Golden Touch Craps

Fear and Loafing in Hawaii by Frank Scoblete

click the following link to see some amazing pictures from this trip report: www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6bBRaMeRII. Also, we have a video at this link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6XdVue_lKk. You may notice that Stickman is in few of the following pictures. That's because Frank said he should be the star of the trip. Only kidding. Stickman took most of the pictures, that is why he is not in them. But we all appreciate what he did. Please enjoy.

The ferocious hurricane Sandy was bearing down on the Northeast Coast about to hit New York and New Jersey in a couple of days; the New York where I live 26 miles from the Empire State Building (as the pigeon flies).

But I wasn’t thinking of hurricane Sandy at the moment. I was in Hawaii at the Big Island (known as Hawaii) sitting in a rental car about a mile up the side of a gently sloping but huge mountain made from volcanic lava. Jerry "Stickman," his lovely wife Tres, my wife the Beautiful AP and I were waiting in that car in a clearing on the side of that mountain for a tsunami to hit the Hawaiian Islands! A super-storm hurricane threatening our home in New York; a tsunami threatening our lives on the Big Island Hawaii; bookends of horror.

We were in a clearing in a suburban neighborhood and we had a great visual of the town of Kona where our hotel Courtyard King Kamehameha looked like a sitting duck. That hotel was less than 100 feet from the water. Could it survive a giant wave?

We had been eating at the Huggo’s Restaurant after spending four jam-packed days in Oahu in a beautiful Honolulu hotel, the Miramar. The food was fine and the restaurant sat right on the water. My chair was within lapping distance of the waves – with longer arms I might have been able to reach down and stroke the surf; absolutely beautiful evening, clear, starry, just the kind of night you want on a 12-day vacation to Hawaii. Yes, oh yes, a great restaurant resting on a beautiful ocean on a magnificent night on an island paradise deep in the Pacific. It was 8:30.

Then the waiter came over. "You have to finish your dessert quickly," he said. "We’re closing."

Air raid sirens could be heard in the distance. I hadn’t noticed those before.

"Closing?" asked Stickman.

"It’s an emergency. Those sirens mean there is a tsunami coming."

"What?" asked the beautiful AP.

"There was a 7.7 earthquake in Vancouver and a wave is on the way. Probably a few waves. All businesses are closing and there is an evacuation order."

I remember hearing about that earthquake as the four of us waited for our two-hour helicopter ride over and across the Big Island Hawaii. Someone at the Paradise Helicopter company had a radio on – but at the time it was just background noise.

I enjoyed the helicopter trip that afternoon, even though the quarters onboard were cramped and overly warm. We’d seen an active volcano; seemingly endless stretches of a dead world on and around that volcano, a world that looked remarkably like those photos you see of the Martian landscape. Weird was the fact that people actually lived in those dead areas on the side of the volcano. They had no running water or heat or any utilities. They did everything themselves. Keep in mind this was a live volcano too.

The Big Island was not just the dead landscape of the aftermaths and current-math of a volcano. The Island had tens of thousands of acres of monstrously large rain forests, too, and gorges and 300-foot cliffs where the ocean hammered away. These cliffs reminded me of the White Cliffs of Dover. In one stretch on the flight we were breezing into a huge green canyon and saw a ruined thing from another world, another time – a World War II bomber that had crashed.

That Paradise Helicopter ride was quite an aerial tour. Our guide/pilot Koji was superb and made exciting views even more exciting by his comments and banter.

"Right away," said the waiter. "You have two or three hours before the tsunami hits."

"God," I said.

"Here’s your check," said the waiter. Stickman and I took out our credit cards ("Split the bill half and half," said Stickman) and the waiter rushed off to put them through their credit card machine. Tsunami or no, you gotta get the money from the customers!

"Here’s your cards," he said when he returned. He could see the look on our faces. "Listen, I don’t think there is anything to worry about."

"What do you mean?" asked the Beautiful AP.

"I think this will be a nothing tsunami. The government gives these warnings because you never know how big they are going to be. Lately they haven’t been too big. Last year we were supposed to get a really big one and it never even showed up." I remember that one. The tsunami destroyed parts of Japan and their nuclear reactors but Hawaii had been spared.

Actually the waiter’s words were not comforting for long because he then said that he wasn’t worried since he lived "way up the mountain."

We left the restaurant and walked the mile to our hotel – we walked that mile fast. People were scurrying all along the shore going back to their hotels; the air raid sirens were blaring in the distance; many cars were leaving the hotels and the parking lots of the restaurants and shops along the shore. There was a controlled madness to the whole scene.

When we got back to our hotel, the lobby was packed with people with their luggage. "A bus is coming to take us to a shelter," said one old woman.

"I don’t know about that," said an old man. "I think that’s a rumor."

A security guard held up his hands. "People, people, if you have rooms on the fourth floor or above we will allow you to stay in the hotel – at your own risk. There will be no one in the hotel to serve you or protect you. You will be on your own."

We were above the fourth floor but we all agreed it was better to be safe than dead. We had about two hours before the first wave hit, so we went to our rooms, got our luggage and met in the lobby in 10 minutes.

There was plenty of traffic, mostly tourists fleeing to safety, but it was moving. Up the mountain we went – past the tsunami evacuation sign – until we found a spot that was probably a thousand feet above the highest building in Kona. We had a great view; the lights of the town’s shops, houses, hotels and the beautiful expanse of a relatively calm ocean shimmering out to nowhere, a nowhere from which a tsunami was coming. Too bad a certain level of terror affected how we viewed that view.

In the house behind the vacant lot where we sat in the rental car, a big party was starting – a tsunami party – with a crying baby in the background, raucous adults in the foreground, air raid sirens bellowing their warning to "get the hell out" in all grounds; and then we watched the arrival of a half dozen drug addled teenagers (or young adults – I can’t tell ages anymore) pulling into our safety zone – while that Big Island tsunami party really got under way with music, laughter and gradually growing drunken roars from drunken roarers.

In our clearing, the drug addled young folks smoked pot, saw things that weren’t there and guffawed at stuff only the stoned found funny.

From our spot high above Kona, I knew we were not in any real danger – I didn’t think tsunamis could go over a thousand feet high – well, at least I hoped that was true. Obviously the partiers didn’t have any fear and they were residents; and those drug addled young men and women seemed to have no fear either. They just stood in the lot and said things like "gnarly," "get out," "fu-fu" and other things that probably all meant "groovy." (I dated myself just then didn’t I?)

