Aunty’s Corner

Aloha aunty here…once again I had to go to the big city. There were so many people coming to Molokai on Friday evening that I had to spend time with my niece and her family, a great place to stay!

I was invited to see her husband’s nephew play football.  I haven’t done that since high school when all I was interested in was the cute football players.  The cheerleaders were so cute.  Both teams’ cheer squads wore their hair in a bun high up on their heads with a very large bow in their school colors.  In this case, it was red and black for Iolani School, where my nephew goes, and the opposing team Kamehameha School, whose colors were blue and white. At halftime Iolani changed their bow colors to pink for the fight against cancer, and some players changed their arm bands and shoes to pink. Both cheer squads exchanged gifts also at halftime, too.  Since this was the last game of the season, all the parents of the Iolani players went down on the field after the game and gave their family members lei. I thought that was so great. We did not do such a thing at our school. I think the school boards were pretty square when I went to school. That’s why I say you should love to go to school here. My niece told me that there are now college degrees for cheerleading. What the heck, now surfing might be a recognized high school sport, right on!

While in Honolulu I went to the Safeway store.  There were so many things to choose from that I couldn’t make my mind up and had to remember that I would carry this stuff home on the plane.  But while it was wonderful to shop in big city stores you just can’t beat going to Friendly Market where you know the checkers and they call you by name – like Ka’ala who did her first canoe race, and the nice young woman who wears her hair in a braid with a pua at the end and all the wonderful office personnel who call me aunty.  Ah heck, just all of you guys.  One of the side effects of going to Friendly’s is all the hugs, kisses and aloha you get when there.

I think I’ve prattled on long enough but I’ll leave you with this… “May the road rise to meet you, may the wind be always at your back, may the sun shine warm upon your face, the rains fall soft upon your fields and, until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.” Aunty