Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 25, Number 5, 1 ʻApelila 2008 — 'Bungo' and Papa Joe, growing gardens [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

'Bungo' and Papa Joe, growing gardens

As a small kid, my dad, "Bungo" and I would travel the eane field roads searching for young guava shoots in his '55 01dsmobile Rocket. Fueled by guava and waiawl sticks, he'd pour hot water from the big palangana (tub) into my yellow washtub and sprinkle in handfuls of Hawaiian salt with the guava shoot. My body wrenched with kāki'o (impetigo sores) from scratching too mueh on mosquito bites. After I bathed and the scabs cleaned off with a tawashi (Iapanese brown coconut fiber) brush and rag, and my tears dried from the pain, he applied Mercurochrome with the little glass stick (iodine antiseptic) on eaeh of the sores. I was blotched in this red dye from head to toe until we gathered the next batch of leaves for a soak. To avoid wasting water, he added more hot water to the precious guava leaves and Hawaiian salt in my yellow tub to soak his "dead" leg. During World War II my dad got into an accident, whieh killed his sergeant and pinned my dad's left leg under the leep; though crushed, he refused amputation. I took the task of shooing festering flies from his blackened leg swollen from puss with ti leaf, as I did at

parties shooing flies from the food. Behind our unscreened plantation house was Mr. Shimabukuro's store. It seemed like 20 times a day, I was sent to buy him nonfiltered Camels, Philip Morris, Pall Mall, or Chesterfields for his habit. I was 6 when my dad died from a heart attack at the old Hilo Memorial Hospital; but it wasn't until dad carved out an airplane from balsa wood, whieh Papa loe handed me after visiting him, that I shouted with all my might near the entrance of the hospital to my dad's room directly above on the second floor, "I love you daddy!" "I love you too Iimmy!" We kept on saying, "I love you" like little kids until the sounds faded into the banyans. The sound from the banyans eame back as gunfire bursts and Taps played by an army bugler. The soldier presented mom and me with the American flag that draped my dad's coffin, and as a soldier saluted me he stared into my eyes, and I saw my dad in his eyes - he was 40 and yet alive. That was 51 years ago back in 1957. He had left my mom and four boys with a VA survivor's benefit that amounted to $45 a month, 10 bucks for eaeh boy and 5 for mom. When growing up, we'd look forward to those checks coming in. Living at Papa loe and grandma's plaee high on the slopes of Wainaku Sugar Mill, mauka of Hilo Bay, I could see the barge sailing in the mail from

Honolulu. That $45 would buy us cans of sardines, carnation milk and bags of rice. Sometimes we would get lucky, and mom would get us an aloha shirt from the sec-ond-hand store; everything being oversized so we could grow into it

and hand it down from brother to brother until it shred when playing rough or getting into fights. Mom continued to work at the tavern and other family members pitched in to help raise my brothers; we were everybody's boys. Papa loe, our grandpa, raised chickens for eggs and meat. He had a garden assortment of paria (bittennelon) leaves, papaya, eggplant, okra, tanglad (lemon grass), marungay, pipinola (chayote squash) and a variety of kalo. He had an imu next to the garage and a frre pit in back where his dog Lucky lay and where tubs of 'ulu was cooked to make 'ulu poi or sliced as a table dish. The 'ulu and kalo were usually stored in huge clay jars and kept niee and sour for everyday use and for food storage. We'd eat the stuff that could spoil first and save the canned goods for when we ran out of fresh meat or fish. It was survival. Everything was about survival and making do with "eating what get." No McD, BK, Zippy's or the laek to depend on for a quick meal.

It's what Papa loe and grandma cooked that day; fresh ehieken and papaya, wild pork with bittennelon, pinapaitan (tripe soup), fresh 'ōpelu and sour poi - loved it! A great treat for me would be colored puff rice or Tomoe Ame (Iapanese candy) with the small prize that could be bought for a niekel. All you dads, this message is directed especially foryou: go plant a garden in your boy's heart(s). Have 'em grow fond memories of you no matter how lousy a father you might be. Mālama and lomi his roots with good values and respect for others, especially for the wāhine. Constantly feed them with kind and encouraging words. Take 'em wherever you go and be good buddies to one another (they'll keep you from going to places that's pilau). If you do this, you will have a garden filled with a diversity of fruits that will be sweet to the taste, as mine have been. .īeno Enoeeneio writes about the many hats he wears. poiniman _Jeno@msn.com I

NĀ PĀPALE • MANY H ATS

By Jimmy F. "Jenū" Enūeeneiū

From left: All in the family - Jeno Enoeeneio and grandson Maximus. Family time - Jeno's son Orion and his son Orion II fix a fence at the ranch. - Photos: Courtesy of Jeno Enoeeneio

From top: A young Jeno and his mother in Honoka'a, around 1953. Jeno, and his younger brother Allen at 'Amauulu Camp 4 in Hilo, just around the time their dad died in 1957.