And so we waited. The radio was doing a countdown and Stickman and I kept nodding off in the front seats. I wish I could say such nodding off was the result of a day of flying from Oahu to the Big Island Hawaii and then immediately back into the air for our Paradise helicopter tour. But it wasn’t. It was several glasses of Belvedere that were now knocking us out.

"The two of them are sleeping," I heard AP say to Tres way off in the distance. "They are going to miss the tsunami."

I woke up as the Beautiful AP nudged my arm. "I have to go to the bathroom."

"Now?" I asked. She gave me that look. We got out of the car. The Beautiful AP then announced to the drug addled ladies, "Where’s a good place to go, you know, to pee?"

That’s my wife for you. She has a small bladder, clinically proven, and she can’t wait too long between visits to the bathroom. In fact, when our granddaughter Danielle was asked what the "P" in Grand AP’s name meant she said, "Grand AP always has to pee."

One young woman said, "Go over there in that guy’s bushes. I went there."

"That’s somebody’s property," I said. What I said was stupid since we might be facing the end of the world and who cared about someone’s bushes?

"Let’s go down the road a little. It looks like a small forest down there," I said.

So both of us hid in the forest and peed – a wonderful husband-wife moment. When we got back to the car, Stickman was snoring and Tres was nodding off.

As we got back into the car, the young lady who was the local expert in peeing said, "This is so gnarly. I can’t wait."

"Gnarly," I agreed. Don’t gnarly hands that have arthritis? Groovy is a better word, don’t you think?

Even though we had our luggage with us, I didn’t like the idea of having to spend an evening or more on the side of a mountain watching a shoreline become something like Japan’s after it got hit with a tsunami.

And tomorrow, oh, damn, tomorrow we were scheduled to go zip lining, actually seven zip lines in a row, the last one over a massive waterfall above a thousand foot drop into a massive gorge with the zip liner whizzing over a half mile on the damn cable – a thing I really didn’t want to do, except that Stickman (who will deny this) tricked me into signing up. It went like this:

The four of us had gone on another vacation to Boston, then Vermont and New Hampshire in April. We saw a Boston Red Sox game (the arch-enemies of my New York Yankees), thoroughly enjoyed the city of Boston, and then headed for a quaint bed and breakfast in New Hampshire. Somewhere in this traveling Stickman mentioned going to Hawaii (or I mentioned going to Hawaii) and the four of us agreed this would be a great trip. Stickman and Tres, who have traveled the nooks and crannies of Mother Earth, had already been there and Stickman took the reigns to figure what we would see and what we would do.

He then asked me if I wanted to zip line while we were there. I had never heard of zip lining and I thought it was a new way of saying going up the side of a mountain in a gondola. I am not a daredevil but I figured I could handle that. You see, I didn’t want to look bad in front of Stickman who is a daredevil. I mean he’s jumped out of planes almost 450 times! So, yeah, I could bite down on my cowardice and go up the side of a mountain in a box. If I got dizzy I wouldn’t look down. The Beautiful AP wouldn’t have to say that "My husband Scobe is a big coward." I’d look good in front of her as well. It’s important for a husband to look good in front of his wife.

It is not that in the past I haven’t tried daredevil stuff. I went on the roller coaster in Coney Island – once. Look, I tried it; didn’t like it; haven’t done roller coasters since. I went on the big Ferris wheel in Coney Island – once. I tried it; didn’t like it; haven’t done Ferris wheels since. I went on the parachute jump in Coney Island – once. I tried it; hated it – I mean really hated it!

But I would steel up my guts and handle the gondola up the side of the mountain. I was feeling proud of myself and the next day Stickman said, "Let me show you the zip line company we’ll use."

"Hey, man, whatever you pick is fine with me," I said puffing my chest up bravely in front of my beautiful wife. "I’m in." I smiled like Braveheart.

Stickman fired up his computer, went to the zip line site (zipline.com) and showed me our Skyline Akaka Falls zip line company’s seven zip line "adventure."

"Oh!" said the AP.

"Oh, oh," said Tres.

"What do you think?" said Stickman as I watched in horror at the last segment of the zip liner going over the waterfall and gorge with the thousand foot drop. The zip liner was smiling. Was she nuts?

"What’s this?" I asked.

"The zip line we signed up for."

"I thought, well, you see I thought it was a gondola going slowly up the mountain," I said. "You’re on nothing but a wire here." He was showing the girl zooming over the waterfall and gorge again. "I mean, this is what zip lining is?"

"This is it," he smiled.

"No, well, you see, come on, you made it sound as if it was a simple little box bringing us up a hill to see the sights," I stammered.

"You want to pull out?" said the damn daredevil right in front of my wife and his wife.

"Hell no. I’m in. Can’t wait." My voice kind of squeaked when I said "I’m in." I certainly could wait. What had I signed up for? I could handle a helicopter flight, even though I had never been in a helicopter, but zip lining? I could not imagine myself flying over a thousand foot gorge connected to some flimsy wire. Stickman – no matter what he says when he reads this – tricked me.

Still, right then I was on the side of a mountain waiting for a tsunami which, if I survived that, would be the preamble to a zip lining adventure the next morning, if "adventure" is the right word and not, say, a phrase like "diuretic in one’s pants."

The zip line thing hung over my head for our first week in Honolulu. Although the frightening thought of careening through the skies on a flimsy wire was, well, frightening; Stickman had planned so many activities for our Honolulu portion of the trip that for the most part my upcoming death from zip lining was just a hazy realization in the back of my mammalian brain.

If you’ve never been to Honolulu in Oahu, think of a city created by Las Vegas and you’ve got it; plenty of flare and plenty of sizzle. It’s a Hawaiian theme park and a powerful lure for tourists. I mean, who doesn’t want to swim in the cool blue and aqua waters of the Pacific Ocean at Waikiki Beach as bronzed surf boarders ride the waves about a half mile out to sea? Who doesn’t want to gaze upon older women with slightly worn out bodies lounging in ill-fitting bikinis that make them look every second of their ages as they embarrassingly sprawl on their blankets soaking up the sun on skin that looks like cheap leather? Who doesn’t want to be one of the "with it" at Waikiki beach?

