I’m not sure many of the current generation has ever had just a plain old musubi…you know, a rice ball!  I remember many a picnic where my grandmother would make these rice balls, usually with an ume (pickled dried plum) tucked in the center and a strip of dried nori wrapped around the outside.

She would sprinkle salt on her wet hands and mold the still warm rice into a baseball size, triangular shape (that I have never been able to duplicate) and the whole thing would be wrapped in wax paper, after it had cooled.  She would scramble some eggs, fry up some spam, sometimes we’d get some dried opelu and it would all be packed up as a picnic lunch.

Sometimes, we would take a drive to Punaluu Beach Park, the black sand beach in Kau, Big Island, and just enjoy the afternoon.  I would play around in the sheltered tidal pool located makai (seaward) of the pavillion.

Or, it might be on the occasion of a trip to Kona to visit relatives.  Back then, we’re talking about the 50’s and early 60’s, much of the road between South Point to just east of  Honaunau was a very narrow road…about one-lane wide with a stripe down the middle and the drive to Kailua took  2-hours.  Today, it takes less than an hour and a half.

Along the way, there was a rest stop called, appropriately enough, the Half-Way Rest Area.  We would often stop there and share lunch with the mosquitoes.   (I think they waited for my arrival…the mosquitoes, that is.)

Anyway, the idea of putting the spam “inside” the rice, rather than eating it “with” the rice did not come along till later.  I think I would have eaten much better on fishing trips with my uncle had someone thought of that sooner.

Sometimes, my uncle and I would go fishing for the day at South Point and as we headed out to the truck, I would ask about lunch and he would run back in the house, grab a loaf of bread and a can of vienna sausage and THAT was lunch!  Doesn’t sound all that appetizing, I’ll grant you, but after spending 4-5 hours walking the rocky shores trying to get an ulua or even a papio (an “ulua” is a Jack Crevalle over 10 lbs, a “papio” is a Jack under 10 lbs), believe me, that vienna sausage sandwich tasted pretty good!

Today, my kids love spam musubi and will make it to take to work as lunch or just make to have handy for a snack when they get home.  They not only have acrylic molds to make them in, the perfect size of a slice of spam, but even spam slicer…like a heavy duty egg slicer, to evenly cut the spam.

My how things have changed!

If you’ve spent much time in Hawaii, then you already know that the locals are very superstitious people.  Many malihinis (newcomers) scoff at some of the Hawaiian superstitions and stories that are told of strange happenings…until they experience them themselves.

Oh, I’m not referring to the hundreds of people who have returned lava rocks and black sands to the Volcanoes National Park and various hotels to be returned in hopes of ending the senders’ streak of bad luck since returning home.  Everyone knows Madam Pele does not take kindly to those who take her children from her.

I’ll have another entry at another time on Madam Pele.  This entry is about all the local happenings that cannot be explained by rational means.  Call them ghosts, spirits, or whatever, there are a lot of strange happenings that happen to a lot of people including many who were non-believers until it happened to them.

When I was growing up, I got to spend a lot of time at a small concession stand/snack bar my grandparents ran in Naalehu, on the Big Island.  Every once in a while, the subject matter would turn to “obake” (ghost”) stories and everyone would share personal stories.

Virtually everyone in Hawaii knows about the “Night Marchers”, the nocturnal movement of Hawaiian warriors from the past who still make their treks from mountain to sea.  What I didn’t know was that my grandparents house at the time, was located right on such a path!

I never experienced anything, but my grandmother would casually mention that a few times a year, you could hear them running thru the house, right down the hallway connecting the two bedrooms.  Glad I didn’t know or I might have had a lot of sleepless nights there.

There is a heiau located at South Point, a popular fishing spot, where a retired policeman friend had gone fishing one night and had forgotten that it was the “night” of the night marchers.  He started to hear the approach of a canoe, complete with chanting and torches.

Instead of bolting into the night, like I probably would have, he simply picked up his fishing gear, put them to the side and hid behind some rocks out of the way.  He said the canoe pulled up, they disembarked, marched up the path to the heiau, had their ceremony, then marched back down to the canoe and literally vanished into the night, as they rowed back out to sea.

He calmly gathered up his gear and went back to fishing.

Not as fortunate were another couple who had gone fishing to one of their favorite spots near Honuapu.  It is normally about a 10-minute walk from the car to their fishing spot.  One particular night, they arrived, unloaded and headed for their spot as usual.

After a few minutes of walking, they noticed they were being followed by the light of a lantern.  If they stopped, it would stop…if they moved forward, it would follow, but kept its distance.  After more than a half-hour of walking and NOT reaching the coast, they decided that it was probably not meant to be and so decided to return to the car and go home.

They were back at the car within 5 minutes!   And, the light?…the light just vanished.

I have a link on the side to Weird Hawaii blog that has many more local experiences, if you’re interested in this sort of thing.  Its just another part of what makes Hawaii, Hawaii!  I would love it if you would add your story here for me and others to share.