Oh yeah...
Copyright © 2018
by Ralph F. Couey
So, this sojourn we are on has us hopping time zones as we zig back and forth. We left Denver on the 14th and flew to Maryland. That's two time zones. Then we flew back to Denver for about 18 hours. That's two back the other direction. Tomorrow at around oh-dark-thirty, we'll crawl on yet another airliner and hop four more time zones to Honolulu. When I was younger, this kind of thing would completely scramble my internal clock, leaving me with sleepy days and sleepless nights. But this time, I am aided by that peculiar time zone that always accompanies us senior citizens. It really doesn't matter where we are, or when we are, we're always down for a nap. Or two.That particular freedom that comes from retirement gives me nap leverage at any time of the day. I'm old, so I sleep. So, this particular body is on its own clock which seems to operate in its own dimension of time and space. Were I still working, this would be its own kind of annoyance.
Where I am struggling is not with the clock, but with the climate. When we left Denver, it was warm and very, very dry. When we exited the terminal at Baltimore-Washington International we walked into a totally tropical air mass; warm and very humid, the kind where you break a sweat just getting the keys out of your pocket. The two weeks on the east coast were repetitious cycles of heat and humidity, except for two really nice days. This morning I humped suitcases out of our son's house and once they were packed into his mini-van, I was ready for another shower. But upon arrival back in Denver, we walked out into a day in the low seventy's with low humidity, about as perfect a day as one could ask for.
Tomorrow we leave for Honolulu where it will once again be warm and humid. My wife reminds me, "But the trade winds are always blowing," which in my experience is kinda the same thing as describing a Phoenix summer as "dry heat." The thing is, if you stay their long enough, the skin pores open up and those conditions feel really nice. Not as nice as a crisp October day in the lower 48 mind you, but still nice. Acclimatization is a process for every place, though. Coming to Denver for the first time some 20 months ago, we had to adapt to the altitude. That took about six months of being chronically short of breath and dealing with some edema as well. But once that was done, we really didn't notice the effect in our daily routines. Where it showed up for me was in hiking. The first trail I did here involved a 700-foot ascent from a parking lot to a flat-topped mesa. What had been a simple thing in Virginia darned near killed me here.
Being a midwesterner, I am accustomed to seasons. One hot, one cold, and two in-between. In Hawai'i, you could record the weather forecast, play it every day and you'd be right probably 320 days out of the year. Winter means lower eighties instead of upper eighties, and rain happens more often, but that's about it. There are no explosions of fall color, not that the normal flora and fauna need any help in that department, but I will simply have to get used to it all over again.
Hawai'i is a paradise, as long as you don't look too closely. There are unpleasant things residents deal with every day which are largely invisible to tourists. Traffic, for example. Being an island, you would think that people there would realize that there are only so many cars upon which will fit. After decades of bitter fighting, a light rail system is being built, albeit very slowly. It seems that few of O'ahu's citizenry liked the idea, seeing as how the pylons and trackage block the view of the ocean. But I think the first time those folks zing to work while watching the parking lot that is the H-1 freeway twice a day will bring a lot of converts. It had to be done, or the government was going to start rationing cars.
The homeless problem, crisis actually, is one that challenges both the government and the citizens. It has been calculated that a family of four needs to generate at least $60,000 in income just to live at the poverty level. You can't get that working at a grocery store. Police and Public Works crews do regular clean-ups of homeless encampments, and other places wherever they can find a place to rest their heads. Southern California has learned that such areas can't be ignored, as those places can become vectors for disease outbreaks.
Very few people can afford to live there. Housing prices are through the roof, so high that younger folks, instead of buying a home are adding a second story onto their parents dwelling, as that is marginally cheaper. Also, there is a thing called leasehold. The land in Hawai'i doesn't belong to the homeowner in a lot of cases. It was bought long ago by any one of the original five companies that started business interests. Now, when you buy a house, or condo, or apartment, you not only have a confiscatory mortgage payment, you also have the leasehold payment and the HOA fees on top of that, which turns an $1,800 mortgage payment into a $6,000 per month financial disaster. Bear in mind also that neither leasehold payments or HOA fees are tax deductible like mortgage interest. And if you buy a place and the lease ends, or the lease holder decides to terminate the arrangement, you are tossed to the curb, having lost every cent of your investment. Thus, in a state swarming with liberal democrats who say they hate the one-percenters, the whole system is set up to coddle the very rich.
I think that if banks would offer a 50-year mortgage, that might bring the payments down to something approaching affordable, but until the land monopoly is broken, for the common folk, life in paradise will remain an unattainable dream.
Everything is expensive, since it has to be shipped in. Fruit, vegetables, milk, bread, ground beef, gasoline, all those basic items needed to survive take a sizeable bite out of the monthly budget. Frankly, I don't see how people survive.
Tourists don't see any of that, of course. It's hard to see human misery while laid out on the white sandy beaches, or buzzing around the elite stores at Ala Moana Shopping Center.
And yet, we are going there, for at least one and perhaps as many as four years. Does that make me a hypocrite? Or is it just a priceless opportunity for my wife to spend time in the place she has always called "home?" This clash of ethics however is washed away when we see the look on people's faces when we tell them, "We're moving to Hawai'i."
Cheryl grew up there, and we lived there for the first five years of my Navy career, so island life is something we are approaching with eyes wide open. Balancing against all the negatives I've listed here is the incredible warmth and hospitality of the people of Hawai'i. That thing they call the "Aloha Spirit" is very real, and something in which the locals take a great deal of pride. It's easy to get along with folks here as long as you return that welcome as warmly as it is given. And if you're of the Caucasian persuasion, you are now a distinct minority and you'd better remember that. Uppity whites are not tolerated there, and for very good and proper reasons.
As I have written here ad nauseum life is an endless procession of changes, a kind of parade if you will. And now we will march onward.
No comments:
Post a Comment