We had excellent views of the ocean from our rooms at the Miramar. We enjoyed those views as Stickman and I sipped our Belvederes in the early evenings while the lovely Tres and the Beautiful AP sipped their Pinot Noirs. Our pre-dinner rituals generally coincided with the end to an enjoyable, sometimes exhausting, day.

And those days were filled, Stickman made sure of that. Our first full day in Honolulu saw us take a 14 hour tour from Honolulu to the Polynesian Culture Center on the other side of Oahu. Part of that tour was really great – the Polynesian Culture Center where we went from area to area each highlighting tribal and cultural influences on the creation of Hawaii. We saw shows and demonstrations and even though it was blisteringly hot and humid, we had a cool time.

The other part of the tour, the actual bus trip from Honolulu, was a trial and ordeal. Our bus driver-tour guide, a pleasant, happy fellow in a Hawaiian shirt and open-toed sandals, who was missing all but three teeth on one side of his mouth and all but two teeth on the other side (one of which was crooked and protruding), who was wont to spit out into the bus when he told us of all the great things we were about to see or had seen just before or after we took off to or from a site. I was actually fascinated by those little white flecks of foam on the left corner of his mouth as they seemed to get bigger and bigger with each passing hour and by the end of the evening with each passing breath. I began to think of them as the Hawaiian blob.

The bus tour got off to a bumpy start. Our guide Happy Tooth got in, spit out his name onto the passengers, and started the bus, which then went down the block and stopped midway during a right-hand turn. The engine had conked out. A half hour later a new bus – which was an old creaky bus with almost no air conditioning – came by to replace the old bus which was actually a new bus with good air conditioning. The new old replaced the old new.

The bus tour stopped at a blow hole at the foot of Diamond Head Mountain, a blow hole is where water spews out of a hole in some rocks. It’s impressive – kind of like the spit that spewed from Happy Tooth’s mouth. We got to see some chickens on a scenic overlook that are "so tough to eat that even if you boiled them for days, the meat would be impossible to bite through." Happy Tooth lived near those chickens and that might have accounted for the loss of his choppers.

We went to the Dole Pineapple plantation and ate some pineapple ice cream (you can pass this stuff up) and Macadamia brittle. Got to see little pineapples in their toddler years too – just as ugly as their parents.

We ate at a luau at the Polynesian Culture Center, sitting with a nice couple from Texas, and two elderly deaf women from California. As we ate, one of the worst shows in the history of the universe, performed by the phoniest MC I’ve ever seen, took place on stage. This MC made Donnie Osmond appear like Freddie from those Friday the 13^th movies – he was so nice. The deaf ladies loved him. The show was nauseating.

The ending event at the Polynesian Culture Center took place in a huge amphitheatre. It was an epic tale titled Ha! with dancing and fire walking, fire throwing, fire rolling (yes, performers rolling on real, hot fire – you could feel the heat in the audience), also with immensely talented performers juggling burning hot torches that they also threw to other performers everywhere around, through and above the stage. It was quite a show.

Then the bus ride back to our hotel. We tipped our driver a nice sum. (I was going to say to him, "Put this as a down payment on some false teeth." I didn’t because the Beautiful AP would have killed me.) Back to our hotel room and lights out on our first full day in Hawaii.

Now parked on the side of the mountain overlooking Kona, the first wave was about five minutes from landing on the shore. Although we could clearly see the waters, it was hard to see distinct waves. From my understanding of such things, tsunamis are not actual waves such as the kind you see every day at the beaches. Instead, they are monstrous swells. Suddenly all the water close to shore is sucked out to sea and then comes roaring back and as far inland as its power propels it.

The druggies in the clearing with us and the partiers in the house behind us were still unfazed by the approaching wave. I did feel safe but still, I had never been in a tsunami and never saw one except for video reports, so I had no idea of what we would experience.

I was thinking that it couldn’t be worse than what I experienced on our second full day in Hawaii when we decided to climb Diamond Head Mountain which was on the side of a fully formed crater from a volcanic eruption that had taken place millennia ago. We walked from our hotel to Diamond Head and almost back again, except we took a five-thousand mile detour to eat some Jamaican food at Jawaiian Irie Jerk, a restaurant Stickman had seen on the television show "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives." The food was surprisingly good. Stickman has eclectic tastes in food – he enjoys fast food horrors such as White Castle as much as he enjoys the best restaurants in America. Go figure. Then again, this is a guy who has jumped out of planes over 450 times so that might explain his universal tastes. Nothing scares him.

The walk to Diamond Head was all uphill. The walk to the Jamaican restaurant was all uphill. The walk up the pathway to the top of Diamond Head was – obviously – all uphill on the most treacherous footing you could imagine. I had to keep looking down at my feet for fear I’d slip and break my ankle.

It was an arduous climb, not per se, but because of the footing. I was amazed that some hearty-hardy souls actually ran up that winding pathway. The view from the top was dazzling. You could see all of Honolulu and various forests and that big, blue and aqua ocean and out there surfers riding those waves. On the way down the Beautiful AP got far ahead of us. So it was just three of us, drenched in sweat, trudging down one after another. Many of the people coming up looked exhausted and Tres said to one totally spent woman, "When we started there were four of us."

Tres, Stickman and the Beautiful AP estimated we walked about eight miles. I estimate we walked fifty – in the heat and the uphill slog it felt like 50 miles. We were all so wiped out that when we finished eating lunch we called for a cab.

The next day was not a fun day. We went on an all-day tour of Pearl Harbor, touring the Bowfin submarine, two museums, one of which had a 1.5 hour presentation that I found fascinating. It was given by a Japanese-American former air-force pilot and I learned so much about the attack on Pearl Harbor. Tres and I even spoke with a gentleman who had been at Pearl Harbor when it was bombed. He was the second man from the bombing of Pearl Harbor I had met – the first being my daughter-in-law’s late grandfather who was wounded in the attack.

This man was saved because he and his crew were digging a trench for some sewer pipes and when the bombing started they all jumped in and prayed. That trench saved their lives.

A part of that day saw us visit the battleship Missouri – the battleship in the movie Battleship that defeated the alien hordes in make-believe after helping us defeat our real enemies in real-believe. Our tour guide on the Missouri was a strange young man who popped up in our midst and kept telling us he wouldn’t make any jokes about whatever he was talking about. He’d go like this, "You see this here floor boarding. That was here from the very beginning but I will not make a joke about it." Or, "The armistice was signed by General MacArthur, Winston Churchill, Admiral Hashimoto, and some other guys and some guy from Russia but I will not make a joke about it."

