Lilith and I forget our memory card

 

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   I took some damn good photos today," I told Daniel (ex-Air Force), "but I forgot my memory card." "Now there's a first world problem," he said. He asked after a mutual friend in History; neither of us have heard in a while. Because this friend had supported my mental health activism at UH, I told Daniel [deleted for trigger effects]. He said he took courses at the law school when he worked in security for the Air Force. The kind gentleman who sat behind him every day turned out to be William Richardson (after whom the school is named). They'd often have lunch out in the courtyard. 

 

"Do you want to hear a joke?" he asked. After my comment that he always had one, he launched into a story that Ronald Reagan told on Air Force One when he worked there. Reagan was campaigning for governor in a rural area of California, knocking on doors. A farmer answered one door and asked who he was. Daniel turned on the Reagan voice (he does it well) and said, "I'm an actor. I'll give you a hint, the initials are RR." The farmer turned around and called out to his wife to get some coffee for their guest. "Roy Rogers is here!"

 

I ran into a woman in the closest parking area to Kahekili and asked her why there had been so many police cars and an ambulance there a week ago. She had a kind face, tattoos on her shoulders, paused for a moment, and said, "the man who lived there passed away." It was he that Lilith and I often greeted as we took a short cut through the townhouses. An older Hawaiian man, he sat on his upstairs lanai and listened to classical music in the mornings. Public radio, he told us. 

 

Photographs I took with no memory: Herman, who picks up trash in the morning. He said he also used to take photographs of tree bark. "You need a yellow filter," he said. A mother and daughter walking in the cemetery. The younger woman had weights on her ankles and was lifting red weights with both arms as they walked. She also had tattoos on her muscular shoulders. She and her mother were talking about Kamehameha Schools, her mother pushing a stroller inside of which was a fluffy one-eyed dog in a pink vest. Lilith investigated thoroughly. We talked dogs for a while, then Lilith and I peeled off so Lilith could sniff the edges of the cemetery for mongooses.