Forgotten foundations
Last week I paused on South Street to check out the big hole in the asphalt where K&Y Chevron used to be. Bulldozers were busy obliterating every last vestige of the service station's existence. Good place. Filled my car there every week, had it serviced often, nice people, reasonable prices, aloha to you, c'est le progrès.
I drove away, angling down King Street. Several blocks away, I was startled to see more bulldozers flattening another structure. It was already a pile of splintered boards and billowing dust. It was next to a Chinese church-like structure. For the life of me, I couldn't remember what had stood there the day before.
Was it that three-story boarding house with drooping eaves? A plantation-style cottage turned into a small business? A wooden garage built for Model Ts, gone ramshackle long ago? A storefront, a home, a church, a neighborhood tavern? A place where people lived and fell in love and talked and quarreled and made up, where they held hands on the front porch, enjoying the breeze, and watched the sun dip below the Waianaes as the city drifted into sleep?
I drove away. I still don't know what stood there, and it makes me feel vaguely ashamed and disoriented.
Burl Burlingame
bburlingame@starbulletin.com