Save the Band!

There’s been an official island band here, continuously, since the days when Kalakaua was king and it was called the Hilo Band.  It’s been the Hawaii County Band since the turn of the last century, however, when the bandstand at Mooheau Park, on the Hilo Bayfront, was built for them.  And they still play a free monthly concert there.  And they still march in parades and play for many festivities.

The Hawaii County band playing in the bandstand at the 2009 Valentine's Day activities. Photo: www.hiloliving.com.

Thirty-four of the musicians live in East Hawaii, eleven on the West side.  The bandmaster, Paul Arceo, first joined in 1983, when he was a teenager – and that’s not unusual.  Many of his band-mates also joined when they were young, perhaps having gained prowess in their high school bands. Others may have come to it as grown-ups.  But when you consider all of the local musicians, over the last twelve decades, who have passed through its ranks, there’s a multiplier effect at work.  The Hawaii County Band has inspired countless numbers of other folks, young and old – but especially young – to take up an instrument and maybe join a band themselves.

And yet, the Hawaii County Band could be out of the County budget next year.

The Hawaii County Band, which is part of the Parks & Recreation Department of County of Hawaii, has just been informed that they will not be funded after June 30, 2010, thereby effectively ending a 127 year Big Island of Hawaii tradition. Photo: www.truealoha.com.

We, here on Big Island, pay close to $350,000 a year to have a band of our own (it’s in the County’s Department of Parks and Recreation). But our mayor has just proposed to strike it off the books: there’s no item for it in his new budget.  Such a cut would be a hardship for the musicians, of course; but a cut would have its own – and rather unpleasant – multiplier effect.

How will we generate the next wave of musicians?  Where else, here, can you experience the magic of a live concert, or of a marching band on parade?  Those are educational experiences!  School budgets have been short-changing music (well, all of the arts, really), for years.  School bands can barely sustain themselves: or should the County Band also have to hold bake-sales and raffles, or go out and wash cars, to make it to their next gig?

There will always be more listeners than players, but a lot of people don’t even try.  (Count the ear-buds around you, next time you’re on the street or in a bus.)  Learning to play music is hard.  It takes practice, and it takes purpose: a reason to practice, something to aspire to.

There is simply no better way to encourage musicianship than to see and hear live music being played.  And even if you never attend their concerts, you can’t live here without acknowledging that it’s a good thing to have a County Band. 

The Hawaii County band prepared to march at the 2009 Merrie Monarch Royal Parade. Photo: www.hiloliving.com.

Indeed, the local newspapers have been running letters-to-the-editor about this, and not one has taken the side of the cut in band funding.  There are several petitions going around (one is at http://www.petition.fm/petitions/savetheband/0/14/), and the band has a Facebook page with more than 1,300 “fans” (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hawaii-County-Band/336187876716?v=wall). Dozens of folks have been waving hand-made “save-the-band” signs along Kam Avenue, for the past two weekends.

Hawaii County Band tunes up for the Pahoa Christmas Parade. Photo: garysafarik.org.

So the County Council will take up the issue on March 22.  There is reason to hope that the Councilors and the Mayor can find the money, somewhere, and save the band.  I, for one, certainly hope – and frankly, I expect – that they will, in the end, do so.  It’s not about saving a piece of our local history. It’s about saving something immeasurably important for our future.

It Doesn’t Taste Good, But . . .

Kava comes to you in a cup that’s half of a coconut shell.  You take a sip.  It’s both watery and gritty.  The taste is earthy, with hints of tree-bark and . . . oh, gosh – soap!?  But a few moments later, your mouth is rather pleasantly numb.  You barely taste the second cup, and by then you feel quite relaxed.

Kava Plant

“It doesn’t taste good,” Dave Stevenson admits, “but it makes you feel good.”  And he should know.  His kava bar on the Bayfront in Hilo is one of a handful on the Big Island serving this ancient Polynesian beverage.

We call it kava (KAH-vah), probably because the Samoans call it “kava-kava.”  The Hawaiians have always called it ‘awa (ah-vah), while the Fijians call it yagona (yahn-GO-nah), and the Micronesians of Pohnpei call it sakau (sa-kow).  The different names reflect only geographic and linguistic – not botanical – differences.  All around the Pacific, it’s the same plant: Piper Methysticum, so-named because it’s a member of the pepper family that produces intoxication.

