Sidelines
IT was Saturday night. I was helping out in the office, pretending that columnists are actually good for something. Take a phone call, OK? Still can’t catch
Casey at the trackThe first meet of the new Wahine track team. This is a big deal, this is historic. Coach Carmyn James is calling from Fresno.
She's happy.
She's excited.
She talks about how one of her runners had battled to win this great race.
How she was second in another, and then anchored the 4x400 relay team.
How this runner had been "amazing."
Wait a minute.
That's my friend's little sister!
We should have known that Casey McGuire-Turcotte was going to be fast.
We should have seen it coming.
When me and her big brother would play "Army," or other games in the wilds of Waiohinu, she could always find us.
When we went to the park to play sports, she would tag along.
My enduring image of her came when Naalehu School sent us on a field trip, walking through our small town to the theater.
We were going to see "Ghandi," which by the way, is perfect fare for a bunch of restless elementary and intermediate school kids.
We walked, en masse, all of us, almost the entire school.
Past the road to Up Camp. Past Tommy Toguchi's house. Past the Naalehu Fruit Stand (and pizza place), where Casey and her mom were in town to run errands.
She must have been 3 or so. Maybe 4.
"Hi Kalani!" she cried. "Hi Kalani! Hi Kalani! Hi Kalani! Hiiiiiiiiiii!"
It was a long walk.
But things did change. Her brother went to the mainland for school.
And then I was all over the place, and the last time I saw Casey, she probably couldn't have been much more than eight.
You'd hear things. That she'd written a book. (She did. A children's book about Honu the Turtle. It's in the library. Check it out.)
That she was becoming a runner.
"I remember I used to run laps around our house," she said. "Like, laps around our house. Just for fun. And count them. And then run by the kitchen window and yell, "How many!"
YES, that sounds like her. But as she got older, she got better.
She started out taping her bare feet at the Honokaa track for youth meets.
She became a high school state champion.
On the frigid day of the first meet in Wahine (new) track and field team history, she battled for first in a dramatic back-and-forth race.
She is perfect for the Wahine squad, coach Carmyn James said. Casey runs hard, but she keeps the team loose.
Casey McGuire-Turcotte, track star, little sister, just turned 22.
It's amazing how old she got with just one phone call.
Ah, but these days are just as golden. The little girl in my memory is now strong and sweet and running into her dreams.
As she says herself in her UH track bio: "The past should be a springboard, not a hammock."
And so it is.
Kalani Simpson's column runs Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
He can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com