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Saturday, May 18, 2013         

Incidental Lives Premium

When Damien Memorial School senior Ethan Dayton steps to the dais May 26 to deliver his valedictory address, he'll do so with the wisdom of a young man who has not only reached a worthy academic milestone, but one who has seen his way through a personal journey of grief, love and self-discovery.

Antonita Phillip knew her youngest daughter, Junny, needed more help than she could get at home in Onoun, Chuuk.

When Chanz Palau was first diagnosed with autism at age 3, doctors told his mother that it was unlikely he would ever speak.

It may be true that the character of the worker is revealed by the tools she selects, but in the case of Lolly Romano — whose tools of trade include bulging bags of bouncing balls and not-so-bouncy beanbags, a fleet of modified trikes and go-carts, storerooms of hand-painted cardboard dinosaurs, and trunkloads of paddles and pulleys and fishing rods and catapults — perhaps it is wiser to focus on the results.

Sensei Mary Mineko Weite has taught Japa­nese calligraphy long enough — some 20 years at the Wahiawa Community School alone — to know that what is rendered in free-flowing stroke on washi paper is often the truest statement of the artist in the moment.

Having spent the better part of his 70 years escaping to and from one exotic locale to another, Ed Gardner fancies himself something of an expert on the paradisiacal.

At Oak Canyon Junior High School in Lindon, Utah, spring is announced not just by sunshine and snowmelt and bird songs, but also by bottle rockets and hot air balloons and perfectly good eggs catapulted to the heavens.

Matthew Hayakawa would have you believe that he's just another shiftless 19-year-old who whiles away his days watching his beloved Oklahoma City Thunder on TV and playing "Call of Duty" until the wee hours.

The police warned her not to cross the line, a warning that anyone who knows Lela Hubbard would recognize as a gold-embossed invitation to do just the opposite.

Pity poor Lea DiMarchi. For four years now the love-addled lass has chased fickle Demetrius only to be overshadowed by her supposed friend Hermia, fought over by the aforementioned Demetrius and a magically demented Lysander, and subjected to the mischievous enchantments of the sprite Puck.

There are those for whom a program like the Rehab Hospital of the Pacific's Cardiac REHAB offers the right combination of structure, incentive and encouragement to ensure that the slow, difficult work of recovering from a serious heart condition doesn't become overwhelming.

If Steve Langford's list of life accomplishments reads suspiciously like two or three really good bucket lists strung together, it is, he assures, simply the natural consequence of living life on his own terms and embracing the personal responsibilities that come with it.


The undergrad work in political science, the Juris Doctorate, the career in sales and marketing, even marriage and motherhood — for Larie Manu­tai they're all facets of a larger education.

Several years ago Arnold Honda's client called the financial adviser to say she wanted to cancel her life insurance policy.


The kids wanted to get Grandma something extra special for Christmas, but what do you get someone for whom faith and family are everything?

Growing up in a rough, low-income area of San Diego, Omar Zaldana learned the best way to stay afloat was to, well, stay afloat.

When Cate Guimaraes sees University of Hawaii freshman shooting guard Brandon Jawato knock down a corner 3-pointer, she sees more than just a sweet shooting stroke.

By chance, were you at Ala Moana Center on Christmas Eve 2009? If so, I wonder: Did you see my mother? She would have been bent over a walker, scraping along in her white Velcro-top sneakers a few feet at a time.

Kevin Smith was no pepperoni-piling prodigy, no Michelangelo of the mozzarella when he began working at the Pizza Hut in Hawaii Kai back in the late '80s.

Every once in a while, Stephen Dantzig will trip and fall — “it’s when, not if,” Dantzig says — and some well-intentioned stranger will stop to help.

In a profession in which the call to give is as constant as an IV drip, it's not unheard of for dedicated health care workers to dig deep within and find nothing left to offer.

Any yahoo with a high-speed Internet connection and an H-logo Under Armour shirt can toss off a couple of pocket-worn pennies about the state of the University of Hawaii athletic department or the ups and downs of Norm Chow's first year as Warrior football coach.

When Maria Victoria "Nena" Li Won was told that she had been selected as one of six outstanding Sacred Hearts Academy alumni to be honored at the school's annual scholarship gala, she was truly mystified.

As a boarder at the Sacred Hearts Convent, Maria Victoria "Nena" Li Won would watch raptly as the older sisters worked needle and thread to fashion dainty miracles of embroidery that no machine could ever replicate.

There's no dearth of small talk when the 67-year-old server known as Vitantonio is working the floor at Genki Sushi's Kapa­hulu restaurant.

