A shower of
sorrow for Duke
Duke Kahanamoku died early in the third week of January 1968. I remember it only vaguely. He was, after all, an old guy, and the newspapers said he'd been ill.
COURTESY U.S. POSTAL SERVICE
Duke Kahanamoku posed with his surfboard for this undated photograph. A stamp bearing his picture will become available nationwide tomorrow.
Several days later, on a Saturday morning, I was delivering newspapers in the suburban hills of Aliamanu. In the days before mopeds, you carried the papers in a heavy canvas bag that slipped over a bike's handlebars, and peddled and puffed on big-paper days.
Saturdays, though, were light. I was racing in the silent dawn, banking and cranking on the turns, slapping those papers down on subscribers' porches, getting into the rhythm and jive of the job. I was making good time and enjoying the clear sky as it changed from rose to blue over the mountains.
Suddenly it began to rain -- gigantic, heavy slugs of water that hammered down from the cloudless sky. Wind whipped the trees; it moaned and howled. I took shelter in somebody's garage and stared open-mouthed at the sky's fury. It lasted about half an hour, and then -- as suddenly as it started -- it stopped, as if a switch had been thrown. The sun broke over the crest of the Koolaus and glittered on the wet streets.
Those few minutes of aerial weeping occurred at exactly the same time that Duke Kahanamoku's ashes were paddled out to sea and scattered.
--Burl Burlingame
