Lilith and the entrepreneur

"Don't go up there!" yelled M from his John Deere-mobile, as Lilith and I walked past the guard shack at the cemetery. "You won't like what you see." 

 

"Oh no, what have they destroyed now?" I asked. Trees in front of the Temple, M. told me. 

 

"You know, my husband's theory is that you guys will cut so many things down that you won't be needed any more, and they'll lay you off." "Oh, that's ok," M said, "I got three companies." After storms, he cuts trees in Kailua. That was one. Used to live on the Big Island, had three parcels in Puna, but the lava over-ran them. Wants to get land near Glenwood, build a tiny house, and grow vegetables to sell. If he gets his food license, he can start a shave ice business. "But the Big Island's one good place foa retire, not foa work," he said. I agreed, having retired to Volcano (sort of). 

 

"If you weld, can make $60K a month on the mainland." Wow, I said, not quite believing him. "My husband wants to learn to weld." Oh, just go to YouTube. He was going to go mainland to a welding school, but gotta stay close to his kids.

Lilith and I walked up the hill and started down again. I expected utter devastation at the Temple, but noticed very little. Some tree limbs down was all. When I told O that, he says, "you just wait." O was weed-whacking. His workmate was, too, but had a nice aloha shirt on. "You're well dressed today!" I said. Oh yeah, Aloha Friday. Lilith couldn't be bothered; she sniffed a drain where a mongoose hides.

 

I meant to ask S his take on the Charlie Kirk murder (he'll have one, I know that, and it will be extra- if not counter-factual), but it was hot, so Lilith and I wandered home. Tomorrow, if he's there.