Still close after all these years

In case you hear a ruckus coming from Koke’e this weekend, it’s likely the Ele’ele School Class of 1961 reconnecting and reminiscing about life on Kaua’i two generations ago.

A rarity these days, those 70 classmates who graduated from eighth grade 40 years ago still manage to stay in touch despite the years and miles separating them, and gathered at cabins at Koke’e this weekend for a reunion.

Carol Iwata comes all the way from Chicago for the festivities, along with others from the mainland.

JoAnn Robinson and Roland Pablo live just down the hill in and around Waimea, where they and most of their classmates also make up much of the Waimea High School Class of 1965 that celebrated its 35th class reunion last year.

“I guess that our class was pretty close,” said Robinson, a hairdresser finally retired by Hurricane ‘Iniki’s damage to her shop.

Even those who left ‘Ele’ele School for private schools after eighth grade still remained close with this special class, and have participated in reunions many years hence, Robinson said.

Many of her classmates, who have made or will make 54 years young this year, are still working.

Pablo and Iwata are among those still working, as is Kaua’i Police Department Lt. Alvin Seto. Most were born in 1947, Robinson said.

Iwata, like many of her classmates, was born and raised on the west side of Kaua’i, and though she may be a Chicago resident now, she proudly boasts that “I was born a plantation girl from Wahiawa, Kaua’i, and in my heart I’ll die a plantation girl from Wahiawa, Kaua’i.”

Some of Iwata’s stories call to mind questions many people hear about Kaua’i and Hawai’i of yesterday: “Were there paved roads?” “Do the natives speak English?”

Really, Iwata’s generation – at least those on the west side – was likely the last to be raised without television. While they were growing up, west Kaua’i was still without a transmitter station that later would bring television to the west side.

“In talking with some of my classmates, we realize that the beginning baby boomers who were born and raised on west Kaua’i are a different breed (and one I consider very lucky),” Iwata said.

“We had a very specific kind of childhood, as we did not grow up with television. So I consider our childhood kind of ‘pure,’ if you will,” she said.

“We had no TV to influence us. I consider TV a kind of ‘leveler of society.’ It really tells you where you fit in the economic scale of the country,” Iwata continued.

“For the plantation kids, it would have told us how poor we were, and what we didn’t have. The absence of TV really let us grow up very free of those constraints, so we considered ourselves to all be of one class,” she noted.

“Another great difference is in the use of language. Because the west side really spoke pidgin, that really was our first language, and ‘good English’ is our second language,” she said.

“TV would have made us more aware of ‘good English.’ To this day, people have a hard time identifying what kind of accent I have, whereas it’s not an accent, but the inflection of the words that make it seem like an accent,” added Iwata.

“Also, because we didn’t have TV, we really relied on the radio for entertainment, so our appreciation of the music of that era is very high,” she easily recalls.

“I went yesterday to get CDs of music popular in the late ’50s, and was on the phone with classmates last night talking about the songs. What fun we had,” Iwata continued.

“I feel very fortunate that I’m still close to my childhood friends and classmates. People in Chicago are amazed that anyone would be going to a grammar school reunion,” she added.

“I can’t imagine my life without them. I cherish these friendships very much.”

In typical Kaua’i style, anyone who went to ‘Ele’ele School during the time the Class of 1961 was there was invited to Koke’e, Iwata said. Between 15 and 20 people were expected, but that likely blossomed to nearly double that number, as word spread about the gathering.

Staff Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).