For someone who earns his living in the driver’s seat, Scott Villarosa understands that control is a tenuous, fleeting, sometimes illusory thing.

Haeng Sool Chong wasn't sure what to expect when he left South Korea some 40 years ago to join his sister in Hono­lulu.

The Hawaii-bred poet who will soon champion the empowering properties of arts and letters among the youth of Nicaragua has a confession.

Dior Andrade admits she was never the pace-yourself kind.

There's nothing Kevin Okada enjoys more than making people smile.

There’s no mistaking the food court in Sears at Ala Moana Center for the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, but for those who like a little Neil Diamond with their Zip Pac, there’s no better showroom.

It's Week 2 of Wai Sam Lao's freshman year at the University of Hawaii. A Regents Scholarship recipient and recent intern at state Sen. Glenn Wakai's office, Lao has been granted early admittance to the Shid­ler School of Business.

Karen Hastings always suspected there was much more to the man she knew as “Jah” than he let on.

Given the dynamism of the contemporary employment landscape, it's worth an appreciative nod when someone approaches a quarter-century with the same organization —especially if that person is only 29 years old.

Carlo Carrasco couldn't understand why in the world his parents wanted to move to Hawaii.

It's generally not a problem when the IT manager/webmaster/telecommunications adviser for Oakes Management needs an afternoon off to attend to a personal project — provided, of course, the office systems are running smoothly and he's done all of his homework.

The certifications in wound and ostomy care attest to Leslie Martin's ability to help patients recover from the abrasions and lacerations and festering sores that insult the surface of their bodies.

I don't pretend to remember much of what I (supposedly) learned in high school, but I do remember this: Robert Frost's poem "Dust of Snow" is a classic example of iambic dimeter.

When you are young and talented and enamored of creative expression in all its many forms, you can't always foretell what strange, wonderful thing you'll be doing next.

It's afternoon at the Hale Ho Aloha nursing facility and resident Julian Monsarrat, having little desire to sacrifice the comforts of his warm bed for a rain-dampened seat on the lanai, draws his blanket to his chest and settles in to watch basketball on the TV beside his bed.

There's one at every camp, Marissa Meerians knows: some painfully withdrawn kid tongue-tied by grief.

So maybe this isn't exactly where Dan Marcus thought he'd be at age 26, but when the economy tanks and those great jobs they promised you in cooking school don't materialize and your parents abruptly decide to head west — yes, even farther west than Vancouver, Wash.

A visit to the C.R. Newton durable medical equipment shop on Beretania Street yields few surprises. The employees are unfailingly friendly, the stock is always up to date (computerized leg, anyone?) and owner George Newton — well, he figures he's much the same as always.

Like any proud mother, Leina­ala Bright couldn't wait to see her only daughter graduate from college.

PAT Watarai is not a doctor, but he has earned quite a reputation as a foot-removal specialist.

As a teenager growing up in Seattle, Sheryl Nelson looked forward to volunteering at her local hospital.

To the untrained listener, the best way to absorb the confluent rush of words from the identical mouths of twins Timothy and Symon Rowlands is to abandon all hope of keeping track of who is saying what.

Jocelyn Conoly figures she had ample excuse to give in to the riptide of tough circumstances and poor choices dragging her farther and farther from the life she had envisioned for herself.

When the SUV is double-parked and the baby is a-wailing and you absolutely have to find, oh, a bag of marshmallows fast, fast, fast, you could run blindly around Safeway's stadium-size Kapa­hulu store until your faint — or you could simply ask clerk Katrina Mura­naka for help.

When Hiroyuki Ito has something meaningful to express — his friendship, his appreciation, his wish for a speedy recovery — he often does so with a gift every bit as rare and delightful as the spirit with which it is offered.

When Noelle Stene­ker arrived in Hawaii in January, her knowledge of the state, its tumultuous history and its unique mix of cultures was admittedly scant.

Jennifer Wong isn't sure she wants to translate her mother's words, but, dutiful as always, she does what she is asked.

This year's Mother of the Year for American Mothers of Hawaii insists she is just like "99 percent of all mothers out there.

Every once in a while, Kahuena Kaona’s parents will ask her to pick up a little something on the way home from work.

Imagine Keoni Kahoano those first few weeks at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, one day pounding nails into a board for hours on end just to get the technique right, another sweeping inches-thick layers of dust from a warehouse floor because, hey, no one pays anyone to sit around.

Think you have a lot on your proverbial plate? Meet Donna Sepulveda.

