• What a waste • Speed in Blood Alley • A girl named Loke What a waste A few days after my last letter, and having now seen the results of the last green harvest (284 plants taken island-wide) my
• What a waste
• Speed in Blood Alley
• A girl named Loke
What a waste
A few days after my last letter, and having now seen the results of the last green harvest (284 plants taken island-wide) my feelings are only reinforced: What a waste!
Notice the police don’t describe the size of the plants. I’ll bet some of them were “starts” or babies. They are hardly worth anything — except a prayer and a hope.
About half of pot plant babies turn into male plants which must be destroyed before they turn the more valuable female plants into worthless seed plants. So, if you have 200 seedlings, 100 are pulled out before the other 100 are made worthless.
Out of those remaining 100 females, pigs might eat them, insects might wreck them, fungus might kill them. Sometimes too much or too little rain can make a difference.
Finally, thieves, both official and civilian, can make off with the plants. It’s not easy growing enough plant to smoke let alone make a profit. Today most pot is bought from out of state and the profit goes there as well.
Some of the profit goes to peaceful hippies and some go to gun-toting drug cartels that now grow in our national forests because it’s illegal.
So, once again police, politicians, scared people that don’t know the good herb but take plenty of prescription drugs — Legalize it! We will all be better off.
Hawk Hamilton, Kilauea
Speed in Blood Alley
Mahalo to the DOT, KPD, our elected officials and to all who attended the Sept. 2 meeting about addressing safety concerns on a stretch of Kuhio Highway.
I was unable to attend though I had planned to go to suggest lowering the speed limit to 35 mph. Why 35? We all know the speeders will continue to drive 45-50 mph. That still gives us a better chance at avoiding an accident with fatalities or permanent injuries.
Those of us who honor the 50 mph are often overtaken by drivers going 70 mph, weaving in and out of traffic. The three lanes continue to Safeway, but the speed limit drops to 35 and 25 at the Wailua Bridge. I don’t have the statistics, but I believe there have been two traffic deaths in that area in the last 10 years, as opposed to 10 traffic deaths from the bridge to the airport in the same time period.
Most of us personally know an accident victim who will live his or her life in a wheelchair. What did the speeder achieve? Two minutes ahead of the cars he/she passed only to wait two minutes at the traffic light? Was it worth it?
A large percent of the motorists on this stretch of road are visitors, many for the first time who do not know their way around and how dangerous this road is. These drivers are prone to last-moment decisions to change lanes or pull onto or off of the highway.
From the airport to the Wailua Bridges we have at least nine locations where motorists enter and exit the highway. These all present dangerous shifts in speed and direction in relation to the prevailing traffic.
A blowout or other mechanical failure can put a car out of control too fast to react at 50-plus mph. At 35 the opportunity to react is much longer. And considering the absence of safe shoulders on “Blood Alley,” the opportunity to pull out of traffic in a safe, controlled manner will be greater at 35 mph.
Let’s do this right while we are inclined to do it. Is an extra minute or three a good trade-off for an accident avoided? I believe it is.
Aloha begins with us. Let’s help our guests and ourselves survive the trip.
Dot and Richard Beach, Kapa‘a
A girl named Loke
Kaikamahine o Kaua‘i, they named her Loke.
Born with kind and beautiful eyes.
Happily she gathered limu on the shore, Moloa‘a and Anahola sands warmed her smile.
Quietly she smiled at the forest song of the i‘iwi, the cool mists dampen her burden of ferns.
Pursued by her tall young man, laughing she allowed gentle capture, and became his equal.
Long years and far away was Kaua‘i, dreams and memories beckoned, returning them to the windy shores, they rested.
Peaks at Kalalea offered shade at day’s end, and sunrise as pure as their hearts, at the end of each night.
She watched their ‘ohana blossom, she watched him catch the clever fish, silver flashes filling his nets.
Laying down her calabash, she is content with her mana‘o, bravely she begins the journey preparing the path.
The fisherman sits repairing his nets old hands moving swiftly yet somehow unsure, the task old yet unfamiliar.
Hearing not the waves nearby, only the voice in his heart, na pulama with kind and beautiful eyes.
The eyes of a girl named Loke.
— In memory of my friend Loke Pereira
Capt. C. W. Best, Anahola