The guided tour was short and we were thankfully set free to go below to the air-conditioned decks and check out the living quarters, engine rooms, medical facilities, strategy rooms and dining areas. In the first dining area we sat down to enjoy the coolness. The Beautiful AP was not with us as she had developed a cold and took the day off.

Suddenly our guide appeared in our midst and started up a weird conversation during which he constantly nudged Tres. The conversation would make some sense some of the time but at other times none of us had any idea what this guy was talking about. We thought we had ended this discussion when we got up and started our own tour, but he followed us. For half of our own personal tour this fellow walked with us, nudging Tres, and often talking incoherently.

Finally he vanished, just like that. He must have known the ship really well because one second he was with us and another second he had disappeared. As we took our self-guided tour I mentioned to Stickman and Tres that this ship, at night, with no one on it, would be a haven for ghosts. You’d hear pinging and clanking, feel the ship almost breathe with its own life. They laughed. Well, yes, I do have an imagination.

At our final stop, the officers’ mess, we met George M. Arine who told us he had a small role in Battleship as Admiral Hashimoto at the signing of the armistice. George explained how they filmed the sequences he was in – in the very room we were all sitting in. A woman tour guide of about 70 years old came in just then and sat down. "It’s hot," she said.

I asked George for his autograph, as did Stickman, and George obliged. As someone who gives autographs I can’t explain the thrill of knowing others appreciate your work. Signing an autograph is a great feeling. I am looking at George’s signature right now. He was delighted to give it.

He left to pick up a tour and we started to go as well.

I started passing the woman tour-guide. "You know I saw him," she said.

"Excuse me?" I said.

"I was in Broadway which is a corridor where you can see down most of the ship," she explained. "At the end of Broadway, he came walking out. He had on his uniform and his gun."

"Who?" I asked.

"The captain," she said.

"Nice," I said.

"The dead captain of the ship," she said. "He was there in his uniform wearing his pistol; the dead captain of the Missouri."

"The dead captain? The dead captain of this ship?" asked Stickman.

"This ship is haunted if your tour guide didn’t tell you," she said. "There are others too. They don’t only come out at night. They come out all the time."

The last part of the Pearl Harbor tour was the truly upsetting part. We would go out to the Arizona Memorial in the bay. First we watched a 20-minute movie about the attack on Pearl Harbor and then it was off by boat to the Memorial.

As we headed towards the Arizona Memorial everyone became silent. We were going to visit the tomb of hundreds of dead American sailors, marines and soldiers who had been slaughtered in "a day that will live in infamy." There were other Memorials as well, white barges that served as tombstones on the water for the other ships that went down.

The 50 to 60 people got off, in silence, and walked into the Memorial. You could just make out the Arizona underwater. There was still oil leaking from the ship even after 70 years. At the very back of the Memorial was a wall with the names of the sailors and marines who had died that day. There were fathers and sons on that wall and brothers.

I have to say, it was something awful to see but something I would recommend all Americans experience if they ever visit Hawaii. I wish I could say this would be the last attack on the United States but we all know history has recorded many days that will live in infamy. Pearl Harbor, sadly, is the norm for humanity, not the exception.

Our final day in Honolulu was a "let’s figure out what to do" day. I convinced Stickman to visit the Honolulu Zoo and the Waikiki Aquarium which was across the street from the zoo. I have always loved zoos and aquariums and when I travel I enjoy visiting these attractions. Most of the zoos and aquariums have the same animals and fishes as other zoos and aquariums. So what? I always like seeing them.

As usual the day was hot and humid and the majority of the animals were smart enough to seek cover – meaning they were nowhere to be seen. Yes, we did see hippos, rhinos, some deer, birds and monkeys, even a few elephants picking up hay with their trunks and shoveling it into their mouths.

By the time we were finished, maybe two hours, we were soaking wet and thirsty as could be. I told Stickman that I would open a zoo and just pretend the animals were asleep because no one ever asks for their money back if they don’t see any chimps jumping and scurrying and throwing feces at you. You could have a whole zoo with very few animals and still make a fortune.

The aquarium was cool – literally cool. Stickman and I sat for an hour in front of the big tank of big fish including sharks, barracudas, groupers and other big silvery ones. I sometimes wonder why the biggest fish in the ocean tend to be silvery and minus the amazing colors of the smaller fish. Maybe because they are so big the males just say to the females, "Look how big I am," and the females flutter their gills and say, "Come on, Big Boy, fertilize some of my eggs."

The next morning it was off to the Big Island Hawaii and here we were, right now, seconds away from the first awful hit from King Neptune’s waves. The radio announcer: "We just got hit with the first wave!"

"Man, do you see anything out there?" I asked.

"I don’t see a thing," said Tres.

"Nothing," said Stickman.

"All the lights down there are still on," said the Beautiful AP.

"Our hotel is still standing," I said.

"We are getting estimates on the size of the first wave. Let me see, yes, yes, it was one and a half feet tall."

"What? The waves are bigger than that on a normal day," said Stickman.

"But there are other waves coming behind that one and we don’t know the size of them. So I wouldn’t get too complacent."

"I guess the big ones will be following that one," I said.

"I hope we’re not up here for nothing," said Tres.

"I’ll bet this thing will not be anywhere near as big as the hurricane that’s about to hit New York soon," said Stickman.

"I haven’t thought about that, I mean, with all of this," said the Beautiful AP. "If it hits like they say, our house could be in big trouble."

"The second wave is about fifteen minutes away. If you have evacuated your houses or hotels do not, I repeat, do not try to go back to them. The police roadblocks are up and they are not allowing anyone to return until the all-clear."

I hadn’t really thought much about hurricane Sandy. I knew the predictions claimed it was going to be a ferocious storm, perhaps the worst ever to hit the Northeast Coast; the perfect storm combining three weather systems uniting to clobber New Jersey and New York. The dead zero hit was right on my house – at least it seemed that way from the reports. Thankfully I live six miles from the ocean. I wasn’t too worried about the waves hitting us since the flood zone evacuation line is about two miles from my house.

