Hawaii Archives - littlebigfootblog.com

“Let It Be Sung”

in every soul

as a tribe
together we come
sweet is our vibe
sound of our drum

together we imbibe
all that is true
love we inscribe
on our pews

live in the winds
love the breeze 
taught by our big friends
out in the trees

teaches us how to trigger
and have big guns
that hearts that are bigger
have more fun

a love that saves
from deep inside
it is the wave
that we ride

keeps us young
how we roll
"Let It Be Sung"
in every soul

I am in the holler this morning. We had our family reunion in a log cabin that the Ruritan Club rents out for meetings and get togethers. It is beside a historical mill with a water wheel with a creek running beside it and sometimes over the wheel. We have met in this building for years. So there is a strong memory and presence felt there of those that have gone on. It was somehow made even more beautiful by the heavy rain that fell on that already beautiful lush green setting and landscape.

There was one incident where they encountered a nest of bees by the creek. At least 3 people were stung. And they were stung more than once. This was all reported to me by a young man named Lucas who is 5 years old and in kindergarten. He has obviously inherited the gift for storytelling from his great grandfather and my uncle Mutt. He informed one of the other family members that he escaped because he ran “like lightning!”

Uncle Mutt kept us all entertained his entire life. I remember that when he would get too tickled telling a story he would pause. He would turn his back to you while he regained his composure and straight face and then turn back around and continue his performance. It is my hope that that sweet funny spirit of his still lives on in this blog.

I am linking a video by Jack Johnson and some of his friends. We talk a lot about vibe in this blog. I have always felt that this song has an excellent vibe. I used to have it in my iTunes back before I had ever seen the video. I can no longer access it because of the rules that Apple has about not being able to remember your password from 3 devices ago. I like to try to keep the blog positive so we will not dwell on that : )

I think the song is from a surfing documentary film that they did several years ago. I am going to list it in the Hawaii section of the drop down menu. But as I watch the video I do not recognize any Hawaiian scenes. So a lot of the surfing footage was actually shot around the world. But Jack Johnson does live in Hawaii and is really involved in a lot of the aspects of the scene there. And he always seems to have an excellent vibe. But I will let you be the judge of that.

Here is the link to the video.(3:50)

Enjoy your Sunday . Try to make someone smile!

Hawaii

make someone smile

1 Comment / Hawaii

17JUL25

like Roy Sakuma

a poem daily
on the run
like the ukulele
it's lots of fun

have to think quick
like a puma
learn how to pick
like Roy Sakuma

might be soon 
do we know
ukulele tunes
in his studio

he has four
just like the strings
let your fun soar
on the uke's wings 

bigfoot is not around
close enough to hear it
but he joins the sound
with his spirit

it is fun there
staying calm
strumming under
the swaying palms

We have mentioned the vibe quite a bit in this blog. Two of my favorite topics are the ukulele and bigfoot. It seems all you have to do is just mention either one and people just naturally smile. And honestly the ukulele is probably even lower key than bigfoot. No pun intended. Most people don’t see the uke as a convenient platform to launch into a debate. Which is not always the case with the big guy.

I thought that the best way to introduce the uke into the blog would be thru this man. I have actually been to his studio in Aiea several times. We once took a six year old there and enrolled him in lessons. I will always remember how pumped up he was after his first lesson. The only thing more impressive than his ambition and dedication at that moment in time was how fast it dried up or evaporated in the following days. In the following years I would tag along on Monday nights on the drive from Kapolei to Aiea during my visits to Oahu. He would be in the back seat playing the uke for the first time since the previous week’s lesson. And even then he would be more focused on negotiating what he considered to be a more favorable place to dine on the trip home than trying to learn the song that he had supposed to have been practicing all week. But I will have to admit it is an entertaining memory.

I remember sitting in the waiting room or office and listening to the kids playing uke in the classrooms behind closed doors with their teachers. The stories that the young moms seemed to tell the most usually revolved around them holding their breath while they watched their six or seven year old carry or swing his or her brand new expensive Hawaiian koa ukulele around like it was one on their other plastic toys. As you will see in the video Roy Sakuma hosted the Annual Ukulele Festival for years.

As we chase and try to ride the right vibe in this blog we salute and recognize Roy Sakuma. He is truly an emissary of the ukulele, joy, fun and happiness. Enjoy the video. Think about picking up a uke. You can pick up one very inexpensively on eBay. A lot of people really like the Makala Dolphin. They are usually around or below $50 on eBay. And mine usually sound as good or better than more expensive solid wood ukuleles. The Dolphin has a plastic back and sides and laminated wood top. This also allows them to come in a whole assortment of colors. In the very near future you will begin to see a ukulele in the beginning of the flyover videos on the blog.