Missionaries didn’t approve of it, but neither did they get it outlawed; so it’s never been illegal.  Extracts and tinctures (infusions in alcohol) have been sold by herbalists and pharmacists for well over a century. Yet kava was never very popular as a “drug,” not even among the countercultural population, because – unlike marijuana or LSD – it is not hallucinogenic.  It’s a mild tranquilizer, a bit like beer in that it relaxes you, although some people also find that it also relieves minor pains.  The day I visited Stevenson’s Bayfront Coffee, Kava & Tea Co. two women from Iceland were sipping kava to help overcome their ten-hour jet-lag.

Historically, kava was a ceremonial beverage, and in many Pacific island groups it’s still prepared under strict rituals, dipped from a communal calabash bowl, and served in a cup that’s passed from hand to hand, while legends and stories are told around the circle.  (In ancient times, Hawaiian boys and girls chewed the roots and spat them into the bowl before the water was added.  This is no longer done, anywhere, at least not in public.).

Kava Root

Like the sharing of a tobacco-pipe among Native Americans, kava ceremonies in some societies of Oceania were also held to cement a peace or truce after a conflict, both for the symbolism of the rituals and for kava’s relaxing effect on the participants.

In today’s kava bars, a cup costs about $5: what you’d pay for a glass of wine or a bottle of beer in a tavern.  In local farmers’ markets, or online, dry powdered kava comes in zip-lock baggies and costs about $30 a pound.

Powdered Kava

The basic preparation is simply a cold-water infusion.  Mix half a cup of kava in two cups of water, let it stand for about half an hour, and then strain it or squeeze the juice out through cheesecloth.  The liquid can be plain water or coconut juice (Stevenson calls the latter “ali’i style,” after the Hawaiian word for royalty). 

Photo Credit: fijian-kava.com

Adding fruit flavors helps to improve the taste, and baking kava into cookies or brownies can also make it more palatable.  (There’s a YouTube video showing how to make the beverage, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkWU93hMPrA)

Stevenson has been tracking kava for many years.  “My background is in food-preparation,” he said.  “I grew up in Florida, and worked in the citrus-processing industry.  When I got to Hawaii, I became the test-customer for a local kava bar, and that’s what got me interested in starting my own,” which he eventually did.  His bar at 116 Kamehameha Ave. opened in 2007.

“Kava is best in the afternoon or evening,” he explained, “when its social aspects can kick in.  It does promote social interaction, but unlike pot or beer, there’s no loss of mental clarity.  And ladies will find that there are no belligerent drunks in a kava bar.

“Kava has been in use here as long as there have been people  here,” he went on.  “I have an image in my mind, of the day when the first Polynesian voyagers reached Hawaii, after months at sea.  They rode the waves onto a beach, and when they had hauled up safely on land, the captain said “Break out the kawa, boys. We’ll unload the canoes later!”

Sherlock Holmes at the Volcano

Sherlock Holmes once visited the Big Island – and now he’s coming back!

Holmes was an early crime-scene investigator. Keen-eyed and sharp-witted, this most famous of fictional detectives solved murders that baffled the police of the Victorian era by focusing on seemingly insignificant clues. Would we have “C.S.I.” on TV today without having first seen Holmes tracing footprints, or examining threads, pebbles and fingerprints with a magnifying glass?

Though based in London, he visited the Kingdom of Hawaii in November of 1890 with his friend and biographer Dr. John Watson. It was supposed to be a restful vacation at the Volcano House, but they found themselves confronted by a mysterious calamity of madness and murder with supernatural overtones, that came to be known as “The Volcano Horror.” To discover the cause, and to identify the killer, they had to take a dangerous plunge into a realm of terror and death, right there on the edge of the crater!

This all happens in a stage play written, produced and directed by my friend Hal Glatzer, referencing one of the short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Sherlock Holmes & The Volcano Horror, March 4th, 5th, 6th, 12th & 13th at 7pm.

“Sherlock Holmes & The Volcano Horror” will be performed in the Theater at the East Hawaii Cultural Center, in downtown Hilo, at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday March 4, 5 and 6; and at 7 p.m. on Friday and Saturday March 12 and 13. Tickets are $10 (EHCC members $8), and are available now from the EHCC Box Office: 935-9085.

