Warning: Take home only memories from Hawaii.
I went to high school in Hawaii. My father was in the Navy, and we lived on a base that has been closed down for at least thirty years now. When we first got there, we did a lot of touristy stuff — went to the beach every weekend, picked guavas and passion fruit growing in the gulch just outside the back door, toured old burial grounds.
On one of these tours, the guide expressly told us, “Take nothing away from here. Leave the ground exactly as you find it. This is a sacred place, and if anything is removed the menehunes (pronounced men-a-HOO-nee) will be angry and take revenge.” My mother, being a person who demands respect from others but sees no reason to show the same to them, said, “Yeah, right.” And she spent the remainder of the tour searching out the perfect rock to take home — one that was easily distinguishable for its size, shape and color.
She set the rock on a counter, no doubt gloating that she’d pulled one over on some stupid legend whose rules didn’t apply to her. And that’s about the time things started to go wrong.
First, it was her textbooks. She was attending the community college at the time, and all her books disappeared from the locked trunk of her car. She searched high and low for them, but they were gone. She had no choice but to buy new ones.
