Luaus, Kamehameha and a crazy little thing called Swipe.

When I was young I moved to Hawaii to go to college. It was almost a lark, and I almost didn't go at all. During the waning days of high school when everyone around me seemed to have their "plan" worked out, I felt just as confused and aimless as I had been through the doldrums that were, to me, the summation of my HS career. Don't get me wrong, I was not a loner (unless I wanted to be), I was not part of any one group, but had friends in most of them. Mostly my interests were, as my Senior year started to wind down, all about ditching school to go to the beach; whether to catch a morning swell or just escape my first few classes. Luckily I had a Mom who would  write me notes so that even if I came to class smelling of seawater, I had been given a pass because I had gone to the "doctor."

Hawaii Loa Campus: Main Bldg in ctr, dorms far left-not bad huh?

One day in the mail I received one of those "your SAT scores might be high enough (but not too high) to come to our little private college on the windward side of Oahu" brochures. I visited Hawaii with my grandparents and cousins and we had a blast  What sea-loving kid in their right mind wouldn't want to go back; only this time with peers and no parents? The notion was short-lived and I continued to aim for graduation, not having a clue what I would look for to study once I inevitably went on to Pasadena City College (which was not a bad choice, but the fact I saw it as the only choice made me crazy). My mother, however  had a different notion and one day she offered me a deal: keep my grades up, apply to the college and if I got in, I could go. Excuse me? Did she know she said that out loud? The short of it was that in August of 1982 (no, dinosaurs did not still roam the Earth) I packed up and moved to Oahu.

A brief bit of context and description is probably in order. The school was small; mostly a commuter school but I lived in one of the concrete coed dormitories (Ilima, aka, The Swamp-you had to be there). I had a room-mate, two suite-mates and a dining card. There was a pub (beer and wine)!!Classes were held in the building slightly over the hill and there were always rumors of a pot farm up the mountain behind the school (a story to keep the kids out?). Two of my professors would come to class, kick off their slippahs (flip-flops) and start lecturing. Students came from all over the world; many from Pacific Island nations such as Tonga, Micronesia and Palau. Our mascot was the mongoose.

One other thing worthy of note: at the time, before Ronald Reagan and his Federal Highway Funding blackmail campaign, the drinking age was 18. I turned 18 two months after I arrived. OK  it is not significant now-but it was then ;) My roommate at the time was a snow bunny from Littleton, CO and we got on famously. We had several adventures that semester, but one in particular involved a Beach Boy (not the crazy, harmonious kind), a luau, and getting "swiped" out.

Beach Boys are synonymous with Waikiki; they were a group of watermen famous for patrolling and instructing on the famous Oahu beach when the Moana and Royal Hawaiian (the big, pink one) hotels were in their prime and the views of Diamond Head were obstructed only by palm trees. Nowadays, people know the lifeguards at Waikiki as Beach Boys, but they are not quite the same animal-except perhaps in their pursuit of amorous adventures with pretty blondes (remember the snow bunny?). One of these guys had a crush on my roomie and that crush got us an invite to a Hawaiian luau. Now, do me a favor and banish all thoughts of grass skirts, fire dancers and tiny bubbles; this was NOT that kind of luau.

Luaus are traditionally thrown as part of important celebrations. In this case, it was the first birthday (which is a pretty big deal in HI) of twins, Kepa and Kapua (no, I have no idea how I remember this stuff). This luau was not held on the beach under gas tiki torches with waiters in matching aloha shirts and kukui nut necklaces. Rather,the family rented tents and tables and folding chairs, enough to seat at least a hundred people at one time. The guests were as diverse as Hawaii herself; different ethnicities, nationalities, career ladders and sociopolitical leanings came together to celebrate what, in the old days was a huge accomplishment; children beating the infant mortality odds and surviving to one year.

This luau had lots of music because not only was there a band but every relative that could play anything brought instruments and joined in. Uke players, slack-key guitarists, keyboardists and drummers. They brought gourds, pahus (drums), split bamboo sticks and voices happily to include themselves...Men and women did spontaneous hula at the sound of a favorite rhythmic oli (chant). The entire space was happy, controlled chaos. Of course the babies were the main event and we all took turns greeting them and wishing them well (they were both asleep when I met them).