The Beautiful AP and I were concerned about our house. We knew we would lose electricity; a strong sneeze down the block was often enough to shut down the power, but what really concerned us were the legion of giant trees on and near our property. These trees were skyscrapers! If one fell and hit us we would have no house. I had called in a tree specialist a year or so ago after a big snow storm and asked him about all those trees. He said the ones closest to my house were white maple and "strong as can be" and not to worry about them falling down.

I was now worried about them falling down.

"The second wave has just hit. This one was less than a foot. More waves are on the way but it is beginning to look like we dodged a bullet. Still you never know. Do not leave your evacuation sites until the police give us the all-clear."

Wave after wave hit Hawaii – two inches, four inches, one inch. It was now 1 o’clock in the morning.

"The governor is now thinking of lifting the emergency and making it a tsunami watch. This will allow you to go home if your home is not right on the water."

"Our hotel is right on the water," said Tres.

"Let’s go down the mountain to get a better view," said Stickman.

"Let’s stop to find a bathroom," said the Beautiful AP.

We went down about a half mile and a 24-hour place was open. The Beautiful AP went to the bathroom and I bought us water.

We went down to a slight hill just above the resort areas. There was a main road parallel to the shore line and about a half mile from the water, and we could see the cops stopping any cars coming down our road to that road. The cops had flash lights and would send those cars back up the mountain.

We sat, we watched, we waited. It was now 2 o’clock in the morning.

"The Governor has now lifted the tsunami emergency and the tsunami warning and called for an all-clear. You can now go back to your hotels and your homes. The all-clear has sounded."

About a half hour later, the cops got in their cars and drove away. From seemingly thin air, hundreds of cars appeared and headed for the hotels. Ours was one of the hundreds. We got to bed at about 3am.

Tomorrow, no, make that today, at 11am I would be zip lining high above the earth and perhaps falling, twisted, terrified and screaming to my death in a forest far, far away from my about-to-be-savaged New York home.

We arrived at the Akaka Falls zip line company at 10:30am for our orientation. I had tried the zip line in downtown Las Vegas on the previous Friday about 10 days before this "adventure" in order to get a feel for what it would be like. I didn’t particularly like it. Just before I was pushed off the platform to skim just under the overhanging canopy on Fremont Street, the "guide" said, "Don’t lean backwards." Then off I went.

I held on for dear life.

I spun around; had no control of the location and my testicles were killing me as if I had been kicked in the groin by the Incredible Hulk. Stickman was on the zip line right next to me, seemingly relaxed and enjoying himself, but he told me his balls had been crushed too. This was a painful way to get a thrill.

I kept spinning around in my harness and could not get a straight view of where I was going. I have to say this experience sucked all the way to high heaven (that’s the 7^th Heaven where God lives according to mythology) and when it ended I realized if this short zip line sucked what would the massive ones in Hawaii be like? What would it be like to be spinning over a thousand feet above the ground with your testicles being mashed in your harness? I’d be in the 7^th Heaven of Hell. Even if I had balls about going zip lining I wouldn’t have any balls when it was over!

The weekend of my trial zip lining was the 10^th anniversary of the Golden Touch Craps dice control company. We’d have a dice control class that weekend and the lovely Tres and the Beautiful AP would be coming in Saturday evening and Sunday morning respectively for our anniversary banquet that Sunday evening. They planned to do a trial zip line on that Sunday afternoon before our anniversary party.

Neither one enjoyed the experience. AP disliked it. Tres hated it.

Two days before the possible end of my short, happy life in the rain forests of Big Island Hawaii, the lovely Tres decided to pull out. There was no shame to this. A woman didn’t have to prove her balls as a man such as yours truly did. This isn’t sexist; it’s the way it is. The zip line was a test of manhood – ballhood if you get my drift – and the lovely Tres did not have to show her balls. So she backed out. On the other hand, I had to show my balls even though I would probably have them crushed beyond recognition during my "adventure."

Stickman was happily looking forward to this. Of course he was. He likes White Castle hamburgers and jumping out of planes! AP was saying, "I’m nervous but I am going to do this." I kept saying, "I’m not really afraid. I’ll have no problem doing this." I was actually thinking nobody lives forever.

The Beautiful AP wore gloves. She drives with gloves. Now she wanted to zip line with gloves. "I’ll be able to hold on better."

Our guides were Mahi and Tim. They gave us a preliminary idea of what we would be doing and how we would be doing this. They were relaxed, friendly and professional. They also told us they would be doing each zip line with us and that for the newcomers "not to worry because you’ll love the whole thing."

A couple joined us for this "adventure." I forget their names. The girl was a skinny little thing. The guy was a Marine and stood 6’7" with muscles bulging everywhere. He made the 6’4" Stickman look short and compact. This couple had zip lined many times in many places and couldn’t wait to get going. I had to – I mean I really had to – in front of the giant Marine – pretend this was just a walk in the park for me even though my underarms were rapidly discoloring my shirt.

Then we were fitted into our harness and I actually expected to wince as my balls were crushed. No problem. The harness they were using was like the class A+A+ harness, scrotum friendly.

"Hey, Stickman, our balls are safe!" I said with delight. The giant Marine gave me a look. I explained, "We zip lined in Vegas and the harness crushed our, ah, you know, testicles. This one is, you know, good."

After our orientation, we piled into a van to make the short trek to the beginning of my death. The road was unpaved and bumpy; we bounced up and down as we went through sugar cane and banana fields. Unfortunately the van got us there.

The seven-line course was arranged with the easiest zip line first – "To get a feel for it," said Tim – followed by increasingly more challenging courses culminating in the ubber-course, the one after which my sons will have to read my will after my cremation, that is if they can find my totally twisted body in that monstrous rain forest.

This first one was about seventy feet long and about eight feet above the ground. With the dip in the line as you zipped both the giant Marine and Stickman could have dragged their feet against the ground.

We asked the giant Marine and the skinny girl if the three of us could go first and they would be last on all the courses. They had no problem with that.

The take off was easy – in fact, it was easy on all seven lines – you just walked down a few steps and gravity took you away.

The second course was maybe two hundred feet long and about 15 feet above the ground. This was no big deal either.

"Man, this is no big deal," I said. "I’m handling this just fine."

The giant Marine and his tiny girlfriend looked at me. "This is great, isn’t it?" I asked them. "Two down, five to go!" They just looked at me.

The third line was somewhat long and we went over some crops.

"I’m not enjoying this exactly," said the Beautiful AP. Her face was flushed. Gee, she looked so pretty when she was flushed. These would be my last memories of her.