It is a neat video and story in more ways than one. I hope that it inspires you and makes you smile.

Here is the link for the video.(6:27)

Hawaii

over H3

on the freeway

all is quiet
back to my routine
as I write
about the in between

off the exit ramp
under my own roof
as bigfoot breaks camp
and remains aloof

I get to work 
and let her rip
with a smirk
across my lips

out in the woods
laying down tracks
it is good
to be back

to fly the hay field
I'll soon go back
my bags are still
half way packed

each is my home
a place to stay
as I continue to roam
on the freeway

This is my first morning back from my trip to Virginia. I am watching the weather there on the phone. The first 4 day forecast without rain will signal my return to the farm in the mountains. Until then I will focus on trying to get the footage that I shot this trip up on the blog. It seems like I am beginning to spend more time on the freeway.

The last video that I linked in the blog was the Haiku Stairs. This morning there will be a link to a video of a freeway that is in the Haiku Valley on Oahu. It is probably one of the most beautiful drives in the world. When it rains there are a lot of waterfalls as the steep mountains shed the rain. That with the fog hiding the mountain tops and providing a ceiling make it a breath taking view. There is a lot of elevated concrete road work on Oahu. It is kind of like Oahu’s concrete jungle spreading over the real jungle. If you spend any time in Honolulu or Waikiki you will notice the constant mix of concrete and green.

The freeway opened in 1997. There was and continues to be a lot of opposition to the freeway. One of the comments on the video is “Highway of disrespect.”

Enjoy the video. Maybe ride a bike. Definitely smile.

Here is the link for the video.(3:23)

Hawaii

Haiku Stairs

1 Comment / Hawaii

02JUL25

u will not see

bigfoot is a singer
in the band
together they linger
and travel the land

he is known to scream
as much as he sings
he can take your dreams
and give them wings

always avoids jail
and the hotel rooms
as thru the veil
he easily zooms

him on iTunes
you will not see
but maybe under the moon
and some big trees

A lot of mornings I struggle with which poem to put in the blog post. And then you have to decide how many verses to include. So this morning I will allow you to decide which verses you want to include.

you cannot deny
makes your heart pound
when he amplifies
 his own sound

doesn't do drugs
but likes the dark
scares the bugs 
off of the bark

people report all
kinds of tall tales
as thru the portal
he and his band sail

I tend to like the shorter versions of the poems. And I have read accounts in Texas of people seeing bigfoot smeared in mud. And their theory was that they are doing this to fight the mosquitoes. So maybe they don’t scare the bugs.

Yesterday we did the Scott Taylor video from A Flash of Beauty on bigfoot. This morning we are returning to Oahu to visit and learn about the Haiku Stairs. There is a little bit of time pressure because ever since I have known about them there has been the threat of them being dismantled.

This morning’s video is 2 years old. Currently the City of Honolulu is in the process of removing the Haiku Stairs. That started in April 2024. A group called Friends of Haiku Stairs filed a lawsuit to halt the destruction of the stairs. They were granted an injunction to halt the removal of the stairs. The city is contesting this decision. So the fate of the stairs appears to be in the ongoing court battles.

The locals have told me that most of the local people are against taking them down. Of course like a lot of things that might depend on who you ask. But in my whole time of following this ongoing saga (and it has been going on for years) it seems that the prevailing attitude among the residents of Oahu is that there should be some way to manage access and charge for hiking the stairs. They seem to think that something so spectacular is worth preserving. Of course that may just be my own bias coloring the tea leaves that I’m trying to read.

There are several other videos of the stairs that you can check out. Almost all of them are with better weather and probably better views. But this guy did such an excellent job with this video that it was an easy decision to feature him. And as strange as it might sound I have always found Oahu to be at its most beautiful in the rain and fog. And it happens a lot there. That’s where they get the rainbows.

Enjoy the video.

Here is the link for the video.(8:56)

Hawaii

Eddie Would Go

listeners of the wind

we plow in the dark
hands on the handle
his hands on the bark
bigfoot lights the candle

our ignorance broken
we see a glimmer 
we hear it mind spoken
a voice from a shimmer

our inner child is loosed
the know it all is gone
as we are introduced 
n2 the world of the unknown

we have become a seer
a listener of the wind
and now we are freer
than we have ever been

we continue to plow
but are no longer slaves
now let's talk about the Aikaus
who rode the big waves

I had not planned on doing another post on Hawaii so soon but this poem and idea woke me up about 0415 this morning. So I guess we will try to make it to the beach on this wave. I just saw on the internet yesterday where Clyde Aikau had passed away about a month ago. I had always planned on doing a post on Eddie Would Go.

