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Sink or Swim
A
story of the challenges faced as two people start a new life in
Hawaii
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| January
- The Parting Gift |
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| The
headlines screamed, "Blizzard of the Century," yet
it was only 26 inches of fine, powder snow – a mere snowball
up North, but a major avalanche down here. No matter, the city
shut down and sane people went outside to play, full of smiles.
Meanwhile, the high-powered crowd rushed to buy snow-proof sport
utility vehicles. That was bad news for us, because we were
about to trade in our aging 4WD Subaru for a new car capable
of trekking through the wilds of rural Hawaii. We told the Land
Rover dealer that we were moving to Hawaii in a month, and needed
a car that could drive over chunky lava, climb to 13,000 foot
altitudes, and inch down 45-degree slopes. He listened blankly,
then asked, "Why do you need a ‘sport ute’ in
Hawaii?" Clearly, our description did not match the travel
brochures. We pointed to the second gear stick, the locking
center differential, and asked how to use it. He said, "Oh
that’s the diff-lock, but don’t worry, nobody ever
uses that." Right, not if you stay in the city. |
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| Telling
our landlady we were moving 5,000 miles away was like taping a "kick
me" sign to the back of our pants. The first landlady, who owned
our rental house, did not want to give back our security deposit,
even though we left the place spotless. The second landlady, who leased
the office space to us, did one better: she claimed we owed her money
– double what she owed us. Our lawyer explained that she was
using this ploy to keep our security deposit. We could fight her in
local court if we wanted to hang around the city for another few months,
but she knew we were anxious to leave. Six years as good paying tenants
added up to nothing in the end. So we threatened the rental house
landlady with knowledge of her illegal basement rental and she returned
our deposit. To the office landlady we hand delivered a candid note
maintaining our right to the security deposit, then left the Old Scrooge
to count her winnings. |
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| Less
than three weeks before moving, we still had not secured a house in
Hawaii. Then a magical thing happened. A British friend was leaving
her office one day and overheard a young woman speaking with a British
accent. She stopped to talk with the woman, who turned out to be from
Hawaii. This woman was leaving Hawaii for a year and needed to find
someone to rent her house by next month. After a quick interview with
her, we could not believe our luck. Her house was located on the island
we wanted, near the town we wanted and in the right area. Not only
that, but it had a view of the ocean, the mountains of Mauna Kea and
Mauna Loa, and the erupting Pu‘u O‘o lava flow. We agreed
to rent for less than half our former house rental, and smiled at
our winnings. |
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| During
our last week in the city, the second debilitating snowstorm hit.
City officials panicked into overdrive, using 13 snowplows to clear
one major roadway. Buried cars, with windshields only partially visible,
got parking tickets for staying in one place too long. News reports
sensationalized this storm as the "Blizzard of the Month."
I fourwheeled-it back to the empty rental house with a giant bag of
birdseed and was greeted loudly by the 60-member sparrow family. While
I waded to the birdfeeder, the sparrows flocked to nearby bushes.
Their hungry chirping soon brought cardinals and chickadees, and I
dumped a huge buffet of seed over frozen snowdrifts. Our friendly
gray squirrel bounded down the Maple trunk and screeched to a halt
three feet away. She took a peanut from my fingers, hopped back a
pace, and stuffed it in her pouch before tiptoeing closer to ask for
another. With her cheeks bulging to capacity, she scampered back up
the tree. I emptied the peanut bag in the crook of a branch, then
asked the man renting the basement if he would continue to feed my
friends. |
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| Two
days before we left, I watched a mugging outside my mom’s house.
I was walking toward her front door, just stepping off the curb to
cross to her side of the street, when I spotted two young guys with
baggy pants and ski caps right by her house. They checked me out at
the same time, then scoped the position of everyone else. I decided
to wait before crossing, then noticed the two women walking arm in
arm a few feet ahead of the guys. Right as I passed behind a thick
tree, the guys knocked the women’s heads together and grabbed
a purse. The women fell down screaming while the guys ran to a waiting
car. A Good Samaritan chased the guys until one of them said, "Come
any closer and I’ll blow your head off." Nine eyewitnesses
watched as the get-away car fishtailed to freedom with no license
plates. The woman’s purse contained her mortgage of $900 in cash,
$300 apiece for the three thugs. Not bad for 10 minutes work. |
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| The
police detective interviewed me in the kitchen, since the mugging
took place on my doorstep. He sipped a cup of tea and said it’s
dangerous to resist during a robbery. Just last month, a woman
on the next block held onto her bag and lost her life. He asked
if I would testify next week as an eyewitness, even though I
was behind the tree during the actual mugging. I had to say,
"Sorry, I’m moving to Hawaii in two days." He
stayed for another cup of tea, and reminisced over his vacation
on Maui. He wished me luck in my new life, then popped a mint
and left to interview the other witnesses. |
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| Finally,
the day arrived to leave this city for good, but that morning we awoke
to find the city shut down again. Nine more inches of fluffy snow
devastated all roads, and challenged local papers to find another
dramatic headline, perhaps "Blizzard of the Week" or maybe
"Blizzard of Thursday." I could not have asked for a better
parting gift than a month of heavy snow. After years of listening
to window-rattling airplanes, horn-blasting gridlock, and heart-wrenching
sirens, this special snowfall hid all imperfections and padded the
city in silence. Our next home would be in a land of both snow and
palm trees; a land with miles of quiet wilderness and stars too numerous
to count. As we drove across Key Bridge singing "California Here
We Come," like Lucy, Ricky, Fred and Ethel, I didn’t even
want to look back, only forward. |
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