An hour at the retirement home

Yesterday at the retirement home on Kalakaua: A. wrote about her sadness at not being able to simply leave her condo and cross the street for food, and yearns for the days when "everything was ok." Her husband sits next to her wearing a golden medallion around his neck, his eyes empty. B. associates happiness with having her hearing aids turned on (showing not telling, you know). F.'s hair is done like that of a much younger person; there's as much lipstick between her lower lip and chin as there is on her mouth. Her uncle would hold his paralyzed wife's hand, feel how many squeezes to know what she wanted. He was taken away after December 7 to the mainland, his 12 year old daughter left with her mother. When her mother died, the girl was shipped off to the camp with her father. An old Asian woman (I always presume they're from Hawai'i, somehow), who is very deaf, spoke up to say that she'd grown up in St. Louis, in the only Asian family. They were not supposed to speak up, but the teachers asked them questions directly, because they always knew the answers. D, a white woman with long stringy hair, wrote a wonderful "memory card" according to my recipe. There were mudpies in it that didn't taste good, and a turnabout on taking care of her son who now cares for her. There was a question about "how much longer?" and then an overheard sentence about a woman who is pregnant. There's so much sadness, anger, humor, in the group, even if they rarely hear or follow directions.

Two Tales

1.

At the corner of Hui Iwa and Hui Kelu streets, Lilith and I run into a small one-eyed dog named Rosie and her 72-year old walker, sunglasses wrapped around his eyes. He calls the police three times a week about vehicles that run the stop sign at high speed. I chime in with the story of a guy who leapt out of his car and broke my husband's coffee mug after we yelled at him for flying through the crosswalk where kids walk to get to school. He adds that he yelled at a woman who roars down the road at 50 mph right through the stop sign and a guy got out of her car and yelled, "I'm going to stuff that little dog up your ass!" "You'd better start now," said the dog walker, "because I've done martial arts for decades. I don't start fights, but I don't back away, either."  "They're not interested in us," he says, "they're only interested in themselves."

Then the conversation turns. He says, "like the Democrats, so entitled" . . . "But . . . " I respond." And those damn Millennials or whatever you call them," he continues, "they have no sense of responsibility, but they're always working too hard for two little; I got 28 of them working for me." I tell him I teach at UH and really like this generation of kids. "You fit right in at UH! You're just one of those people who won't listen to anyone else. Here I am in the center, sitting on the fence while both sides sharpen it. You know what happens then? CIVIL WAR is what happens." No, the problem isn't Trump, he tells me, the problem is his MOUTH; he talks like a pre-teen--the candidate who ran against him was the corrupt one. Totally.

2.

The man with the southern accent walks his dog every day; both man and dog swing their legs freely, and sometimes the man sings. He listens to Biblical lessons on his walks, needs to unplug his earbuds to greet Lilith and give her one of the healthy treats from North Carolina (where he visited his dad) that his own dog won't touch. "Lily!" he calls out.

One day I ask if he lives in court 17. I'd called the police on two men screaming at each other, one the father of the other, someone told me. "It could have been me!" he said. I replied that no, it could not have been him, because the one man was hitting his dog, and I know he loves his. "Oh, no, I don't hit my dog. But my son. Twenty-four, living with me again. He got a full ride to Dartmouth and came back to UH, changed friends, and then I found he was into drugs. I've been going to Hina Mauka for years to learn about this. Have to work on my anger. Just has no will. My daughter is all will, but he doesn't have it."

"You just never know what's going on," he adds, as he turns to walk his dog up the hill.