didn’t want to burst either.

I packed a lunch-a roast beef sandwich, banana, ginger snaps and a Kashi TLC snack bar. I’d have only a couple of hours at the company’s office. To use every minute constructively, I thought I would get all the paperwork, documentation and instructional training done in those two precious hours of time. Then on my return, I’d eat my lunch.

I didn’t know you couldn’t eat on the bus until we stopped at Kmart. There the driver got out and lit up a smoke. A young couple boarded. Hauling large backpacks, they carried an open box of cereal.
“No eating on day bus,” the driver growled at them.
“Oh no, we won’t. It wouldn’t fit in our packs,” the young man with dreadlocks explained.
“If I catch you eatin’ on day bus, believe me, I’d throw you off day bus.”
Gulp. When was I going to eat lunch? I would not have thought about it again, but I kept hearing a rustling sound. It was the driver, diving into a bag of candy. She popped gummie bears all the way to Waimea.

In Waimea, the bus pulled into Parker Ranch Mall. It seemed like a perfect place for a pit stop. A food court, restrooms and a Starbucks. Not that I’d dare smuggle food or drink onto “day bus” for fear of being thrown off by the four foot six 150 pound chain smoking driver. But the bus cruised through town stopping just long enough for the driver to hit a few drags from her cigarette.

We made a pit stop at the Honokaa Recreation Park. A thirty minute stop in the middle of almost nowhere. No place to buy a cup of coffee or a donut. The cinder block restroom near second base was modest to say the least. Inside the stalls were so short that my head appeared over the top of the warped plywood door. There was one cold water sink, no paper towels. Before re-boarding I grabbed my Kashi bar and took a few sips of water from my pack. The driver managed two phone calls and three more cigarettes.

We got back on the road and headed down the Hamakua Coast toward Hilo. There must have been a couple sides of beef onboard because the air conditioner was turned down so far that the weather report from the back of the bus called for snow. By Hilo, the passengers packed tighter than a Hindu transport in New Delhi blew warm air into their cupped hands. I sat on my hands and pulled my hood over my head.

The return trip should have been so mundane.

Gordon (his real name because there is no innocence to protect) volunteered to take me and another guy back to Kona. This was despite the fact that he lived in Captain Cook, a town about a half hour south of Kona. Gordon seemed harmless enough. A local guy, he had an outgoing personality and a good sense of island humor. He was on my team when we assembled our office desk. Maybe the speed in which we completed the task should have indicated his thirst for moving faster than glass shatters. But, that was only half the story.

On the long stretches of island road I’ve driven 70 miles an hour. Everyone does. But Gordon drove like a maniac. Not since I was in Micronesia had I seen such crazy driving. There the taxi drivers opened the cab’s doors, leaned way out over the road, head down and spit beetle nut juice. It was a honed skilled done without slowing down or missing a curve, but it scared the living crap out of me the first time I experienced it.

Gordon cranked up the island gang bang music in his early model Honda. He claimed he knew a shortcut and lit out for the other side of the island. I expected a Hawaiian secret route. His shortcut was to take distance out of the road by hugging every turn and corner along the southern coast. With every four letter word booming from the speakers just inches from my ears - a rap ghetto beat straight from the wickedness of Hades – he ran right up to the bumper of the car ahead of him until there was a gap in oncoming traffic. A sharp snap of the wheel and he’d veer into the oncoming traffic throttle bleeding speed. Gordon turned back into the right lane microseconds before the oncoming car reached us, just a hair width in front of the passed car. I froze expecting to hear metal on metal.

After the third such maneuver, I closed my eyes and prayed to my God. If I prayed out loud Gordon never heard me. My prayers drowned in the deadly beat of rap. I don’t know how he knew his cell phone rang. Half the time he talked on the phone, the other half he scanned his Ipod for the next musical classic, “my girlfriend won’t let me f…. I need to bust my nut…” And if there was any conversation it was about his pregnant daughter expecting his grandchild any minute now. If we live...

