MY wife Maggie offered to take me on a trip to celebrate my birthday next month and we spent many evenings discussing where we should go. Little old Hilo is still
where I want to beWe narrowed it down to either a train trip through the Canadian Rockies or a cruise to Alaska, both places we've always wanted to visit. But we couldn't decide between the two.
Finally the answer hit me.
"You know where I really want to go?" I said.
"Where?" Maggie asked.
"Promise you won't get angry?"
"It's your birthday. We can go wherever you want."
"I want to go to the Big Island," I said.
I expected ridicule for choosing the humdrum surroundings of lost youth over an opportunity for fascinating new adventures.
But Maggie understood. To explain it in a word: Home.
We've spent roughly equal parts of our marriage in three places: Hilo, Washington, D.C., and Honolulu. It's difficult to maintain roots when you move around so much, but there's no question where our home is. It's Hilo.
Maggie was born in Keaau, about 10 miles up the Volcano Highway from Hilo. I grew up in Los Angeles before moving to Hilo in my teens. But it was in Hilo where I hit the turning points that most shaped my life. It was in Hilo where I made the closest friends I've ever had. It's the one place where I never feel out of place.
By serendipity and the magic of e-mail, I've gotten back in touch with those old friends in the past few months. I haven't seen many of them in years -- some since high school and college. Most don't even live on the Big Island anymore. But just being in contact with them again has brought back the part of my life I cherish most.
One of those old friends who left Hilo after high school and never looked back called to tell me of a recent trip home. He spoke disdainfully of the Big Island, calling Hilo "a good place to be from." I was surprised by how strong a need I felt to defend our old stomping grounds.
I felt the same way when a union officer said he couldn't meet me the next day because he had to go to Hilo for some tough negotiations. "As you know, it's not exactly my favorite place," he said. "I'd even rather meet with you than go to Hilo."
He could insult me, but not my favorite town. "Wait a minute," I said. "You only go over there for nasty talks. You have to pay a visit under more pleasant circumstances."
People who went to Hilo for the Volcano Run last weekend made me jealous with their tales of staying at Uncle Billy's on Banyan Drive, visiting a friend's house on a fresh lava flow near the ocean at Kaimu and receiving the friendly, but ridiculously roundabout, directions to places just down the street that Hiloans are so famous for.
A lifetime of memories takes me back to many good times in many fine places. But no memories are richer than socializing in the Hilo cane fields, swimming with my wife-to-be in a secluded pond at King's Landing, freezing in the face of great fire while watching Kilauea lava fountains in the middle of the night or tromping through Waipio Valley hoping to run into a good story that would justify having so much fun "working."
You really need only two things to handle the challenges that life throws at you: a soul mate to connect you to the human race and a home to root you to the Earth. Maggie is my soul mate and Hilo will always be my home. How could I better celebrate a birthday?
David Shapiro is managing editor of the Star-Bulletin.
He can be reached by e-mail at editor@starbulletin.com.
Volcanic Ash runs every Saturday in the Star-Bulletin.
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