Now, you might wonder as you go zipping along, how you stop when you reach the other side. Well, one of the guides who has zip lined first waits on the other side to catch you. He has a break set up on the line which slows you down and he then finishes the job. It’s pretty easy. You don’t have to worry about breaking your legs when you go flying onto the finish line.

The fourth course frightened me a little…a little more than a little…okay, a lot. We went over a small gorge on that one and I realized once more that I didn’t really want to do this. I could feel sweat pouring down my back.

"That was a breeze," I lied to Stickman.

"Your hands are really red," he said. "You were hanging on for your life."

"That one threw me a bit," I said. No sense lying.

"That was fun!" said the Beautiful AP. "That one I enjoyed."

The start of the fifth course saw me make a decision. Screw it, I said to myself, if you are going to die why not just enjoy yourself? Stickman is doing this with no problem; so is the Beautiful AP and so are that giant Marine and his tiny girlfriend. Screw it. Enjoy it, whether it ends in death or not.

And I did just that.

The fifth course took us over large fields and another little gorge. I had no problem with it at all. My hands had not gripped the line any tighter than they had on the first little-baby line. I even enjoyed the view. Prior to launching, our guide Tim explained how we could use our hand to determine what we wanted to see. You just pointed your thumb and the line would turn you in the opposite direction. Point right, you turned left; point left, you turned right.

Now came the sixth course – a long, long line – over 2,000 feet which is taller than the Empire State Building. Our guide Mahi explained that this line would automatically turn us so that for a large part of this trip we would be going backwards. He told us to enjoy the view.

Off we went.

Our guides Mahi and Tim were excellent at their jobs. They calmed us (meaning me) down and allowed us to enjoy the zips. They even gave us some apple bananas before one course and some sugar cane before another course. Each explained they had been afraid of heights when they signed up for this job and Mahi told us that he never realized he would have to zip along with the customers. Watching them zip along those lines was a pleasure to behold.

The seventh course. This was the one. This was the 7^th Heaven of zip lining!

We had to walk up several flights of steps to get to the take off point overlooking an awesome scene. I was scheduled to go second; Stickman would go first; the Beautiful AP third. The line was over 3,300 feet long – more than a half mile – and zipped us over a huge waterfall and a 1,000 foot deep gorge. We would sail over the top of a forest but we were so high the trees would look like bushes.

Tim told us we would turn backwards as we did on the last line so that we could get a great view of the waterfall and the gorge. He also told us because our speed and height at the end would be more than the other six lines, an automatic break would stop us at the other end and we would then be maneuvered onto a ladder so we could step down to the ground.

We would also hear and feel the wind.

The day was made for this. The sky was as deep a blue as blue could be; the sun was burning brightly, the green of the rain forest was stunning, and although I was sweating like a pig down my back (do pigs actually sweat?), I could appreciate it all. This was a beautiful day. And I would be sailing on thin wires into the air into those blues and greens and over a magnificent waterfall.

This is after all what we paid for; this is what I had dreaded, but now, in the face of it, I was calm and – if this was possible given my previous emotional wreckage – I was actually looking forward to it.

Stickman took off. The line stretched so far into the distance that in about a half minute I could no longer see him. He was out there somewhere thrilling to the sights, traveling faster than all the other zip lines put together and far higher than all of them as well. His trip seemed interminable.

Now I was hooked up to the line. I could feel the vibration of Stickman’s continuing traverse. Finally the line stopped vibrating. Stickman had completed his journey.

My turn.

"See you on the other side my beauty," I said to AP.

"Have fun," she said.

And I was off.

The wind hit me about a hundred yards into it. I could hear it blowing by and feel it whipping my body. I was gaining speed and starting to spin backwards. Bam! I was over the gorge. Oh my God, I was flying! Tree tops looked like plants and the high mountain sides of the gorge could not reach my feet and there it was – the waterfall! I was for that brief time a bird on the wing – on the wing, in the wind, high above it all. I was moving fast like a falcon. I was – for a singular moment – the master of the universe.

And then I started to slow down. I could still see the waterfall but the gorge started to fade, then the waterfall, and then I hit the breaking device and dangled above the ground. Mahi took me and lead me, still somewhat high above the ground, to the ladder where our van driver released me from the line. I walked down on somewhat shaky legs to the ground where Stickman had awaited my arrival.

"Amazing," I said.

"It was beautiful," he said.

"Let’s watch for AP," I said and we went to the fence at the edge of the gorge to await her arrival. When I was zip lining I really wasn’t scared by the heights but standing at the edge of the gorge, even though we were behind a fence, the heights got to me somewhat.

After about a minute I caught a glimpse of her way off in the distance. Her back was to us. As she came closer, I yelled out, "You’re doing fine! You’re doing fine!" She was smiling.

She landed and was brought to the ladder and made her unsteady way down the rungs.

"That was something," she said. "That was something."

Once the giant Marine and his tiny girlfriend finished we took the rocky van ride back to the offices of Skyline Akaka Falls.

I had survived the tsunami; I had actually enjoyed the zip line adventure. Would I do such a thing again? No. While I did enjoy it, and I did, these types of adventures are just not for me.

Monday morning of the next day we visited Kona’s Mountain Thunder Coffee Plantation for a two-hour guided tour. It was 15 minutes worth of time and a total waste of an hour and forty-five minutes. The place was dirty – I can’t believe I drank coffee that came from there; but we did get to meet some cats, chickens, ducks, a pig and a real pain-in-the-ass donkey. The damn thing kept rubbing up against you as you tried to listen to a very quiet tour guide. Tour guides should either have the ability to project their voices or they should be set up with a microphone while the tourists have head sets in order to hear properly. When the four of us went to Washington, DC, the tour guides at the Capitol Building had just such microphones and headsets.

There was no doubt about it; this tour guide certainly worked that plantation as he could use a strong shower. I was amazed at the filth; the place made coffee but it also looked like a thrift shop for the poor and not too picky. There was unused furniture; a mattress that could have come from an alley in New York; dirty and rusting tools and vehicles and pool tables. The workers did not seem to have any concept of personal hygiene either.

Worse yet; the coffee beans were laid out on the floor in some areas to dry and you were free to step on the beans if you desired to see if they would break. Think of it, free to step on the beans that would ultimately make a liquid in your cup with shoes or sneakers that had just finishing walking in cat, chicken and donkey shit. You might be drinking some of this right now as you’re reading.