I planned not ride back with Gordon the second day. I planned to discreetly tell the staff that his driving scared me. I planned to insist on riding the bus back. But before I could say anything to the staff one of the instructors asked for volunteers to drive me back home that afternoon. Gordon immediately volunteered again. It might have been because the night before I gave him $10.00 for gas money. But the second time around I just thanked him for not killing me.

The Opportunity (PART I)

I wasn’t against taking the bus to Hilo. It just didn’t make a whole lot of sense. An eight hour round trip for 2.5 hours of training that most likely included a lunch break? Two days in a row? After all, I had been offered a job at the recycling redemption center. How difficult can that be? I’m sure I know the difference between plastic, aluminum and glass. Give me a pair of gloves and I’ll go to work.

When I saw the ad posted on Craig’s List it looked like the perfect job to make some spare cash. Let’s face it. Craig’s List? How “professional” can the job be? The company’s name wasn’t even posted with the ad. The posting said to email for an application. No link? I wrote a little cover letter and requested the application.

The reply came quickly. It was suggested I submit the application soon. Interviews were being scheduled in the near future. A couple days later I got a call for an interview at the recycling center in Kona. When I showed up, the place was closed. The sign out front said Out of Cash. Under a tarp, five people sat around a fold down banquet table. It was 12:15 pm so I assumed the employees were on their lunch break. Probably had a good game of dominoes going. I’ve seen them play when I’ve returned cans and bottles for redemption. But I discovered I stumbled on a four-on-one interview in progress. I returned to my scooter, listened and waited my turn.

I've utilized the team interview process many times as a manufacturing manager. I wasn’t expecting it here. Their methodical approach asked questions to assess qualities deemed important: team and social skills, conflict resolution and honesty. However, I almost laughed when first asked, “Tell me a little about yourself.” When I coach people for job interviews I told them to prepare a two minute pitch that doesn’t involve marital status, age, religion, ailments, weird hobbies or flat out denials of drug use and tendencies to fight. Pet peeves are also not a good idea.

To be honest,I didn’t reveal my entire work experience on my application. The fact that I once hired and fired hundreds of employees, made strategic decisions for large corporations, or owned a consulting business didn’t seem to be relevant to picking through a barrel of aluminum cans looking for rocks. I simple wrote I had been a security guard for the past three years. The honesty card. But at the end of the interview Shon asked if there was anything I wanted to share that wasn’t on my application. I sighed and quickly summarized: Director of Human Resources, Manufacturing Manager, Business Owner, Landlord. I stayed away from house painter, bathroom remodeler, and certainly I never told them I wrote some book.

I got the offer contingent upon passing the drug test. Okay, I can say no problem, but you'd be amazed at how many positive test results there are after people say, "no problem." Here's a Hawaiian statistic: One out of ten drivers coming toward you down the road is under the influence of something they shouldn't be.

My problem was that the training was in Hilo, the other side of the island and over a 100 miles away. I didn’t understand why I had to go to Hilo to learn how to sort cans. Sure the company had to make sure the chain of custody was not broken in handling the urine sample. Sure they got to verify employment status. Okay, issue uniforms and safety equipment. And review the handbook rules. And discuss customer service issue. And watch a safety video. And teach the best way to sort a barrel full of recyclables.

I arrived in Hilo and stepped off the bus at the last stop. Margaret was waiting. My assumption: she had tidied up the morning mail distribution, made the coffee for the guys in the office, completed the payroll and then she was sent to pick me up. On the ride to the plant I engaged in small chitchat.
“How long have you worked with Hawaii Business Services?”
“Oh, I don’t work for the company. I own it.”
“Then you work,” I quickly recovered.
She explained that 25 years ago her sister and she had a truck. Her sister drove. She picked up the trash. They had 40 customers. “And now,” she swept her hand out to the building coming up on the right, a huge warehouse without a visible scrap of rubbish in sight.