The blood-slowing cold of that first winter in Syracuse might have been enough to send a less devout young nun scrambling home to Pepeekeo, but Sister Margaret Antone Milho knew adjustments would have to be made once she devoted herself to the church.

More than anything, Ned Matsuyama just wanted to play. Sure, he'd spent a season kicking around a Kona baseball league, but that hardly satisfied his desire to play the game the way it was meant to be played.

As those who have put themselves in harm's way to serve their country can attest, heroes come in all shapes, sizes and job descriptions.

Jonathan Perreira has lived too many years, made too much money off his own wits, suffered too many slick-talking, Reyn's-wearing ninnies to be anything but absolutely direct about the things he cares about most. So here's the deal: Perreira, 90, has a valuable Hawaiian heirloom that he wants desperately to give to a deserving charitable organization.

Dennis Okada figures he was due for an awakening, a kick in the eye, a redirection. "I was selfish," Okada says. "I wasn't necessarily a bad guy, but I was too focused on myself. I didn't care enough about others."

Of all the things a bright, artistic teenager might think to collect -- graphic novels, obscure recordings, grievances against the adult status quo -- what Aloe Corry prizes most are the magazine cutouts, hastily recorded dreams and snippets of wordplay that flash like lightning across the landscape of her imagination.

You generally do not go to the mall just to buy a wind spinner. If it happens, it is because someone like Giovanni Kabessa has broken through your sophisticated consumer defenses and sold you one.

Time, it seemed, had come. Roy Nagahara said his final farewells to family and friends, then turned to his wife, Irene, as the medical staff removed the breathing tube from his throat.

When it comes to gift-giving, you aren't likely to find anyone quite on the level of Sally Okura Lee in your grab-bag pool or Secret Santa circle.

When Tony Jones showed up for his first day of work at Nanakuli High School 16 years ago, he cast an eye to the long patches of red dirt around the campus, noticed the black-and-gold design of the Hawks' logo and felt a tug of recognition.

Vanessa Whang has been on the job long enough -- three weeks, to be exact -- to know which passers-by will drop a little something in her kettle, which won't and which would love to but just can't.

Had they a few extra minutes to spare, the two men crouched intently over the chess board might discover a few things about each other that would surely astound.

When Gloria Valera opens her mouth, it's a good bet the first words to roll off her tongue will be, "I have a story ..." What follows is always worth listening to.

Midway through his shift at Honolulu Airport, Johannes Empron Jr. is itching for something to do. He pushes a cart through the baggage claim area, eyes scanning the empty room for travelers in need, ears alert to the jumble of voices crackling through his walkie-talkie.

Letty Geschwind moves nimbly along the overgrown brick pathway that cuts through the 100 or so plots that make up the Manoa Community Garden. Well, as nimbly as any 75-year-old woman can move while steering a wheelbarrow full of dark, rich soil.

Siblings Tammy and Isaac Lau have decidedly different ways of following their artistic impulses, each process perfectly suited for the way they engage the world.

Every so often a reader will ask what the deal is with the name of this column. "Incidental Lives"? How insulting! How arrogant to deem someone else's life as something of minor consequence, as some byproduct of mere chance.

Catherine Choppin insists she's not a caregiver. Catch the sniffles and she'll tell you to keep your cooties to yourself. Land in the hospital and you'll be lucky to get a phone call.

When local masseur Wade Kitagawa suffered the third heart attack of his life last month, it wasn't as if his clients were overflowing with sympathy.

The O’Brien women aren’t the sort to waste a lot of daylight.

Next year, the Chaminade University basketball program will celebrate the 30th anniversary of its historic victory over then-No. 1 Virginia and, as such occasions occasion, Tony Randolph will field a fresh round of calls from local, national and international sports journalists seeking fresh insight into what is broadly considered the greatest college basketball upset of all time.

There will come a time in the not-so-distant future when Damien Memorial School chemistry teacher Gerry Sigmon and husband Mike give up the itinerant life and secure for themselves a comfortable retirement niche in a place that feels like home.

Tell the political correctness daisies to treat themselves to a Xanax while 60-year-old Hauula resident Clarence Logan shares a decidedly old-school rhyme.

By her own admission, 70-year-old Pearl Murata loves to talk. It's part of what makes her such a popular figure among patients and staff at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women & Children, where she works.

Hillary Brown had just finished walking her 8- to 10-year-olds through their pre-dance warm-up when the headache hit.

Is there a subtle way to say that you studied classical piano at age 3 and spent your teen years giving solo performances at Westminster Cathedral or St. George's Chapel Windsor Castle (for Queen Elizabeth!) — y'know, without inviting a hellacious two-fisted melvin?



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