Daniel usually wears an emergency green vest and walks the path between Kahekili and the cemetery. Today, he wore a dark vest and walked next to the highway to avoid water and mud. I called him on it. Hadn't seen him in months, it seems. "I read your stories to my grandkids on facetime before bed," he told me. (That may be the very best review I've ever had.) I walked over mud patches so I could hear him better. "A homeless guy asked another guy for money. The other guy said he only had big bills. So give me one, the homeless guy said. It was an electric bill." Daniel has given me one bad joke every time we've talked over the years.
We'd missed the waterfalls, and couldn't see the mountains for the clouds. "If you go up to the top," Puna told me, "you can hear the stream coming down. It's loud. He remarked that the cemetery feels empty these days. The security guys were let go (replaced by cameras on high poles). "Felt like family," he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment