Sophia, Sam, and Malia: Grandchildren Popping out all over

Wednesday, March 13, 2002 Kohala

I packed up my tent after breakfast even though tonight I have a camping permit for Hookena. It's been weird feeling ever since the the white wagoneer parked on beach, all four doors open, with its stereo blasting crappy music. Then the local da kine decided to make have a battle of the dueling truck stereos playing different styles of crappy sounds. There was a potluck birthday party at the far end of the beach with the spiritual dolphin swimmer types sitting around a bonfire trying to sing consciousness enhancing chants over the dueling bass notes from the truck boom-chuggas. It was a very negative vibrations fueled by a lot of alcohol.

While writing this on my laptop while waiting to get a table at Cafe Pesto in Kohola I met John who is running so charity event: golfing with celebrities or something like that. I also had a fun talk with one of the "celebrities", Barry, number 79 of the Green Bay Packers. He plays tackle/tight end. He's been with nine teams in six years and now he is a starter.

Anyway, back at Hookena around 9 PM I decided that things were getting too weird and I didn't want to be involved in any fights. I took my guitar and got in my truck and drove away. While I was gone the local DA kine beat up some of the spiritual types. Some of them were cut up, but they didn't think seriously enough to go to the hospital.

Thursday, March 14, 2002 Kohala

I've been hanging out at Hapuna State Beach Park for the last two days. It is a beautiful beach and I've been having a lot of fun boogie boarding. The waves have been small by Hawaii standards, but every once in a while a good set comes in, last night there was one that was so big, so steep and opaque with sand sucked up from the bottom and closing out all at once in a big tube . When the air compressed by the collapsing wave escaped it sent spray way up towards the sky. No way I'd want to be riding anything like that.

I was the last one out of the park last night. It was a beautiful sunset, I would like to have taken a picture, but I was boogie boarding. After a shower I got my guitar and sang some songs. (Showers at beaches are a great idea, something we could learn on Martha's Vineyard - part of the problem is that a cold water shower on the Vineyard is COLD while out here it is generally comfortable.)

(NOTE: I'M HAVING SOME PROBLEMS TRYING TO PUT MY MUSIC UP ON THE WEB- BUT DON'T DESPAIR, i'LL KEEP WORKING ON IT AND COME BACK HERE AND FIX IT WHEN i'VE GOTTEN IT FIGURED OUT)

Don't Look Back, a song uncle Bob wrote for Marianne Click here if you want to hear me singing it for the surf and the Magpies(DON'T BOTHER, DOESN'T WORK YET!)

Friday, March 15, 2002 Mahukona

I woke up this morning and found a note outside the door to my tent thanking me for playing songs last night. It is nice to get positive feedback, especially since one of my goals for this winter's trip is to put together a CD of the songs I sing. I figure if I get them down then I can move on to new stuff and I'll also have a lot of music ready to use for my Jay's View Videos. While I've been out here in Hawaii I've been recording my singing using my Video camera. It seems to have a pretty good mike and it records the sound digitally at either 32K or 48K. Then I capture it into my computer, edit it into songs using Premiere, and convert it into CD format. Then I can burn the songs onto a CD-R using the computer and listen to it on my truck's stereo when I drive around. It has a "live" sound, lots of ambient sounds like surf breaking, birds singing or people talking. Being digital from the time the camcorder captures it the sound is very lifelike. I like it, it also fits the "good enough" artistic philosophy I've been developing. I work on a project until I feel it is "good enough". As Picasso said, "If you don't have red use blue."

Later, having lunch at Los Tres Hombres in Kawaihae. I'm feeling pretty wasted from spending many hours boogie boarding "the Wedge". "The Wedge" is the local name for the break caused when the reflection of a wave off the cliff at the South end of Hapuna Beach meets the next wave and causes a nice sharp peak to travel down the incoming wave. If you catch it right you can fly down the face of the wave going twice as fast as you would going straight in. If you catch it wrong you can get thrown for quite a loop.

I'm finally starting to get back into doing my yoga/stretch routine. It is not only good for me, but it is also I good way to get in touch with my body and feel where I'm hurting and what needs work. I'm feeling very good, but my muscles are feeling the workouts I've been giving them. It is a tough balance to work hard enough to build muscle, but not hard enough to injure myself. As I get older, I'll be 58 in June, I find that it is easier to hurt yourself overdoing things and takes longer to recover from injuries. A large part of recovering from my back injury has been learning to listen to what my body, especially my back, is telling me. Pain is a funny thing: sometimes it means you are in serious danger of hurting yourself, other times, such as when you are holding your breath free diving, it is more of a warning that your body wants to breathe and can safely be ignored for short time.

Tuesday, March 19, 2002 back at Hookena

Sunday it started to blow while I was boogie boarding at Hapuna. The surf was small even before the wind messed it up and it was very crowded so I left and went back to the campground at Mahukona knowing that if it was windy at Hapuna it would be howling at Mahukona.
Sure enough when I got there all I could see was two blown down tents.

Fortunately my tent was in the lee of a tree and still standing, though bending in the gusts. Figuring there was no point in fighting the weather I packed up and drove down to Hookena where there was no wind, but it did pour rain that night. I put my space blanket over the top of the tent so it didn't leak and had a good night's sleep.

Tuesday morning the dolphins came to Hookena for the first time in more than two weeks. There were a lot of them, about 50, and the little ones were doing a lot of jumping and spinning through the air. They weren't feeling very sociable, no one wanted to play the leaf game, but it was beautiful to be out there in the deep blue swimming with them as shafts of sunlight sparkled through the water creating a very magical feeling of light and space.

Later I called Cornwall, the answering machine said they were taking Sam to the hospital, so I left a message saying I hoped Sam was OK. A few minutes later Marianne called me back so for the first time I answered my cell phone here in Hawaii. The message on the machine was from last Saturday, but it turns out that they had gone to the Hospital late Monday night and Tuesday morning Chris gave birth to Malia Lynn Hodges, six pounds eleven ounces of beautiful baby girl.

I'm a proud "grampa Jay". Sunset at Hookena was beautiful and I got out my guitar and sang Malia some songs under the waxing moon. I feel sure that she will lead a wonderful life, full of love and adventure.

Jay holding Malia's cousin Dashiell the day he was born: November 11, 2001

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