Sage advice from Auntie to O’Brian Eselu

Every master artist starts as a pupil, and the late O’Brian Eselu, of hula and recording-industry fame, had "Auntie" Genoa Keawe among his teachers. Early on, he once said, he asked Keawe for a critique. Her reply, then and for the next 10 years: "Keep practicing, keep practicing."

Finally, in 1994, kumu hula Eselu sang "Moku O Keawe" for the Miss Aloha Hula contest at the Merrie Monarch Festival. "So I said, ‘Auntie, how was that?’ Eselu remembered. "She was very silent. And then she said, ‘You got ’em.’" I couldn’t believe it. I was expecting ‘Keep practicing,’ again. I started to cry. SHE started to cry. … That really assured me that I ‘got it.’ As great as she is, a master, she could tell me that."

There are probably many who now will recall Eselu’s tutelage with the same reverence.

A shark is an animal that swims in the sea

Hawaii is marketed to the world as a natural playground, with beautiful mountains and warm and friendly ocean waters. But it has a dark side, too. People falling to their deaths from hiking trails recently and Tuesday’s shark attack of a surfer off Oahu’s North Shore are examples of the latter. In the case of the hikers, they were on dangerous trails and involved unnecessary risk. In the case of the shark attack, its lesson is to remember that when you enter the ocean, you can become a part of the food chain.

It didn’t help that the water at the time was murky; the shark might have mistaken the surfer, whose foot was bitten and required 42 stitches, as some other form of prey.