Summer School

Midsummer 2022 my friend from way back asked if I might answer some questions posed by Minnesota high school students attending his summer class. Here are their questions and my replies. I never received replies to my questions. Dialogistically disappointing – just farting away time – but kinda homesteady:  

“Do you live in a rainforest? How much rain?” yes. 150-200 inches/year. It’s really best when it rains at night and is sunny during the day. I have been harvesting rainwater as my only source of water for over twenty years, so rain is pretty important. Whenever I travel, I miss my clean water.

“What is your favorite song to play on guitar?” Walking Blues’ by Robert Johnson. It’s played on a resonator guitar (Dobro) with a brass slide on my left-pinky which gets this pretty cool sound. What song would you like to play on the guitar?

“Is it dangerous living close to a volcano?” Can be. It depends. In the eruption of 2018, 700 houses were destroyed by lava, as well as Kapoho which was an unbelievably cool spot on this Earth. But the fact is, stuff changes and people that don’t accept change well, probably live in conflict with reality. What do you reckon is most dangerous about where you live?

“Do you have edible flowers?” Yes. Nasturtium and various nectars i.e. ginger blossom. Can you recommend any edible flowers?

“Can you say “chicken parmesan” in Japanese, please?” No. Sorry. I’ve lived in Japan for 6 years. Like most things I know, I sort of learned through necessity and experience. I never had occasion to need to know how to say that.

“What is the top sport in Hilo or Hawaii overall?” All manner of water sports maybe. These days I like to just tread water and watch fish and turtles. How about in Minnesota? I also got into badminton here and I like playing it. Also, I like to play chess with our nice wooden chess board. In school days, I was too eager to be able to focus sometimes. But now chess can just be a great way to spend time together, unmediated with electronics, etc.

“Do you have pets or animals that live on your property?” I have two cats, sometimes a feral pig, and a lot of interesting birds. The song of the Hwamei (Chinese laughing thrush) is one of the jazziest things. It improvises incredibly.

“Can we see the outside of your house and a little of your yard?” Maybe sometime. I built two cabins about 60 feet apart. The front one is a ‘pole-house’ and the back one is my study from where I am typing this right now!

“Favorite guitar song/guitar solo” Don’t have one. What’s yours? I played a lot of rock when I was younger. These days I sort of pick up my acoustic guitar or ukulele and play whatever seems interesting at the time. I also jam a little online. There is an inherent (time) latency in that, but it can still be fun and expressive (convivial). Btw, I rocked too loud when I was younger. It was a total rush, but now I have some tinnitus which you might want to think about when you are younger.

“Do people surf on your island?” More often we surf in the water … ‘ba doomp!’ I used to surf on a surfboard here and in Japan. These days I’m pretty content to ‘body surf’, which really only requires some short fins to have fun, but a handboard or boogieboard can be nice too. Depends on the waves.

“What sign are you?” Capricorn. Are you interested in astrology? Astrology is more mysterious than say, astronomy. Do you have other interest in mystical things?

“Coconuts? Banana? Cannabis?” I wish I could grow coconuts at 1800′. Bananas and cannabis grow well here but are a lot tougher to make a good curry with. I also grow Jakfruit which does go well with curry.

“Do you get lava bombs?” Fortunately, no. However I have a very cool cooled one that was ejected from the volcano as a large dense cannon ball thing. Our volcanos are mostly ‘shield volcanos’ and not ‘pyroclastic’.

“Do you watch Stranger Things?” No. What’s it about? Btw, the night sky in Hawaii can be amazingly clear. I’ve even seen the Andromeda galaxy with only binoculars. So just walking between my cabins under the Milky Way is “strange”. Are we the only intelligent life among this? Are there countless, and unimaginably intelligent creatures? Either answer is “strange” enough to keep me in awe.

“Do you have an app we can download?” These days I mostly develop for web browsers, but here’s an early one that may or may not download: https://apkcombo.com/topicmatch-dialog-match-game/appinventor.ai_islandnotes.Topicmatch/ I’ve learned a lot about coding and development over the years. It’s actually quite different than what I imagined. If you have further questions I’m happy to help. One advice I’d give is that learning to use your hands in different ways than from operating a phone/computer is real important. What other ways of using your hands would you like to improve in?

“What is your favorite beach?” Probably Richardson’s in Keaukaha. I’ll probably go there with my kid today. Besides being an uncrowded beach and “ocean park”, there is a splendid view of Hilo with 14,000 ft. Mauna Kea in the background.

“How much is gas?” Somewhere around 5.70/gal. We pay more for everything here than the mainland, but curiously the gas difference is less these days. random question: What would you do if you had a million dollars? I used to ask my students that, and it can be an interesting thought experiment.

“Is there hula? Ukulele?” Yes there is. I enjoy ukulele like a great friend almost. Btw, here is a web app tuner that I published. It works well and can be handy: https://tune.netlify.app One of my favorite short ukulele lessons is: “Jus’ press ’em brah!” But being in tune makes it nicer. Basically, you spend time trying to play. Otherwise you don’t don’t learn how.

“Favorite Hawaiian word” ‘pono’, which sort of means righteous. It’s also used in the Hawai’i state motto in a profound way.

“Do people have to leave the toilet seat up so not to get surprised by bugs or scorpions?” I used a composting toilet for 10 years, which can be tricky. No scorpions in Hawaii.

“Please tell us about your school or a school close by” I taught English as a Second Language (ESL) at a school in Hilo. The students were 11th-graders from Saitama Japan on a two-week study-trip. It was a great gig and complemented my homesteading efforts very well. It ended with the pandemic. However, I designed, built, and paid for, my homestead as I went along. It’s not always easy, you need some cash flow, and I was “poor” for a long time. Suffice to say that you can either try and become rich OR you can find what makes you happy, adopt a ‘reduced need to earn’ lifestyle and get by with much less money. (Again, it’s tricky. I went to Japan and saved up money before returning here to build my home. And also, people who just move here can feel very isolated. Nearby friends and loving family is “priceless” as they say. So the path is different and unique for everybody, right?)

“Other than weather, what is the best thing about Hawaii?” I like the clean air (day and night), water, the convergence of east/west culture, intact native forest, living simply and elementally, living in calm quiet for clear-thinking, plenty of opportunity for gratitude, to name a few. What’s best about MN for you?

“How do people get internet? Are there cell towers?” I basically went from dial-up to fiber optic, so now I can learn anything (tutorials, StackOverflow etc.) and develop with great tools (i.e. VS Code, Github, ReactJS, Netlify, etc.) Here’s a web site I made of my late mom’s art which uses all of what I listed: https://galefrances.com/

“LAST QUESTION IF YOU CHOOSE- Favorite Japanese swear word” I don’t really have one. I tend to “swear” in English, but I think it sets a bad example for my 12 y.o. child. “Swearing” seems a bad habit, but then again, spoken English seems to suffer from lack of an exclamation point (!). It’s … friggen’ weird(!).