Inside a meeting room, 35 people were wedged around two long tables. All new hires. What I didn’t know was the company was doubling its workforce from 30 to 60. They had been awarded the redemption contract for the island of Hawaii. They needed to man ten sites. And the antiquated pencil and paper system used by the old company was being upgraded with a new computer/weight and tracking system.

If I were to get home that night, I had to catch the 1:10 pm bus, but I was able to stay longer when one of the other new hires volunteered to take me home along with another guy who had been on the bus. (Island Transportation PART II). Staying the afternoon gave me the opportunity to take a plant tour. I wished I had my camera when a truck load of plastic returnable bottles were dumped into a conveyor belt that herded them into the BADGER, a press that crunched them into a 1000 pound bale. Put me in a plant and I’m excited. That’s why I got into manufacturing.

At the end of the day we were assigned to one of the newly constructed portable offices. We assembled our glass topped desk. A team project. We finished first. I joked it was a Survivor exercise, except we were already in redemption. We split up and helped the other teams. The competition wasn’t even close.

At the end of the second day, the company staff (the same people who had interviewed me) made their assignments: cashiers, sorters or leads. I got lead. I get to operate the scales and computer and make sure the team functions as one cohesive unit. Oh, Boy! I thought I was sorting recyclables.

Mission Accomplished?

A couple days after the Christmas plunder of bacon for breakfast and lamb for dinner and a week before heading off to Hawaii, my doctor called and said something like, “Your cholesterol is 238. You better cut the cheese and drop 15 to 20 pounds.” I heard, “your mother died of a heart attack.” Granted, the scales didn’t moan under my weight, nor would anyone call me fat, let alone chunky. I'll never solicit or receive much empathy from Overeaters Anonymous. When I told my sisters that the doctor told me to lose weight they both asked if the doctor had actually seen me.

I hate those mechanical scales where after stepping on the pad you must “guess” at your weight. It's like having your weight guessed at the circus. First, you slide a weighted block across the rail to the one hundred pound notch, an easy given. Then the smaller weight slides over to the point where the balanced arm raises or lowers the tiny arrow when a perfect balance is achieved. The stupid little arrow clanks the upper bracket. It's always further to the right than you expect. The more you move the block to the right, the heavier reality becomes. The process forces you to stand face to face with the fact that your body isn’t that toned, lean machine it might have ever been. Thank God I have yet to see one of these scales placed in front of a mirror. They usually face a wall, where you can't see your eyes roll to the back of your head.

I knew what the scales had been whispering. I had joined the YMCA to lose ten pounds during November and December. I actually gained weight. Muscle, my ass. I was 122 pounds of middle aged post menopausal jiggle. And now the doctor claimed I was full of heart stopping cholesterol.

I’m not a junk eater nor am I a couched potato even in the throes of dark winter days and subzero temperatures. Yes, I grumble a whole lot during every outside venture. It is so easy to slump into a cabin fever depression. And the doctor’s news had done just that, for about 30 minutes. It was so bad that outside the YMCA I sat in the Jeep contemplating my resolve. I never made it into the building. Damn if I would swim one lap or trot my ass around the upstairs track counting light fixtures out of shear boredom.

Recovery from my self-defeat came quickly. I cranked up the Jeep, blasted the defrost on the windshield and headed downtown to Borders. I had to prove that I wasn’t eating cholesterol ladened food (Christmas feasts are not the norm.). I had to prove I had been dealt a cruel set of genes.

The diet section in bookstore was busy with those toying with New Year Resolutions. Three women chatted about their latest diets, and the successes and failures of others who had been on crashes and regimes.
"Have you seen her?" one sniped. It wasn't complimentary. I took a quick glance at the trio, their physiques concealed by massive coats and scarves. You got to love upstate New York this time of year. I bought two books, the Lose Weight Fast Diet Journal and The Ultimate Calorie, Carb and Fat Gram Counter.

