Here's where we lived . . . but not in this house. Our house was so beat-up that after we moved out, the owners tore it down and rebuilt a new one.
When it rained, water would come pouring down the lane from the mountain. I used to love to play in the rain. I would form a V with my feet to create a dam and let the water collect. Then I would open up the dam and let the water flow free. One day while doing this, I noticed an ant floating down in a trickle of water. I thought that it might've drowned and that it was dead. I watched as it floated. Then I saw it walking. Hmmm, so it wasn't dead after all. Then he did the neatest thing. He jumped back into the water! And again he floated lazily down further. Again and again, each time his feet would hit solid ground, he would walk to the water's edge and jump back in. I was entranced. I followed him all the way down to level ground.
Fast forward to the present . . . last week at work:
Mel: Hey, there's an ant over here.
Me: Don't kill it!
CQ: What ant? I don't see no ant.
Me: Don't kill it!
Mel: It's in a better place now.
Me: NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
10 comments:
Jalna, where exactly in Palolo is this? I think I told you early on that I lived in Palolo Valley from 6th grade to the summer between my junior year & senior year in high school and then we moved to Kailua. The lane we lived was on the opposite side of the street going down to a stream at the end of our street instead of the mountain side. I have to see if I can find the address on some pictures I have of the house we lived in. It was up towards the end. Just before you got to our lane, there was a side street that went up towards houses on the side of the hill and Palolo Avenue went around a curve, when the street got around the curve, it became
10th Avenue. The houses on your lane bring back so many memories.
Betty, our lane ran perpendicular to Palolo Avenue about a mile in from Waialae Ave. It's two streets after Rainbow Mart. It sounds like you lived in the Carlos Long part of Palolo Valley. So did you attend Jarrett Intermediate too?
Cant EVEN believe that pothole is still there.....wow....gave me goose bumps.....and memories of Geri lying on the ground, her tricycle at her side....
PS-gosh, when we were younger, the houses up top St Louis Hts seemed father away, from your shot, looks like you can walk up the mountain to those houses.....
. . . puka under her chin.
I know, I know . . . when I went to take the pictures. I thought sheeze the lane is so much narrower than I remember and Palolo Superette and Palolo Sundries (not there anymore) is way closer than I remember. Didi do you remember the fried tako at Palolo Superette? I forgot to go check 'um out.
We were much further up Palolo Avenue. No, I didn't go to Jarrett, my younger sister did. I went to Kaimuki Intermediate up on 24th Ave (I think). Well, I found the pictures of the house we lived in but there's no address on these pictures that I can see. It seems to me if was in the 4000's. We also lived up in St. Louis Heights. I just saw the houses on the hill looking again at your pictures. Our address there was 1642 Alencastre St. When we lived there we were the second to the last house on the street. Just before we left that house to go to the Big Island to live for a year and a half, the clearing of the trees beyond our house had started.
Betty, at the very top of St. Louis Heights is a beautiful park called Wa'ahila Ridge Park. I took wedding photos of Kalei and Marian there.
I got this e-mail from Betty remembering "kid time", and I wanted to include it here:
Hi Jalna,
Well, it's been bugging me exactly where our house was on Palolo Valley. I did a Google search and found a really nice Google map of Palolo Valley and St. Louis Heights was also included.
Anyway, our house was on the right side of Palolo Avenue, down one of the many lanes, between Orchid Street and Carlos Long. According to the map it would have been the 2300 block. There was a turn around at the bottom of our lane and there was a stream that ran through there. We use to play in the stream catching tadpoles. Sometimes we'd walk up the stream towards the bend in Palolo Avenue where 10th Avenue started. When it rained really heavy, the stream would overflow and it would be a lake down at the bottom. We had our own splash around pool. LOL!!
I also remembered that we lived in a house on the corner of Carlos Long and one of the side streets up at the top of Carlos Long. It might have been a corner house on Gardenia. I don't think we lived there very long. Until we moved to the house on Palolo Avenue, we moved several times. That would have been after we came back from the Big Island.
The house in St. Louis Heights was just up from Felix. If I remember correctly, Felix was steep coming down St. Louis Dr or maybe it was Bertram and then there was a dip at the bottom and then it climbed back up towards Alencastre. We called Felix the "Big Dipper" and my dad would drive down that street and hit that dip so it felt like the car was flying. We would yell, and scream and laugh and beg him to do it again. My older brother was riding his scooter down that hill one day and when he hit the dip, he flew off the scooter and skinned his chin really bad. After my mother bandaged him up, he went back up there to do it again. :)
Dear Jalna, you brought back so many precious memories seeing your pictures of where you lived in Palolo. Thank you, I have enjoyed thinking and remembering those small kid times!!
Betty
Thank you, Jalna. You are the best!
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