HECO: Don’t Let Us Get Flattened By The Wild Bull

Richard Ha writes:

When I was growing up we lived in Waiakea Uka, close to the end of a gravel road that was maybe a mile long. Most of the parcels were fairly large – 40 acres in size – and four other families lived there on Alaloa Road, too.

We kids used to go exploring a lot. The land was mostly abandoned sugarcane, tall California/guinea grass with guava trees, waiawi and an occasional ‘ohi‘a or African tulip tree.

One day when I was in the 6^th grade, my younger brothers and I overheard someone say there was a river in the pasture at the end of the road. And in that river, he said, there were gold fish—red, black and whites, and combination of colors up to 12 inches long. It really got our attention—gold fish. Wow!

The four of us decided to go explore one day and see if we could find that river. We got a bucket, several fishing poles and some earthworms, and we were off. We never thought to tell Mom and Dad that we were going.  

We walked to the end of the road and came to a barbed wire fence. We could tell by the tracks alongside the fence that there were cattle inside. We assumed there was at least one WILD BULL in there, too.

From where we stood, we could see that this was a very large pasture and the far end, maybe two miles ahead, ran into the Waiakea forest reserve. By the description we’d heard, we guessed that the river was straight ahead, somewhere in the middle.

The grass was shorter in the pasture than it was outside, and there was a lot of fountain grass. The visibility for us small kids might have been 50 feet at best. So we had to figure out how we were going to find the gold fish and not get hooked or flattened by the WILD BULL.

 We could tell there was a series of rock piles on the left, where we could run from one to the other as we made our way to the river. Or we could go straight ahead to a rock pile that was quite a ways in the distance.

Nobody needed to tell us that we did not want to get caught out in the open by the WILD BULL. We didn’t see him, but we knew that when he got mad, he would paw the dirt and dust would fly. Steam would come out of his nostrils and his eyes would be red. Then he would charge and hook all of us on one horn, and then stamp us flat. We imagined the worst.

So we walked along the inside of the fence line to the left, until we came to the shortest distance from the first rock pile and we headed for it. We were very clear – if the bull came, we would either run back to the fence or forward to the rock pile, whichever was closest and safest.

So far so good. No shaking of bushes, snorting of steam or thundering of hooves. We climbed up the rock pile, which was maybe 6 feet higher than the surroundings. We looked all around, listened intently, checked for cow flies and even tried to see if we could smell him. No sign.

We continued on to the second rock pile, which was not straight ahead but took us diagonally closer to the river. From there, we headed for the third rock pile, which had us going cross country, closer to the river but back to the center.

Someone thought he heard a noise, and we all froze and strained our ears. If the bushes shook, if we heard or felt hooves or even smelled anything we would have been gone to the safety of the nearest rock pile.

Nothing, so we quickened our pace and scrambled up the rock pile. We stayed there for a little bit, trying to get up the nerve to make it to the last rock pile. In a short time, we were on top of that rock pile looking back from where we came.

We decided we were doing the right thing. Had the WILD BULL caught us out in the open, we were sure we would have been flattened.

On top of that last rock pile, we could see the river’s outlines. Once we were sure nothing was moving, we climbed down and headed for the stream. When we got there, we started to walk alongside and peer into the water.

One of us yelled, “Eh look, gold fish!” We all put our lines in. We had earthworm for bait and hooks we made from Mom’s pins.

Some excitement. As I recall, we caught about nine fish. Then we headed back with our live catch in the bucket.

That is the story of how the pond at the end of one of our chicken houses came to be stocked with gold fish.

And it comes with a simple lesson: Better to be safe than sorry. Don’t get caught in the open by the WILD BULL!

Do not take the dangerous, biofuel path to expensive electricity on the Big Island. We need to hedge our bets and use geothermal as one of our “rock pile-safe harbors.” If we do not hedge our bets, there is a good chance that we will be flattened by the WILD BULL.

Even small kids understand that.

Comments

[Michelle Galimba]

wonderful parable. that's exactly the kind of country wisdom that often gets lost in the trend-driven thinking of today. I think farmers have a lot to contribute to our culture about decision-making within the framework of sustainability, especially the old-fashioned live-or-die kind of sustainability.