Counting calories wasn’t going to be enough. I needed a complicated goal that required me to research what I was about to do and then to set specific targets for calories, fat, cholesterol, protein and fiber. Tracking my exercise and calories burned was also important. My ultimate goal was to prove I wasn’t eating a poor diet and to lose 15 pounds. The cholesterol level may or may not fall below 200.

Since December 29, 2010 I have written down everything I have eaten. When I prepare meals, I measure every portion. In restaurants, I look up their nutritional information, although I have yet to find the data on a Costco hot dog. At the end of each week I track the totals of my consumption against my exercise goals. I graph the weight lost and assess my energy levels. I make little notes about challenges, obstacles and courses of action. My sister would be amazed that I even track water consumption. She calls me the Desert Flower because I drink so little of it.

This week I hit the 107 mark. Minus fifteen. Only twice during the past twelve weeks have I gone over my 200 mg or less cholesterol goal. Most days I don’t even come close. Similarly, I have ranged well below my daily saturated fat target of less than 16 grams per day. If there is a target I can't hit, it is fiber. When I crank it up towards my goal, I pay for it the next day. It's the way my system rolls.

To celebrate I bought low fat ice cream after carefully reading the labels. Then I measured out the ½ cup serving and ate it out of the measuring cup, not to waste a lick of it. I thought I died!

The end of June is still a long way off. That’s when I get the cholesterol rechecked. Meantime, I must add calories back into my diet so I don’t drop any more weight. My swimsuit is sagging.

Today's News

My one week moratorium on news ended today when the front page of the West Hawaii Today caught my eyes. It wasn’t about Obama in South America, the no fly zone in Libya, a nuclear meltdown in Japan or that Hilo ranks number one in America for drunkenness (page 9). The photo sent shivers down my back. A huge colored picture of an older man and two women gutting a mastodon in Austin, Texas about 16,000 years ago. Yes, even back then a news blackout would have served a purpose.

By Thursday of last week, six days after the tsunami and in the throes of a nuclear meltdown hysteria in the US media I couldn’t handle the bombardment of speculated doom. When I received emails and phone calls from friends that radiation was headed to Hawaii I snapped under my own post traumatic tsunami syndrome. I became depressed and angry.

I needed to decompress, to step back from the all the chaos. My life had hardly been impacted by the 9.0 earthquake and the generated tsunami. I did evacuate. I spent a tense night following the wave across the Pacific. I waited all morning for the all clear. I knew something had happened in Kona. But with no loss of life Hawaii’s event wasn’t worthy of a mention on the world wide clutter of headline grabbing information. Nor should it have been.

After all, in Japan entire communities and families were lost. The real tragedy is that a typical Friday routine for one person had not only been disrupted, but had vanished from the face of the earth. To think that someone vanished and everyone who knew that person and everything associated with that individual--from entire families and friends, to a house, car, place of employment, a simple routine of going to the local market for a bowl of noodles--had disappeared was unfathomable. Irreplaceably gone. Multiplied tens of thousands times more. How do you pick up from that?

That was the real tragedy. Yet the media focused on the what ifs. The remote perhaps, maybes, and possibilities of a radiation leak drifting the west coast. Run and buy your iodine pills. A typical American response, a pill for every ailment. I’ve seen Godzilla movies. If radiation were so easily cured give the lizard a pill.

I was bombarded by too much news. So was everyone else. I couldn’t do much about that, but I could withdrawal. I decided to go on a news break for one week. I don’t have a TV so to curb my viewing habits was easy. But the radio, newspaper and internet became the challenge.