Around 2001 I think we were leaving the Safeway on Kam Highway in Kapolei and I kept on seeing these bumper stickers that said Eddie Would Go. So I immediately found out that they were for Eddie Aikau who had been a legendary lifeguard and big wave surfer at Waimea Bay.

In 1968 Eddie was the first lifeguard hired by the City & County of Honolulu for the North Shore. He had left school at 16 and had been working at the Dole pineapple cannery. No one was lost while he worked as a lifeguard at Waimea. In 1978 he volunteered to be a crew member on the Hokule’a. That is a double hulled voyaging canoe used by the Polynesian Voyaging Society to retrace the routes and methods of the ancient Hawaiians and Polynesians.

The Hokule’a left Hawaii on March 16, 1978. After developing a leak the vessel capsized about 12 miles south of Moloka’i. Eddie volunteered to take his surfboard and swim to Lana’i to get help. Actually he insisted against the captain’s reservations to leave the vessel and go for help. If you read about or watch many of the videos about this tragedy there is a lot of discussion about Eddie convincing the captain to let him go. (Eddie Would Go). Eddie was last seen by the members of the crew taking off his life jacket so he could paddle on his surfboard better. The crew was later rescued by the Coast Guard. According to Wikipedia the search for Eddie’s body was the largest in Hawaiian history.

That is a very brief account of the whole thing. There are many articles and videos on the internet that can catch you up to speed. He has been memorialized with one of the most famous surfing competitions in the world. Quicksilver sponsored “The Eddie” up until 2016. The first one was in 1985. It was held at Sunset Beach. In 1987 the event moved to Waimea Bay and Clyde Aikau won the contest. Hollywood could not make up a better story than Eddie’s little brother winning it the first year at Waimea.

The contest itself has several restrictions. It can only proceed if the waves are a minimum height of 30 feet. I have heard this explained several different ways. And honestly I still don’t have clear understanding of it. Wikipedia says that it has to be a minimum of a 20 feet open-ocean swell that translates to a wave face height of 30 feet. Let’s just say the waves have be too big for most mortals to consider paddling their boards into. And they do have to swim out into the waves with their boards. Jet skis are not allowed to tow surfers out.

Supposedly the phrase “Eddie would Go” was coined by surfer Mark Foo when they were deciding whether or not to proceed with the contest because of the dangerously high waves. Quicksilver has entire surf stores named Eddie Would Go. Or they did. They stopped sponsoring the contest in 2016 and the Aikau family sought out local sponsors to sponsor the event when the waves were high enough. The contest allows 28 surfers to participate.

Hawaii is a place of traffic problems. And the Kam Highway on the North Shore is a 2 lane highway. You can google some of the traffic and parking jams when there is a big surf contest on the north shore. There are even traffic and parking jams when the waves are high and people just want to drive out and park along the highway to watch them.

I am including the links to 3 short videos on the Aikaus. The first one is a short segment of an ESPN film on Eddie. The second one is of Clyde riding his last time at The Eddie. The third one is of Clyde leading a group of surfers out at Waimea before the contest to do the circle ceremony. The news station is using the footage to announce his death. It is almost achingly and hauntingly beautiful. In that third film when he raises his arm and finger in the sky from 1:18 to 1:22 you can see the white bell tower of St. Peter and Paul Church behind him. If you are ever on the North Shore you can use that landmark from almost any where up and down the coast to know where Waimea is.

If you only have time to watch one of the 3 clips watch the last one. Because honestly that is the VIBE that we should all try to be in.

SMILE

ALOHA

Link for Eddie ESPN video.(4:57)

Link for Clyde at The Eddie video.(2:29)

Link for Clyde leading the Circle Ceremony video.(2:22)

Hawaii

bigfoot – sailor of fortune

1 Comment / Hawaii

25JUN25

bigfoot wisdom sails

bigfoot is a book
not for our shelves
but to take a look 
in to ourselves

he makes it clearer
he calls roll
he acts as a mirror
for our soul

makes sure we get it
the carpenter's claims
his lines are poetic
like the King James

from Heaven cast
written on sails
tied to a ship's mast
that is beyond the veil

words that are immortal
from a throne
move thru a portal
thru the unknown

his wisdom works
and it is free
as it all lurks
 behind a big tree

The new menu is in place. It is a drop down menu. It will be a way to find different topics. So far I have only put one post in the Music non Hawaiian section. The menu will be links to specific posts. The drone flyover section will be links straight to the you tube videos.