Several of the actors also appeared in “The House Without A Key,” Glatzer’s Charlie Chan mystery, which was presented at EHCC a year ago, including Jake McPherson (as Holmes), and Steve Peyton (as Watson).

In Sherlock Holmes’s day, the Volcano House was a one-story log cabin, built in 1877, with a lanai on its long side and a big fireplace in the parlor.

Volcano House 1877

It could accommodate 35 guests, and was owned by Wilder’s Steamship Company, an inter-island line. Since there was only a trail to Kilauea from Hilo – not even a road – most visitors were tendered ashore at Honuapo, in Ka’u, and driven uphill in horse-drawn carriages. When a new Volcano House was built next door, in 1891, the old log cabin became an extra guest-wing.

In 1921, a grand 100-room hotel replaced them both on the rim of Halema’uma’u crater, and the 1877 building was moved a few hundred feet back from the edge, to be used only for storage. That was fortunate because, when a fire in 1940 destroyed the big Volcano House, the old building was spared, and was pressed into service as a lodge once more, until the current Volcano House was completed in 1941.

Old Volcano House

After that, the old building sat unused and deteriorating until the 1970s, when it was rescued by a team of historically-minded carpenters. They restored it to its original appearance, and made it into what it is today: the Volcano Art Center, in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Go there now, and you can almost see Holmes and Watson talking and smoking by the fireplace, or sitting on their lanai, gazing out over the crater . . . .

The building that was used as the Volcano House Hotel from 1877 to 1921 now houses a gallery for the Volcano Art Center, in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

I learned “The Story of the Volcano House” from a book of that name by Gunder E. Olson, that’s available in the Park’s gift-shop and at Basically Books, on the Bayfront in Hilo.

For more information about “Sherlock Holmes & The Volcano Horror,” phone Hal at 808-895-4816 or email him at hal@halglatzer.com.

A Historic Home Has Closed

Most “historic” homes here are merely old, and not especially significant in local history.  Fewer still are also visitor attractions. But among those that can rightly be considered of historical value, and well worth a tour, none is more important than the Parker family seat, Puuopelu. Unfortunately, it’s now closed.

Puuopelu

It stands a hundred yards or so off Hwy 190, on the dry side of Waimea – also called Kamuela, the Hawaiian rendition of “Samuel,” and specifically Samuel Parker, next to whose ranchland the town itself grew up.

Samuel’s father, John Palmer Parker II, created the eponymous Parker Ranch in the early 1800s, under a grant from King Kamehameha I himself, to round up and fence in feral cattle that had become a nuisance.

Parker Ranch

His original home, a few miles away, was a cottage in the New England “saltbox” style, but whose entire interior – walls, ceilings and floors – were paneled in wide koa boards.  In 1879, Samuel acquired a Victorian mansion called Puuopelu (literally a “pile of stones” but figuratively the “folding hills” of Kohala, which border the property).  It has been the family seat ever since.  Several generations have remodeled and expanded the house, and in 1986 John Parker’s cottage was dismantled, moved, reassembled and erected right next door.

That was a favorite project of Richard Smart, the home’s most colorful Parker heir, and the last of his family to have owned the ranch outright. 

Richard Smart. Photo courtesy Parker Ranch.

Though an expert horseman, and a serious collector of European art, especially fond of paintings of Venice, Smart was not a rancher by profession.  Mainly, he was a singer, actor and theatrical producer, and in that capacity was largely responsible for the creation of the Kahilu Theater, a marvelous performance venue, which now stands in the Waimea shopping center that’s also named after the Parker Ranch.

Since Smart’s death in 1992, ownership and operation of the ranch and of Puuopelu have been the responsibility of the Parker Ranch Foundation Trust.  But the Trust has lost money in recent years, forcing it to sell some 3,500 (of its 130,000) acres of ranchland for residential development. And this past January, it announced that the historic home would be closed to visitors.  An exception was made, though, for the weekend of the Cherry Blossom Heritage Festival, during which admission was free!

The celebration of the first cherry blossoms of the spring dates back to 7th century Japan. Aristocrats of the day would enjoy the blossoms while writing poetry beneath the flowering branches. Today “hanami” (literally hana, flower and mi, look) is the single word in the Japanese language that means “Cherry Blossom viewing party.” Photo courtesy Parker Ranch.

