We Attend a Luau 1996

Kelvin had spoken to his mother on the phone about the situation. I had no job and he was doing odd jobs at a salvage yard for a friend of his on K Highway. She said she would send us the money while we were in Hawaii. Keith, Karen and Kelvin wanted to spend the money so we could go to a Luau in Hawaii before we left for home. I thought we should take the money and run with it to Missouri and deposit it immediately in the bank account. Everyone, of course, thought I was being selfish, including me but I was under a lot of stress. How were we supposed to pay our bills when we got back? Kelvin hadn’t paid the rent and we didn’t know how long the landlord would put up with that before setting us out on our ears. I had the utilities and the regular bills to pay, plus gasoline and groceries. He was supposed to pay the rent with his money. It had been a couple of months before I realized he wasn’t paying the rent, I think I found out when he actually told me he hadn’t been taking the check he was getting for disability up to the landlord’s office as he had been. He had bought an old van that wouldn’t run half the time just because his ”friends” in the trailer court needed money to buy, God only knew what. So we were out 200.00 that should have helped with the rent for another vehicle we couldn’t afford to buy tags for.
I relented and we spent the 125.00 she sent us to go to a luau. The parking lot was crowded. We found a place to park, Ray, Keith and Karen’s son, named after the rich uncle with the mansion looking outwards towards the volcano, Diamond Head, again agreed to watch Dakota. We sat at one of the long tables provided for the evening meal, which consisted of a roast pig that had been lowered into the ground with ceremony and cooked on hot coals and buried several hours earlier. We got there in time to see them raise the pig out of the hole and carry it on poles to the big tent where it would be cut up and the meat shredded to feed the tourists that had come to watch the native dancers on the stage made of grass and bamboo. They were dressed in the native costumes of Hula skirts and leas with bands of multicolored flowers adorning their foreheads and above one ear. The men had no shirts on but they too had leas around their necks and a large multicolored cloth around their waists. They sang and played ukuleles and talked of Don Ho. One of the foods that was prepared was poi. It was purple and slimy and had no taste whatsoever. It was, to put it bluntly, nasty stuff! I left the poi on my paper plate. The paper plates they had given us were so thin you could practically see through them. I got up to get another plate of the better food, the barbecued shredded pork and fruit. When I got back a strong breeze grabbed the plate of poi and whisked it away into the face of a fellow patron across the table from me. Karen laughed as did everyone else, including the patron who received the tropical slime. I was mortified and so apologetic that they laughed even more. I was not accustomed, yet, to the constant wind blowing and had not laid anything on it to keep it from blowing away. We laughed and had such a good time. It was one of the rare occasions when I was able to relax and be myself a little bit. Kelvin was being good for once. The tension of knowing anything could set him off was eased some but I was always on my guard to be embarrassed at any moment. He was good at embarrassing me along with anyone within earshot of his tirades.
The music was good, the costumes and dancing were colorful amid the many Tiki torches placed on stage. Now that was the Hawaii I had heard about on television and in magazines. We took pictures of the many statues standing guard in Waikiki, as well as bridges and the ocean front, the beautiful blue waters at the beach and of each other. By March 1st we were ready to head for the airport and greet the snowy and cold conditions of a Missouri winter.