There is nothing quite like small town living when the living is on an island in the middle of sea of 7,000 people.
I grew up for most of my young childhood in a seaside town called Oceanside in California.
I have fond memories of Oceanside. Oceanside had rocky beaches and strawberry fields. A historic landmark called San Luis Rey and a nearby mammoth military base called Camp Pendleton. It was part of a magical tri-city town made of Carlsbad and Vista with a healthy mix of ethnicities from white to black to Samoan to Filipino to all the colors in between.
That was in the 70s and I loved living there.
It was at the start of my 7th grade year that my mother moved my brother and me to Molokai where she was originally from and where my grandmother had a homestead. We had spent summers on there for most of my childhood so we were not unfamiliar with the island and it had good memories for both of us as we could recall running around the pineapple fields and climbing macadamia nut trees to shake out the nuts.
Yet, I was not prepared to make Molokai my home.
Oceanside may have had a feel of a small town but it was connected to a much bigger world. We were only two hours from Anaheim to the north and San Diego to the south.
On Molokai, there was no 'get on the freeway and head to the south or north' for a bigger city.
On Molokai, there wasn't even a stoplight. No McDonalds. No malls. No theater. No pizza place.
On Molokai, there was the Hop Inn for ramen and Midnight Inn for a sit-down meal. For fast food, there was a Dairy Queen but it wasn't like the Dairy Queen that I was used to.
Talk about culture shock. To get off the island, you had to take a plane and in those days, plane fare was so expensive that we were lucky if you got off the island once a year.
My first year as a resident was awkward. Small towns are not always friendly and even though Molokai is known as 'The Friendly Isle', the residents take a bit to warm up even if they know someone in the family.
At school, my brother had a much easier time fitting in as he was handsome, athletic and he had a natural ally in a cousin who was his own age whereas I had to fend for myself and find new friends all on my own.
It was scary to be different. I spoke different. I looked different. I dressed different. I stood out and not always in the right way. I was always in a rush and that was not things were done on Molokai. If you ever hear of the saying, "Its on Hawaiian Time!", that means "Relax already and take your time and enjoy." On Molokai, Hawaiian time is a few clicks slower and mellower.
And as time clicked by, I eventually merged into the flow of the island's life. My California accent never went away completely but it became a new kind of accent. As I got to know more of my family, I could see my resemblance in them. I never did get the dressing like everyone else down but my friends liked me for it. If I did stand out, I recognized that others stood out too.
As I grew more free and comfortable, I discovered the advantages of living on Molokai. I learned to drive on an old Toyota stick shift on a two lane road while going up to Kalaupapa Park with the breeze is cool on the skin. I began to appreciate the stark beauty of Moomomi Beach on one end of the island and gasp at the daring drive to Halawa at the other end. I was taught to dance hula in a little green one room hall that sat in a grove of coconut trees that had a warning sign of "Beware of Falling Coconuts." I became a lover of fresh baked bread when we would stay up late at night to get the midnight hotbread with guava jam at Kanemitsu Bakery.
It was always a treat when my mother would take me to Oviedo's and I would get the bowl of sweet and sour pork with rice and a can of soda. With our food, we would sit at the wharf to eat and watch the water while we would talk story until the afternoon floated away and we had to return home.
I had my first crush on Molokai on a boy named Robert Lee and my first job as a janitor at Kaunakakai Elementary School where the regular workers made us work hard but at the end of the program, they threw us the best potluck ever.
I thrilled at my first kiss after a graduation luau. I sang Billy Joel's "Piano Man" with my friends at the Green & White Carnival. I cringed at Christmas Mass when the same Filipino lady over sang "Angels We Have Heard On High" year after year.
I found out how my grandparents and greatgrandparents lived as extended family would come in and out of the house with ease and laughter.
I never did get to like poi like my grandma said I would but I was smart enough to keep it a secret.
The summer of my sophomore year I picked pineapple in the fields and made $2.85 an hour at it and I had the best time doing it even if I was filthy from head to toe after a day's work.
Speaking of being filthy, there was the matter of showering at my Grandma's homestead house. The shower was in a shack that was detached from the house where we did the clothes washing. If I wanted to take a warm shower, I had to take it between 3 and 4 in the afternoon when the pipes were hot so the water would be warm. If there was no sun that day, tough luck and take a hike up the street to the aunt's house where she had a water heater in her house.
If there was anything that my cousins and I would whine about, it was the lack of a water heater in Grandma's house.
Yet when that house was demolished a year after her death, we all cried as if we lost the jewel of our childhood. All that was left standing after the house was razed was the beautiful stone steps where we would sit and take pictures as a family.
When I graduated from a boarding school on Oahu, I never went back to live on Molokai. Eventually, my mother moved to Oahu and there was no reason to move back.
But even though the years pass, the island remains in my heart. I know that it is growing and changing. Pineapple has long since moved out. They have a movie theater and a pizza place. The Hop Inn remains but Midnight Inn is gone.
When I was a teenager, there were times when I felt like it was too small and claustrophobic but by the same turn, it was comforting to see a smiling face when I would go to a store and have that smiling person ask me, "So how's your Grandma and Mommy?" and then wait for my answer because of genuine interest and not perfunctory politeness.
After all these years, whenever I meet someone from Molokai and they give me a kiss and a hug, I feel Molokai's rare gentle warmth seep into my bones like those 4pm showers on a sunny day in the shack on my Grandma's homestead and I remember the joy of those years of living in a small town on a small island in the middle of the sea.