Today I am linking a video to a performance by the Makaha Sons of Ni’hau. They are a very important band in the Hawaiian music scene & history. The name of the song is Sailors of Fortune. Now you know where I got the title to the blog post and the poem. They may be my favorite band. And that is saying something since most of their songs are sung in Hawaiian and I don’t know the meaning of the words. But don’t panic. I picked a song that they do in English as their introduction to you.

You may recognize the guy in the middle. That is IZ short for Israel Kamakawiwo’ole. He is probably the most famous Hawaiian musician of all time. After he went solo in 1993 they shortened their name to the Makaha Sons. It would be almost impossible to express or convey the amount of affection that the Hawaiian people hold for IZ and the Makaha Sons still today.

That being said this will probably be the first post listed in the Hawaii section of the menu. I hope that you enjoy the Makaha Sons of Ni’hau. I hope that they give you a smile that sails with you thru your day!

Here is the link for the video.

Hawaii, Music Video

bigfoot likes the Hawaiian Style Band

like an X File

they are quick
cover the miles
they're getting thick
the bigfoot files

like an X File
that used to air
but with more style
& a lot more hair

he's a strange bird
laying footprints fast
have you ever heard
so many podcasts

the topic is hot 
we're his minions
makes sure we've got
whole lot of opinions

he is just the most
finds the inner child
we all need a ghost
who makes us smile

When I get the drone footage up on the blog I am going to redo the menu. So that things will be easier to find. There will probably be subheadings for bigfoot attractions, bigfoot gatherings, Hawaiian topics, music and flyovers (drone videos). There will probably be some videos that show up in more than one subheading. And today is an example of that.

I am putting in a link to a short concert by the Hawaiian Style Band. I had really only wanted to put in their big song Love & Honesty but I couldn’t really find a good live version of it. It starts at 10:44 in the video. But you may want to listen to their other songs. They had a lot of popular songs that got a lot of airtime on the Hawaiin radio channels. If you make it thru the old commercials I think that is Billy V that is getting a bucket of water thrown on him. He is now a pretty famous news reporter and media personality in the islands. The entire video is 30:36 minutes.

I am pretty sure that the last song would probably be bigfoot’s favorite. Hope that you enjoy the culture, vibe and beauty that you see and hear!

ALOHA

Remember 2 smile!

Here is the link for the video!

Hawaii

bigfoot Hawaii

2 Comments / Hawaii

like a shark

move like a shark
take a big bite
find the dark
fill it with light

fill your head
angel wing flutter
will be our bread
and our butter

be able to shake
and to move
not afraid to break
if it will improve

live with less
and be free
probably impress
him behind the tree

Today we take a break. We are flying to Hawaii. But it will not cost you 16 hours and $5K. In the mid 80’s I was stationed in the 25th Infantry Division that is called Tropic Lightning at Schofield Barracks in Wahiawa. Wahiawa is located kind of in the center of the island of Oahu. I actually lived in a town called Aiea in a high-rise building overlooking Pearl Harbor. The name of the building was the Lele Pono. The building was across the street from the Kam Drive In Theatre and the Pearlridge Mall. The Pearlridge Mall is divided into 2 sections. At that time they were called Phase 1 & Phase 2. Phase 1 catered more to adults and had nicer stores. Phase 2 seemed to be more oriented toward younger people with movie theaters, arcades and trendier stores. There was and still is a monorail that you can ride between the two buildings. As you ride it plays the same type of Hawaiian music that the airlines do as you fly into Honolulu.

For many years one of my favorite sentences in the English language has been.

“We have now begun our final descent into Honolulu.”

Kind of in between these 2 buildings or phases of the mall was a giant green field that was obviously flooded with water. It was and still is kind of the oddest thing. I would stand on my lanai(porch) and look down at the workers on this farm right smack dab in the middle of a bustling urban scene next to Pearl Harbor. The fact that I grew up on a farm probably made it even more fascinating to me. It was and still is kind of like time staked out a piece of ground and stood still.

In the video below you can see the Lele Pono in the 1st 5 seconds and then seconds 40 thru 43. The name of the farm is Sumida Farms. Enjoy the video.

Here is the link.

From the woods you hear a yell. It sounds a lot like…

Hawaii

in every soul

like Roy Sakuma

on the freeway

u will not see

listeners of the wind

bigfoot wisdom sails

like an X File

like a shark

aloha