I slept through my senior year and graduated with Ds. One teacher later told me that I had actually earned flunking grades, but my teachers met and decided to do us all a favor and pass me out.
I had an inkling that I wanted to go to college, but my prospects were dim.
Floyd Swann, an economics professor at Hilo College (now UH-Hilo), stuck his neck out to get me a tryout: If I could do well in summer courses in English and history, the school would accept me for the fall semester.
I buckled down and got through the summer classes with Bs. I was drained, broke and badly needed to go someplace quiet to figure out my future.
My friend Leon Siu suggested that I join him at the Methodist Church summer camp at Camp Kailua, which was owned by the church before being sold to the city in 1984.
I'm not a Methodist - or even a Christian - but that didn't stop me from participating in youth fellowship programs of the Methodists, Episcopalians and United Church of Christ. The programs helped me keep my head on halfway straight and were a good way to hook up with girls on school nights.
I spent most of my week at Camp Kailua sitting on the fine beach outside of its gates pondering whether I was the reform school candidate my high school teachers thought or if the summer courses showed I had the potential to cut it in college.
The camp had a lot of rituals such as campfire hootenanies and midnight serenades. One ritual my old pal Leon neglected to tell me about was Make-Out Night. It was officially a night to quietly contemplate life and God. But in reality, it was a night in which the boys and girls paired off to fire up their hormones.
All I knew was that nearly all of my fellow campers suddenly disappeared and I didn't have the slightest idea where they were.
With nothing better to do, I spent a couple of hours on the porch of the main cabin discussing the purpose of being and other matters with the resident ministers, the Revs. Robert Fiske and James Swenson.
Later that night, I was having a smoke at the gate by the beach when the bell rang and the newly enlightened couples started filing back into camp.
At first I was furious that I had spent the evening talking to preachers when I could have been out on the beach getting cozy with some lovely young lady. Then it struck me that if I could hold my own in deep discussion with heavy thinkers like Fiske and Swenson, I could probably do OK in college. My future became a lot more clear.
I think of that summer a lot when I hear Mayor Jeremy Harris, the City Council and Windward community groups angrily dispute whether Camp Kailua should be torn down or fixed up.
It's a fair argument, but it astounds me how a place that once celebrated so much spiritual fellowship can now generate so much hateful rhetoric. These folks really need to tone it down. You would think the very lives of millions of people hinged on the outcome.
Here's how I see it:
If they tear down Camp Kailua for a park, a lot of people surely will enjoy some very nice days at a very nice beach. But there are lots of beaches where you can do that. How many places do we have where people can enjoy experiences that change their lives?
