When Potatoes Won’t Cook

AJ Wood
6 min readNov 3, 2022

Warning: Take home only memories from Hawaii.

Photo by Marc Szeglat on Unsplash

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.

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AJ Wood
AJ Wood

Written by AJ Wood

Good work! You’ve found my personal journal. You may find it healing, as I do. Go on, take a peek. And come join the fun! https://ajwood59.medium.com/membership

Responses (3)

What are your thoughts?

I have been to Hawaii - and brought nothing home except a beautiful hand carved jewellery box, covered with dolphins 🐬.
This is a great story 👏 and I totally believe it.
For mine, I think you being "dead" is the best part of the deal. Keep your own counsel and refuse gifts of tiki.

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She visited the graveyard again and was amazed to find the rock sitting in the exact spot where she had picked it up.

Spooky. 😉

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Shared for you on Twitter. 😉😉

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