A Trust spokeswoman told the West Hawaii Today newspaper in January that the Ranch will continue to offer visitors horseback and all-terrain vehicle tours, and hunting excursions, on the land.  (Go to www.parkerranch.com for details.) It’s only the house-tours that will no longer be available.

Riders will feel like Hawaiian paniolo (cowboys) as they ride through old stone corrals where up to 5,000 Hereford cattle were once rounded up after being brought down from the slopes of Mauna Kea. Photo courtesy Parker Ranch.

So, what will be missed?  Plenty.  The estate includes John Parker II’s old koa-paneled cottage, a carriage-house with two of the family’s own buggies, and an Italian-style parterre garden that sits above a lake-size pond.  The main house has Victorian and early 20th century furnishings, as well as Richard Smart’s important art collection.  Inside Puuopelu, too, are some museum-worthy historical documents, such as the formal commission making Richard’s father, John Parker III, a cabinet minister to Queen Liliuokalani; and a handwritten letter of thanks to him from a grateful visitor: the Queen’s predecessor, her brother, King Kalakaua.

Could You Live Off-the-Grid? Part VIII – Surfing (the Web) in Hawaii

Internet access is the biggest challenge for an off-the-grid user. Without telephone “land-lines” for DSL, or CATV cables for high-speed connectivity, you will have to accept a somewhat slower service. And when you’re off the grid, speed is very much a function of money.

The least expensive option is to get internet access from a cell-phone provider, which will sell you a small modem to plug into your computer’s USB port, and a “plan” that’s scaled by hours of usage. If you go with the same carrier as for your phone, there may be a discount; but in general, adding internet access will approximately double your monthly cell-phone bill. Internet speed over a cellular network is faster than dial-up; but unless your land is close to multiple cell-phone towers, that speed will not be much faster than dial-up.

If you don’t need to be on-line frequently or for long stretches of time, cell phone connectivity is a bargain – and there’s a big bonus in going this route: When you travel, you’ll never have to look for – or pay for – a “wi-fi hotspot.”  This is very convenient in airports, and will save you money in hotels where high-speed internet, whether wired or wireless, is a pricy extra on your bill.

In short, wherever you can get cell phone service, anywhere in the country, you can also do your emailing, and browse the Web. But for your home-based computer, away from urban centers, you may find it frustratingly slow. And only one computer at a time can get on line that way: you can’t connect a “router” (see below) to a cell phone modem.

For that, you need something different. There are local companies on the Big Island that offer internet access through microwave antennas. Their monthly fees are higher than for cell phone connectivity, and you may have to buy (rather than lease) the antenna. But microwave speeds are higher than cell phone speeds. To get microwave services, however, your house must be on a direct line-of-sight with one of their antenna towers. A technician will have to go out to your place to verify that you can, in fact, get on their network.

From most places on the island, however, it is much easier to see the sky than to see a tower. So, a satellite internet service, such as StarBand, may be easier to obtain. The speed of satellite connectivity does not equal but it does approach that of DSL or cable, close enough that most users will not feel frustrated. Monthly fees are comparable to those for microwave service: but the initial cost may be higher, since you will probably have to buy the antenna. And that antenna will be bigger than the antenna for satellite TV, because it not only has to receive signals, it has to transmit them too. The dish and its installation may cost as much as $2,000.

Besides higher speeds, though, the big advantage of going with either a microwave or a satellite connection is that you can use a wireless router to set up a private “local-area network” (LAN), through which anyone in a 50-100-foot radius can log on, do email or surf the Web. That is, you can get on line not only from your desk but from your lanai, bedroom, back yard . . . from pretty much wherever you wish.

There is a great sense of satisfaction in knowing, as you browse the Web, talk on your cell phone, contemplate your solar panels, and drink your rainwater . . . that you are unfettered, bound by no wires to the matrix of utilities in which everyone else resides. Off-the-grid you are, as nearly as possible, independent and free.

At this off-the-grid house, the small dish on the roof is for television reception. The big dish - bigger because it has to transmit as well as receive - is for internet service, and rests on the ground. Both dishes face the southeastern sky.