The word went out to family and friends. Unless Israel gets nuked, the President gets shot or a tsunami was headed to Hawaii, I didn’t want to hear it. I turned off the radio. I didn’t stop the newspaper delivery, but I carefully edited my way to the comics, the crossword puzzles, the sports section and the classifieds. At first, I read Anne’s Mailbox, the advice column. Keenly aware of the human condition in Japan, I found the drone of unfaithful husbands, ungrateful kids and dissatisfied wives lacking in intellectual depth.

The biggest challenge to the news blackout was the internet. On social media sites like FaceBook and Twitter friends post more than “What’s on Your Mind?” and “What’s Happening?” They post news stories or comment on news items. When I read comments about what a great lady Elizabeth Taylor was, I concluded she died, because nobody says those things while you are alive.

Back to today’s news, the gutted elephant in Texas. The headline: Discovery of Artifacts in Texas May Rewrite Human History. The news I missed this week will be analyzed, rehashed, editorialized and eventually rewritten. It might go down better the second time around. 16,000 years from now.

Photo: Butchering a Mastodon, 2. A older man and two women butcher a mastodon, an Ice-Age elephant. It may have taken several days just to carve the beast into manageable pieces and then many more days to dry the meat and prepare the hide. Painting by Nola Davis, courtesy Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

Staying Connected

It was just after five Saturday morning when I hear the flip-flop padding of the newspaper deliver man. I was wake, but hadn’t flex any muscles except to test the soreness of my butt. Too much sitting around yesterday. The newspaper landed with a whack against the front screen door. I wanted to see the news, but I dozed off again. The sun’s light filtered over Hualalai and through the thin wisps of vog stretched over the summit by the time Dad called. The last time we talked had been about 4 the previous morning. “I think we dodged the bullet,” a phrase he is more prone to use for missing forecasted snow storms in upstate New York. “That’s good news, Val.” he replied.

It was good news. Not only for me, but for the whole state of Hawaii which had sent its entire coastal population and visiting tourists inland after a 8.9 earthquake rocked the coast of Japan.

I put off writing about the tsunami because I felt the whole experience paled against the tragedy in Japan. An hour after I called Dad with the good news, a six foot wave crested the sea walls in down town Kona. The damage crippled 51 businesses. Rocks, sand, tangled rebar, sign posts, concrete, tires and dead fish littered Alii Drive. Bubba Gump’s furniture floated out to sea. Chunks of the sea wall peeled away, discarded on the graceful curve drive in front of the harbor. The pier was reported condemned and the King Kamehameha Hotel which recently completed a renovation was left covered with a sticky coating of sea salt after the waters receded. The small town beach lost all of its sand. Lava rocks and old tires jutted forth as if Davy Jones had left his watery tomb. The ghoulish eye sores reminded me of what we don’t know about what is at the bottom of the ocean. And eleven homes where destroyed, most near Kealakekua Bay where Captain Cook first anchored.

The inconvenience of the 18 hours of evacuations, the 36 hours without sleep, the tsunami and the wait was nothing but an inconvenience for me. Across the Pacific, thousands of people in Japan could only wish they had one more day with loved ones who were swept away by the twenty-two foot waves that came minutes after the great earthquake.

Technology played a crucial role in keeping me informed. The ability to get information eased concerns, reduced anxiety, and filled dark voids the mind would otherwise fill with crap of pending doom. My sisters rag on me for the time I spend on Facebook and Twitter. Honestly, sometimes I can’t argue with them. In my defense, I argued that if they had been on Facebook last year, they would have known what was happening with Dad and me when we evacuated after the Chilean earthquake. Sure it is a social network, but it is a great tool as well. Just ask any Egyptian.

My youngest sister joined Facebook a couple of months ago, but uses it …never. However on Friday, after she woke up on the east coast and learned of the evacuations, she called me and then stayed with me the rest of the day, via Facebook. I took comfort in knowing people around the world were with me. I was never alone even though I was by myself (by choice).