No luau, modern or ancient, would be complete without the feast.This was no Hilton Hawaiian Village menu. There were huge amounts of food that included TWO kahlua pigs (cooked in the ground in imus), lomi-lomi salmon (kind of a ceviche; lomi-lomi  means massage, you figure it out), chicken long rice, two kinds of poi (sweet and not), sweet potatoes, ulu (breadfruit), opihi (limpets), haupia (the yummiest type of a coconut custard) and to drink there was fruit punch, beer, and swipe. Swipe is sort of a fermented pineapple wine. It sounds harmless enough, I know...But holy mother of god... The problem was, Swipe went down ever-so-smoothly, and I love pineapples!

Now, I will be honest by saying that while I can see the images clearly in my mind's eye, I don't remember many conversations. Mostly they were about the babies, where we were from, how did we like Hawai'i, etc. Between the dancing the food and yes, the swipe, I found myself at one point staring at my unfinished plate in dismay. Some large "local boys" nearby asked me what was wrong. "Oh nothing, I am just getting really full." Then one of them said the line of the night (maybe the decade) in the sincerest tone and most authentic "pigeon": "At luaus you don't eat 'til you full; you eat til you tiyed."  So, not wanting to offend, I gamely finished every morsel of delicious traditional and local flavors on my plate. Then I got more swipe. The rest of the evening is a little fuzzy, but we did meet some  lovely people and we took home two gallons of swipe.

Statue of King Kamehameha the Great

That night, I swear I dreamed that King Kamehameha (don't ask which one) was going through my room with his bodyguards paddling a war canoe. He was, of course, resplendent in a feathered cloak and helmet and I remember, to this day, that it all seemed so real. So much for fermented pineapple-fueled dreaming...My mistake, in the end, was that I told my roommate.

The next night we invited the other Swamp rats over to our room to partake in this new nectar of  the gods. We drank and laughed and generally had a ball. I was called out of my room for whatever reason and by the time I came back, a bit later (and sadly, more sober), I walked in to find King Kamehameha (don't ask which one) paddling a canoe in my room. Or, rather, I found my Swamp-mates had turned over our beds, stacked the frames on top of each other, put a chair front and center on top and there sat our friend Matt; rattan waste bin on his head, roomie's paisley bedspread wrapped around him, and using a broom to paddle through the "ocean." that was our room.

At first, in my less then intoxicated state I was a bit peeved; they were laughing at my dream and they had trashed our room. But after another glass (or three) of swipe, the King found his bodyguards and we started paddling, with our eyes towards Molokai.

I don't remember a particularly harsh hangover with the pineapple treat, although I might have quashed it out of my mind. I have never had the drink since; never seen it commercially marketed, or heard anyone else talk about it. Looking back on those two nights, what strikes me now is not the swipe so much as the once-in-a-lifetime experiences of which it was a part. Haole (white) kids like me were not often invited to traditional, dare I say, authentic luaus. The transient nature of college typically means that friends come and go every semester (even I left for good at the end of 1983), so the Swamp rats changed (we even stopped calling it The Swamp). The truth is, my memory may have made getting "swiped" much better than it actually was. Perhaps the stuff is nasty.

I will admit that are a few adventures from my youth that involved varying quantities of alcohol. There was the time I won (lost) a drinking game and was so far gone that a Honolulu taxi driver said "I don't take no dead people."  The time we drove into the direction of a hurricane to stock up on supplies; while everyone else bought batteries and water, we bought alcohol and munchies.  There was Mykonos (no comment), Munich (Oktoberfest) and various and sundry college parties where the drink of choice was Crystal Light and vodka (can you imagine?). Then there was the reason I didn't couldn't drink sake for YEARS (still don't actually). Ahh youth. I am happy to say that I survived, relatively unscathed, which is probably saying a lot considering I come from a family of alcoholics. Nonetheless, I will always fondly remember pineapple wine, the snow bunny and the 7ft tall Beach Boy, eating "til I'm tiyed," insane friends and yes, King Kamehameha (don't ask which one) as delicious and intoxicating (in more ways than one) memories of my life on the windward side...