This concludes my eight-part series about living off-the-grid. With all of these options for water, electricity and telecommunications, there is no need to give up any modern conveniences. You can live off-the-grid here.

But the question I originally posed was “Could you . . . ?” And the answer boils down to this: You certainly could – but only if you are willing to do for yourself what others have always done for you, and will accept responsibility for things you have previously taken for granted.

View Other Posts in the “Could You Live Off-the-Grid?” Series

Could You Live Off-the-Grid? Part VII: Staying In Touch

Once you have secured water and electricity, and can keep the temperature comfortable in your off-the-grid house, you can start thinking about what most people also consider key ingredients of civilized life: telephone, television and internet.

Obviously, you can not have a “land-line” if you are off the grid. But you may already have a cellular phone, and market research shows that more and more people – in younger demographics, especially – are now using their cell phone as their only phone.

All the major carriers (e.g. Verizon, AT&T, etc.) are here on the Big Island. Their coverage areas overlap, and reception is generally very good. If you are contemplating buying a particular piece of land, you will want to make and receive a cell-phone call while you’re checking the place out. There are only a few “dead” zones on the island, most noticeably at the bottom of the three gulches along the Hamakua Coast; but it’s not likely that you’ll be living down there.

Cell phones are very reliable, and there are many (some folks would say “too many”) choices of equipment. You can have anything from a simple voice-only phone to a phone with a camera – even a video camera – to something like a Blackberry that gives you almost as much power as a laptop computer, to do email and browse the Web (about which, more next time). A client of mine, who needs to constantly hack down ginger and other weeds around his stream, found it necessary – after a little mishap – to get a cell phone that is waterproof!

The only disadvantage to having a cell phone as your only phone is that you don’t get listed in local telephone directories – they are published by the land-line phone companies – though you could, if your business needs the exposure, buy a listing in one of the “yellow-pages” directories and include your cell phone number there. Otherwise, if someone wants to phone you, they will need to know your number already, or acquire it some other way – perhaps by a “Google” search.

Satellite TV is very popular in Hawaii, even where cable TV is available and convenient. Both Dish Network and DirecTV  are offered here, and their rates are competitive. The only technical requirement is that the bowl-shaped antenna must be able to “see” its affiliated satellite(s) in the southeastern sky, with no hills or trees blocking the way. Typically, it’s about two feet in diameter, and doesn’t weigh much, so it is usually mounted right on the house (or can be pole mounted, cemented in the ground).

TV Satellite: Roof Mounted

TV Satellite: Pole Mounted, Cemented in Ground

Like cable services, most satellite services include a digital video recorder (DVR) for recording programs to watch at your convenience. This is especially useful in Hawaii, because we are two hours behind the West Coast and five hours behind the East Coast (three and six, respectively, in the months when the Mainland observes Daylight Saving Time – which Hawaii does not).

Time-specific programs, like sports events, may have ended by the time you are ready to see them, and local broadcasts of national programming, such as PBS documentaries, may not be shown on the same day and time as on Mainland stations.

There are some downsides to satellite TV. Your choice of channels may be limited, compared to cable programming; and although light rain won’t interfere, a really big storm can interrupt your TV reception. Also, since any electronic equipment may fail unexpectedly, you may want to consider getting a DVR that allows you to back up recorded programs on an external hard-disk drive.

TV is passive; the Internet is interactive. I’ll cover internet options next time.

View Other Posts in the “Could You Live Off-the-Grid?” Series

Could You Live Off-the-Grid Part II: (Electric) Power to the People

In my discussion of catching rainwater, last time, I neglected to mention that in some places it’s possible to draw water from a well, especially if your land is near to places where Hawaii County draws its water. But finding a reliable and sufficient source of water underground is not easy, and on the drier, western side of the island, wells have to be drilled very, very deep. So, you may get lucky. Or not. And the cost of drilling could exceed the cost of a catchment tank. Besides, a well needs a pump – and that means you need electricity.

There are four ways that people here generate their own electricity: fuel, wind, hydro, and solar. I’ll cover the first three now, and discuss solar next time.