That tour ended our trip to the Big Island Hawaii.

We landed in Maui at 8pm. This was the third Island of our four-island trip. We picked up the rental car and headed for The Ka’anapali Beach Hotel which had been rated highly – probably by those drug addled kids during the tsunami. At 8:30 at the front desk the receptionist worked in slow motion. It took a half hour for Stickman and me to get our rooms – and we were the only people there!

When we got our keys we walked – to where? Where were the elevators? Someone pointed us outside. It was dark as hell out there.

"Do you know where the elevators are?" I asked an old woman who was walking with another old woman.

"Huh?"

"The elevators?" I screamed. "The elevators?"

"Young man, this property is divided into many buildings. Which building are you in?"

I couldn’t read the damn cardboard key holder in my hand; it was that dark outside.

Stickman had retreated into the lobby and came back with the name of the building we were in. The two women wandered off.

We got to our adjoining rooms. We opened the door between our rooms.

"You smell the mildew?" asked the lovely Tres.

"Yeah, jeez," said the Beautiful AP.

"Let’s go eat dinner and then we’ll change the rooms," said Stickman.

We had reservations at the Tiki Terrace. When I saw the restaurant it looked as if it were in a tent. I was tired so I said, "Jesus, this place looks like shit." The Beautiful AP hushed me.

You see as I get older I find that I have little patience. I used to have a lot of patience. I taught in high school for 33 years and never once had to send a kid to the dean’s office or even yell at a kid. I used humor and finesse to handle any problems I had. Today I would use an assault rifle. Now I am known as Grumpy Grandpa as well as my lovable other self Grandpa Scobe.

"Sorry, sorry," I said to AP.

We had reservations at the restaurant. Three tables had people at them in this big restaurant. There was enough room for a circus act in that tent. The lady at the front desk asked if we had reservations. "Yes, yes, it’s right there. I can read it upside down," I said. The Beautiful AP hushed me.

"Sorry, sorry," I said to AP.

The women went and prepared a table for us. Stickman wasn’t in much of a good mood either. Once seated we ordered Belvederes from the waiter. "We don’t have that," he said.

"Do you have Ketel One?" asked Stickman. The waiter nodded and Stickman ordered our drinks. The lovely Tres and the Beautiful AP ordered Pinot Noirs.

"It’s nice to relax, even in this dump," I said. The Beautiful AP hushed me and …

TRES SCREAMED!

She screamed and leapt from her seat almost tipping over the table.

"Aaaaaarrrrrrggggghhhhh! A roach! A roach is crawling up my leg!"

She swatted her leg a few times. "It’s under the table; it’s under the table!"

I lifted the tablecloth and sure enough there it was – a GIANT roach almost as big as the giant Marine! It crawled out and started heading for me. I smashed it down with my sneaker. You could hear the crunch and see the guts spill onto the rug.

"Oh, God; oh, God," said Tres shivering with disgust.

"That’s one fucking roach," I said. "It’s like the ones in the New York City housing projects where I worked as a kid. A big mother." It had to be three inches long.

Carlito, the waiter, came over. "Is anything wrong?"

"There’s a giant roach I just killed," I said. "There, right there," I pointed to the squished monster. "It was crawling up her leg." I pointed to Tres.

The bus boy was standing there now. He and Carlito laughed. I didn’t see what was so funny. It’s not easy to start a dinner in a restaurant if the damn roaches don’t know enough to stay in the damn kitchen as they do in New York.

"We’re getting out of here," I said.

"We’re getting out of here," said Stickman.

"I could feel it crawling up my leg," said Tres.

"God, they’re probably all over this place," said the Beautiful AP.

Stickman whipped out his iPhone 5 and thank the gods! found a Hula Grill right near our hotel. As always Hula Grill was excellent. We’d been in three of them on three different islands and all three were just great.

After a relaxing dinner, we returned to the hotel where Stickman now lodged his complaint with the hotel’s night manager for the mildewed room and the roach at the dinner table. I shot cologne up my nose to deal with the smell in my room (which was nowhere near as bad as the smell in Stickman and Tres’s room) and fell asleep. I was exhausted. AP’s cold had gotten worse so she fell right asleep too. She couldn’t smell anything because she could hardly breathe.

The next morning Stickman told me that the night manager had to take him to two other rooms before they found one that didn’t smell of mildew. When the night manager asked Stickman if he wanted anything else, Stickman said, "Yes, I want this room for free to make up for everything."

The night manager said, "Absolutely not." He must have had a roach up his arse.

We checked out early that morning. Stickman and I met with the day manager and told her what had happened and that both of us expected not to pay for the rooms either last night or the one we just cancelled for tonight. We would also not pay for the burial of the roach I had slaughtered in their restaurant. I told her if I didn’t get satisfaction I’d call American Express and dispute the bill. Stickman did the same. As I write this no charge has appeared from this hotel on our credit cards.

That morning we ate at a Denny’s in Kahului after making a reservation at the Maui Coast hotel. The Denny’s in Honolulu at the Miramar was surprisingly good, much better than Denny’s normal reputation among my acquaintances. However, the Denny’s in Kahului, Maui matched the Ka’anapali Hotel for insects; in fact this Denny’s had more flies than I saw at Kona’s coffee plantation. Add these monstrously aggressive insects to the totally bored and distracted waitress (I don’t know what the hell she was distracted from, there were only two other tables occupied) who served us cold eggs and droopy ancient French toast from the Saxon era and the summary of this Denny’s was – let’s finish our meal and get the hell out of here!

So far Maui had been calamitous. It would get worse.

We checked into our new hotel the Maui Coast Hotel in Kihei and it was a beauty, far nicer, cleaner and with a more hospitable reception staff than our previous one. The front desk actually was able to give us our rooms and keys in about five minutes. The rooms were clean and comfortable with nice terraces. I’d stay there again if I were to return to this island. The hotel was across a small road from the beach and the beach, as with all Hawaii’s beaches, was beautiful.

It was now time to meet one of Stickman’s former colleagues Jack Patnode who had a beautiful home halfway up the side of a long extinct volcano in the Haleakala National Park. You could almost see the world from his house. It was secluded on so much land that had he been in New York he’d need Donald Trump’s money to buy the property.