Last year I was immediately aware of the Chilean quake because of Twitter. This year was the same. In less than 20 minutes after the quake I knew what had occurred and the dangers that could fall on Hawaii. Three neighbors knocked on my door to warn me of the tsunami. I would venture to guess I knew before they did. When I told one I had seen it on Twitter she looked unsure of what I said.

I reactivated my broadband account with Verizon before leaving the condo. Hopefully half way up the mountain the signal would be better than at seaside where I was forced to use DSL. It worked beautifully. I lost connection only once during the twelve hours I was hooked up. A few times I had to wait on buffers. A minor annoyance. With laptop and internet access I watched Honolulu TV news and listened to local radio. I switched back and forth to catch the latest updates on the tsunami’s arrival, severity and damage. And I caught information that was relevant to the Big Island and was able to relay this info to friends and family.

At one point before the tsunami’s arrival I switched to BBC. Video of the waves in Japan were too disturbing for me to watch. It looked like the earth puked. The whirl pool was mind-bogglingly surreal, and the footage of the series of waves stretching horizon to horizon left me dazed by its perfected beauty while knowing the powerful terror it was about to unleash. I thought, “This could happen here.” I could not handle that thought. I stopped watching news out of Japan.

My body and mind reacted strangely. I misinterpreted one piece of video. A wave entered a Japanese airport. To me it looked like the building comes to the wave instead of the wave washing over the tarmac. Too tired I guess. Even today I don't know why I thought that. The thought was not fleeting.

I was also extremely hungry and very cold. I had no reason to be either. I huddled in my hoodie under a fleece blanket. I wore socks. I ate the thick peanut butter sandwich I packed as a supplement to my three days of emergency food and water supply. I never shook either physical need completely until it was all over. Two days later I am still tired.

My refuge was outside an office building where electrical outlets kept my computer and five-spot charged and my phone juiced. Baby, I was connected. At mid-morning when the tsunami danger was down graded to an advisory, the office staff, a bunch of realtors, poured out of the building. They were off to check on their rental properties. “It’s all clear,” several told me. I watched them dash off in their cars wondering how far they would get. As the vagrant on their side walk I didn’t argue, but I was listening to Mayor Kenoi say the evacuation was still in place for the Big Island. We had been hit hard, but no TV station in Honolulu reported this. However, local island radio, KAPA was on top of it.

Fifteen minutes later, they returned. “It’s not clear.”
“I know,” I replied.
“Why didn’t you say something?” I thought this was a ploy to get rid of me.

Shortly thereafter one office employee came out and asked, “What are you listening too? You obviously have better information than we do.” I removed my ear buds. "You’re watching TV?"
“Yeah,” she replied.
“It’s Honolulu. It is clear there. You must listen to local. I’m on KAPA.” She thanked me and returned inside.

By 11 am, after being up since 5 the previous morning, I was so hungry I began to consider the cat food left by the AdVoCat lady for the ferals. I had to get something. I disconnected my information source to wander among the thousands who were going about their day as if nothing happened. Truly I entered a world as a displaced person. And felt lost among those who were not impacted. After all, if you were not in the evacuation zone you stayed home. You went to bed after filling your bathtub. Because we never lost power, everyone outside the coastal areas got up the next morning and yawned.

I stilled needed information but by 11 am local radio had resumed regular broadcast. Two Hawaiian melodies followed by an old Civil Defense bulletin. I lost my information.

At Costco I got a hotdog and a 16 oz soda for $1.58. Feeling slightly recharged I did my own reconnoiter to see if Alii Drive was accessible. Downtown was still closed, but south Alii was opened. I went home at 1:30pm. However, the road was not officially cleared until 4:30 pm. Just like last year no sirens communicated the all clear.

So what if I had not had access to the internet? Well, in my survival kit that I assembled after last year's evacuation is a hand cranked – solar powered radio. It works fine. My sister suggested that I get a solar charger for my phone. Excellent Christmas idea. Hint, hint.

Speaking of phones. For those on ATT, you might want to seriously consider Verizon. It never went down.