• Fuel. By far the easiest way to get power is to buy a generator, keep it stocked with whatever it burns — typically either diesel or propane — and run it until your batteries are charged, roughly six hours a day. With either fuel, you can assume that your electricity will cost a few hundred dollars a month — about what you’d pay Hawaii Electric Light Co. (HELCO), the local utility. Generators are not expensive, but you should balance that low initial investment against the certainty that the price of fossil fuels will keeping going up, even if renewable alternatives like bio-diesel or methane enter the mass-market. (No matter how you make your own power, if you live off the grid you should have a generator anyway, even if it’s only a portable gasoline model, for backup or emergencies.)

• Hydro. If you have a good-size stream on your land, a hydroelectric turbine may be the way to go. The machinery is not very expensive, and you do not need a waterfall, as long as the water level drops at least 40 feet from the intake point down (through a pipe) to the turbine. But the stream has to run year-round, and in a drought lasting several weeks, even some large streams may shrink or dry up. Ironically, the only serious disadvantage to hydro is that under normal conditions you may get too much power from it! Unlike breezes or sunshine, streams run 24/7. After your batteries have been fully charged, any excess electricity can damage your system: it must either be stored (in yet more batteries) or consumed immediately. One fellow I know had to buy a chest-freezer and an air conditioner solely to soak up all the electricity from the turbine in his stream.

• Wind. A small windmill may generate enough power for a barn (or a well-pump) but a windmill sufficient to power a household must be quite large, and hence expensive. On this island, that’s a viable option only if your land is really windy, which you’ll know because your trees are bent over, as they are near HELCO’s “wind farms” — clusters of turbines – -at the northern (Kohala) and southern (Ka’u) capes. On the Hamakua Coast, the onshore tradewinds are not constant; and on the Kona coast, daytime breezes tend to die down at sunset.

View Other Posts in the “Could You Live Off-the-Grid?” Series

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All of these images are presented in a very easy to navigate sorter. Choose your Island from the Island Overview Map, then choose your view. Or view as a slideshow from any image view.

You can view directly using this link or by going to www.Hilo-Brokers.com and clicking the “Resources/Coastline and Scenic Photos” link.

All images provided by Brian Powers and www.hawaiianimages.net (and high quality images are also available for online purchase if you find one you like).

Here’s Aaron’s first contribution about our Hamakua Coast ride:

• Map of the ride

Our first ride took us from Hilo, Hawaii up the Hamakua Coast on the Mamaloha Highway that winds along the eastern side of the island. It was simply a stunning day. We couldn’t have asked for better.Our first detour along the way was the 4 mile scenic route along the old Mamaloha Highway. This is a beautiful detour that winds along lush forest, waterfalls, Onomea Bay, smoothie shack and a botanical garden.The road is almost completely covered by plants in some areas, giving a feeling as though you are riding through a living tunnel, and in a way you are — just watch for the moss growing on the road as it is very slippery and can lead to some un-fun sliding.

Onomea bay is absolutely amazing (it can be seen in the first video linked at the end), and to think they once unloaded freight from ships there! After we enjoyed the view for a few minutes we continued on past the botanical gardens to What’s Shakin smoothie shack, where we met Tim Withers who owns and operates it with his wife Peggy. Here we interviewed Tim about his upcoming Baja races and his feelings about Hawaii motorcycle riding.

After our fantastic smoothies we continued our ride along the coastal route before coming back to the highway. It was a true detour.As we continued along the highway enjoying the great view, wonderful asphalt and the gorgeous day, we came in contact with one of the few speed traps on the island. Between two 55 mph zones there is a 45mph zone. It isn’t very big so people don’t seem to slow down, so the police sit on the side of the road and enjoy the easy prey as they fly by. But we easily missed this trap as having lived here for quite some time we knew the secrets. Riding through the gulches can be a lot of fun — long wide sweeping turns allow a lot of space to lean and drag your knee. The rest of the ride was uneventful other than the great view and wonderful weather.

We finished the ride at an amazing home overlooking an amazing bay. We relaxed and enjoyed the view before heading back.

This was an amazing ride that covered approximately 120 miles. Although this could easily be added-to if you explored all the various side roads that wind through farms, forests and orchards, it was a fantastic ride in the middle of February.

Stay tuned for the next entry that I can hopefully do this Sunday if the weather holds out. I also hope to take more stills, but this time our still camera broke at our first stop, and all we had is the video camera.