Small Kid Time

Last night I enjoyed a great dinner and conversation with Sheri (Awai) Garboden and Chubby (Kea) Ringer on the occasion of Sheri's husband Lee's 54th birthday. Besides graduating from Kamehameha together, we graduated together from Pacific University (along with Lee and Chubby's husband, Reed). My relationship with these women goes back 40+ years and I consider them as close as my own sisters.

It was a great evening because we got to talk about "small kid time" days back in Kailua. Chubby's house was the center of activity for us in 7th grade, when we were at Kailua Intermediate. She lived in a neighborhood that had a huge cast of assorted characters, among them, Ted Oliveira, a Kamehameha student since kindergarten. Ted brought some of his Kamehameha friends into the fold including Peter Gonsalves and Sheri Awai. Sheri's two cousins, Julie Beth Wong and Mason Honda, connected into the group and soon we had this Kailua/Kamehameha "thing" going on. Best friends Holly Nishimura and Jackie Au made appearances during our intermediate school years, but by the time Chubby and I got into Kamehameha (9th grade), our group started to shift it's base to Peter's house in Kaneohe where many of Peter's boarder friends (Myron Kealamakia (Lindsey), Alika Atay, George Costa and others) would be hanging out. Soon Cookie Parker (Sumner), Terry Bell (Gonsalves), and Puanani Anakalea connected in and we had our own revolving "clique" that fused us together for life.

All over Hawaii, little "pods" of future '72er's were forming. Right down the street from me in Kailua, Diane Ling, Mary Elizabeth Weatherwax (Bacon), Joanne Huber, Renae Sanborn (Villa) and Laureen Kim were having their 3rd grade picture taken at St. Anthony's Catholic School. Iris Lindo would come later. Fred Miyagi and Brian Hussey came from Kailua Intermediate with Chubby and I.

Out in Waianae, BJ DeMello (Tang), Joe Lapilio, Nahua Maunakea, Charlene Naho'oikaika and Chucky Soon were all in elementary school together. If you expand the west O'ahu area, then add Billy Shaver, Skippy Lopes, Marie Quindica, Arthur Perkins and Manoa McFeely. In St. Augustine's in Honolulu, there were future Warriors, Milton Olmos, Debbie Lau (Okamura), Barbara Lau (Orrell), Kevin Lopes, Donnette Plunkett, Frances Kanae (Becker) and Willie Kanae. Later, Debbie and Barbara would head to Star of the Sea where they would be joined by Jonathan Spencer, Randy Chang, Patrick Iona and Kaohu Cummings.

On the east side of Kaua'i, Wesley Kaui, Milton Burgess, Ku'ulei Bender (Ho), George Costa, Pat Hashimoto, Rodney Bayne and Victor Punua were all in elementary school together and would eventually end up at Kapalama. Hilo natives Bimo Akiona, Clayton Chong, Dave Osorio and Barry Yamada knew each other long before arriving at Kamehameha.

Many of us think about Kamehameha as our "formative" years and certainly many of those relationships (especially among boarders) are still key pieces of our lives today, but some of our connections came long before Kamehameha and I think that's one of the essential pieces that makes our class so close. (Note: if I left anybody out of these little "pods", let me know and I'll add you in, Mahalo!). Aloha, Benny