As a small keed, every season brings a different thing to do wen u live in Hawaii. It was fall. The sun was still up and fairly strong but a cool breeze would always be blowing with a crisp wind in the air. Now that I think about this, it wasn't cold at all compared to what I've gone through now. But eh, I no like go into the "how tough wuz wen we wuz keeds yah"?

So as keeds it was what we called Kite season. You could buy a kite at B&K owah go git da betta selection ones down at Nakatani stoa, but eh like we get money as small keeds? Not! Even through it was only about 25 cents we just didn't have that kind of money those days. Could try and find enough bottles if you were lucky and buy one, but being innovative with making our own toy guns and carts why buy it wen we can try make owah own?

OK, dis wat we do, first go find some small thin pieces of wood to build the frame of your standard kite. You know, just two pieces tied together in a cross with string that we got from home. I wen git dis big roll I got from home (to this day my Madda dunno wot wen happen to that roll of string). And I can still hear the question later that day wen I went home, "George, u seen da roll string?, No I neva Mom.) Hmmm...goin' have to tell her wun day yah? Mabbe next time I go home yah?

Anyway, back to the building of the kite. We went and got some old newspapers from da Star Bulletin and cut them out to fit the kite with liddo bit extra to ovalap da string we goin' put on. We run da string from each edge of the sticks to form a kind of diamond shape. Then we'd put the paper over it and use either old poi or rice as glue (bugga work good wit dat). Da onli glue we had wuz at school. An das it, wuz fo' school not fo' play. We left dem deah in school in da classroom. We'd go find some old rags to make a tail to tie at the bottom, punch a small hole a third of the way from the top and a third o da way from the bottom to run some string again and tie the rest of the string to it (hope I neva lose u guys?). Put another tie of string on the back to bend it backwards and "huiii" we git owah own homemade kine kite. Eh, so wot we no moa nice colors on em', but wen still work. An wuz all done wit da imagination since no moa money yah?

We would fly em' from the Quarry next to B&K past da riva cause there was no telephone lines or houses in the way ova deah. We would just fly it a short distance, pull it back in and take it back out again. We'd spend hours keeping busy with our kites. And wen I mean "we" it wuz even da girls in da neibahood. We all played together no matter wot race or gender. Us boys would even jump rope wit da girls and play jacks an hop scotch. Neva mak "A" doing dat. Only make "A" wen u loose but some things da girls could do much better than da boys could. Da girls could even play football an Baseball wit us. A lot of em' made good receivers cause deh wuz fast on da feet. Deh could even smack dem baseballs pretty far.

We would even have kite fights with our old homemade kites using just one string.  A lot of da control wuz wit da tail an how much u bend da back of da kite. Nothing like today's high speed kites that have 4 or more lines on them. Eh, we did pretty good wit owah homemade kine kites.

One day, Boy, Clifford, Bobo (some of my portagee friends) and myself put all our strings togedda and wen decide fo' fly this one kite dat we wen build togeddah so high it was up above the mountain by Hakimo Road (u no da wun wit da bunka on top dat separate Maile from Nanakuli?). It was really high but the wind was so strong since wuz so high that after about one hour or so it wen buckalose from us. Well, there went the kite and all our string. At first we wuz going to try and chase it down and get it back but eh, we not going to climb that mountain then. Was too bad owah kite, but we had plenty fun buildin' an flyin' dem. K den, back to da buildin' board an make wun nadda wun yah?

Ah...the seasons of imagination growin' up in Hawaii nei yah? Nothing like it.

George K. Cabral was born in Wahiawa and raised in Nanakuli, Oahu, two blocks from B & K store. He graduated from Nanakuli High in 1973. He joined the Army thereafter and shipped over to Germany where he spent almost 22 years of service. He retired in 1996 and is now working as a Government employee for the Army in Bosnia with the Deployed Operations Group. He and his wife, Jutta have two daughters, have settled down and made a home in Bamberg, Germany. They get back to Hawaii every three years or so to visit Ohana and maybe go find his ole' kite up Hakimo Road.