Jack was our tour guide for our drive 10,000 feet up the side of the National Park to see the huge crater left by the volcano. That ride did the Beautiful AP in for the trip.

The drive was sheer torture. Stickman had the wheel. For half the trip the two lane road had guard rails but the other half of the trip from about 6,000 to 10,000 feet saw you driving within two feet of drops that only stuntmen in special cars make in movies. I take that back, only some of the drops could be made by stuntmen – the other drops were thousands of feet. I was in the front passenger seat and when I looked down from the window all I could see was a foot of road and oblivion.

The road was twisting and turning; we passed through the cloud level and saw them fall away from us; I felt I was in a plane that was one-foot from crashing. I remembered that World War II plane we had seen in the rain forest of the Big Island. Would our rental car wind up being on someone’s helicopter tour 70 years from now?

At 10,000 feet, the air was somewhat thin but the views were quite daunting and big. The crater truly looked like the images the Mars rover had been sending back. It was swirling shades of brown, rust, pink and black.

AP came to me and told me she really needed to go to a doctor for her cold. "It’s much worse." We decided we’d have lunch with Jack and his wife Bobbi and then find a doctor.

Bobbi, low and behold, knew the owner of the "roach motel" we had abandoned the night before. He was a selectman in the town.

We finished our lunch at the Café O’Lei, an excellent establishment, and headed for the doctor down the road. He diagnosed AP with a sinus infection and told her that today’s ride up to 10,000 feet had exacerbated it – that plus the various planes, the helicopter ride and the zip lining hadn’t helped either. She had been changing altitudes and this caused some of the problem. He prescribed an antibiotic and gave her a nasal spray.

AP decided that maybe we should not go to the fourth island, Kauai, but return to Honolulu and spend a day just resting in the sun – a true loafing day – before our incredibly long trip (6,000 miles!) back to New York and into the unknown effects of Hurricane Sandy on our home and the Eastern Seaboard.

Yes, now we thought about that hurricane which had become – perhaps – the greatest (meaning worst) storm the Northeast Coast had ever experienced. We spent the morning of the final day on Maui lounging by the pool; with Jerry becoming so dark from this trip that he could pass for a native Hawaiian of Polynesian descent. He could become a bus tour guide if he allowed his teeth to be pulled.

We had lunch that afternoon at Café O’lei and headed for the airport. That’s when I knew I was in trouble. I had forgotten to caution the restaurant about a food I am highly allergic to and as Stickman drove, I could feel the effects coming on me. Just as we got to the rental car office I needed to excuse myself. AP helped me and after about a half hour I was able to walk to the plane.

I am so allergic to this stuff that I thought for awhile I would be hospitalized. But I made it through – although it did take a week for the entire effects to vanish.

We said goodbye to Stickman and the lovely Tres, and headed to the Miramar in Honolulu where we would spend the next night and most of the next day before returning to New York.

At the airport in Honolulu on our first leg back to home, we waited the prescribed hour-and-a-half for our plane to Las Vegas for the 2,800 mile first segment of our return trip. I was still feeling weak and the Beautiful AP kept asking me to rate how I felt.

"On a scale of 1 meaning fine to 10 meaning you are dead, how to you feel?"

"Right now," I said, "about a five."

I must have had a massive dose of that chemical that my body can’t stand for me to be so sick after over 24 hours. Finally the airline attendant announced that they would be boarding soon and that all wheelchair passengers (12 of them! I counted, an all-time record), and individuals with small children and those who needed some extra help would be boarding in two minutes.

"Let’s board early so I can sit down," I said.

"No, you don’t need to jump the line," she said.

"I’m weak," I said.

"No, you have to wait your turn," she said.

"I’m at a five on the sickness scale," I whined. "I feel at a five."

"That’s not enough to cut the line," she said.

"Okay, I feel I am hitting the six mark right now."

"Stop lying, you look like a three or four," she said. "We’ll wait our turn."

The announcer got on the loudspeaker. As best as I can remember it, here is how it went:

"Ladies and gentlemen will all the wheelchair passengers report to the check-in area to board the plane. Also individuals with small children and those who need extra help."

Those people headed for the check-in deck. Okay, this was a big plane with two seats at the windows then four seats in the middle and then another two seats at the other windows. So you had eight people across just one row.

"Now will all our first class passengers please report to the check-in for boarding the flight."

"Wow," I said. "There’s a lot of first class." The Beautiful AP nodded. I whispered, "We should board now." She shook her head.

"Our gold members are invited to board now."

A multitude of Gold members checked in.

"Our Silver members are welcome to board now."

Silvers ambled to the check in.

"Our elite, special and quality members can board now."

"I think our seats are going to be on the damn tail," I said.

"All our mileage club members are welcome to board now."

Seriously, how many damn groups did Hawaiian Airlines have? This was ridiculous. Maybe my illness caught hold just at that moment and for just a few moments I heard this:

"Now our tin members can board. [long pause] Now our scarecrows can board. [long pause] Cowardly lions next and anyone with courage. [long pause] Our cardboard members come on up! [long pause] Now those of you who are under 50 years old scamper over. [long pause] Now anyone who had dinner at my cousin Hamamotu’s last night [long pause]…and, oh yes, almost forgot, you last two saps, Frank and Alene Scoblete, you two can slog aboard too." And now I swear I heard the announcer whisper, "Those two are peasants."

From Vegas to New York we were in the premium seats for Jet Blue and were the first two on the plane. We had called our car service in New York and were told that the limo company would make us their only pickup that night – nobody had any gas. Most of the people on the plane were clearly worried about returning to their homes because they had been away during the storm. One nutty elderly face-lifted demented old bat caused a huge commotion because she wouldn’t put her purse in the overhead bin.

"You only have to do it during take offs and landings," said the flight attendant.

"I won’t! I won’t! I always have my purse. I always have my purse. I fly all the time and I always have my purse."

"Have you ever had the very first seat?" asked the flight attendant.

"No."

"You see, in the first row you have nowhere to put anything under so the law is that you have to put everything in the overhead bin during takeoffs and landings."

"No, no. I always have my purse. I always have my purse."

Jesus Christ, I thought, just shoot her.

Someone switched with her so she could keep her purse. Then some woman was caught trying to sneak on a small shopping cart. How the hell did she get that past check in? She also made a big commotion that she couldn’t keep her shopping cart with her on the plane.

But we did finally get back to New York. Our house sust