Introduction: Start Somewhere
My father-in-law, Richard, used to tell a story about his beloved grandmother. He called her Grandma, never mentioned a name. We have only recently learned her given name: Waki. Waki was Richard’s paternal grandmother. Her son Seizo died suddenly and tragically of bubonic plague at a young age when Richard, his only son, was only 13. The grieving family shrunk to Richard, his mother Koharu aka Dorothy, and Waki. The Waki who Richard remembers had a back forever bent 90 degrees from years of work harvesting sugar cane on the plantation. Still, he says, she never complained and kept busy working in their gardens. She spoke to her crops with admiration and respect: “Aren’t you growing well and looking so good?” she would exclaim, claiming this love helped them to grow well. He recounts a time he had been asked to assist with weeding and hoeing, and he soon felt tired, hot and overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task before him. She did not scold or indulge him, but advised him to not think about what lay ahead, but to start with a goal of doing one single row. Once he was done with that, he could move on to the next one. And before he knew it, all the rows would be done. So he tried what she advised, and lo and behold, the job felt easier and was soon completed.
My children recall Richard telling them this story at moments when they complained about work they were facing. And so, as I begin the daunting work of writing memories in a cohesive form that might qualify them as “memoirs”, I recall this story and start with the first row.
What Are The Odds?
I live in Waimea, a rural ranching town on the Big Island of Hawaii, a town with just enough elevation that when you drive the 20 minutes to the coast your ears pop on the way down. Waimea rides the saddle of this large and diverse island, between the wet and dry sides, surrounded like the center of a wheel by 4 of the islands 5 volcanic mountain ranges. I still shake my head when it dawns on me that I live here. I am surprised to find that, at age 70, home is a small 12-sided dark brown house shared with husband Peter and a large dog on nearly an acre of mostly untamed land within yelling distance of my son, his wife and our two young grandsons. I marvel at this turn of events for many reasons. For one, I have always been “a city girl”; Born and raised in Washington DC, I arrived in Hawaii at age 20, and then lived for the next 48 years on the island of O’ahu along with 80% of Hawaii’s 1.4 million residents – (plus the x million tourists who pass through each year). For most of those years, I lived and/or worked in Honolulu, the densely populated urban core of O’ahu, where I held jobs serving the island’s low income neighborhoods. It was in Honolulu that I met Peter. The year was 1976 when we were both undergraduate students at the University of Hawaii. We sat in the back of the room in a statistics course that was required for our degrees, his in Geography, and mine in Women’s Health. We locked our bikes at the same bike rack where one day I came up with the following pick up line: “Oh, I saw you at the Waiahole-Waikane Rally last weekend”. It apparently worked, since we went for coffee together, and are still making that ritual brew in our kitchen 47 years later. When people ask us how we met, we say we met in a statistics class, but given our differences, we often wonder: “What are the odds?”. It’s an old joke now, one that always gets a laugh when we find a new audience. These days, Peter adds: “…100% apparently”, which always makes me laugh. He is good at that, making me laugh.
So I will begin this Memoir – or is it Memoirs? –by borrowing this question as a title and theme. Really, what are the odds that I should be here at this place and time, especially given how very far I am today from where my ancestors began – in terms of geography, religion, and culture.
What Are the Odds?
While these memoirs will focus predominantly upon my “side” of the family tree, I have included here 4 family trees: Stoney (my maternal line), Segal (my paternal line), Arakaki (my husbands maternal line) and Matsunaga (my husband’s paternal line). (To be inserted here: The Family Trees – 4 Graphics: Matsunaga – Arakaki – Stoney – Segal)
I just did the math. Today, I am 70. I was 23 when I met Peter. I spent the first 1/3 of my life as a solo Segal and the next 2/3 of my life in a relationship with or married to one Peter Matsunaga. How about that? I have known this man for almost exactly twice as long as I have not known him. Now, one can argue that the formative years of childhood and young adulthood have the greatest impact upon shaping who we are. And I would agree with this point of view. However, it is hard to overstate the influence on one’s character and worldview from living alongside another person, raising children (and now grandchildren) with him, and in a cultural environment far from the childhood home – and still further from the ancestral homes.
Because so much of my life’s weight now lies on the Matsunaga side of the scales, when I begin hoeing the row in front of me, it is the seeds of Matsunaga family history that sprout first. Never fear, dear Stoney-Segal side readers, we shall get there, we shall indeed. Some amazing tales await there to be told.
Coming up: Waimea
Moana Marie Crab 