At dawn several times a week, retired attorney David Larsen walks along the Waikiki shoreline to get exercise.
He walks from Kaimana Beach past the Natatorium, all the way to the shore fronting the Duke Kahanamoku statue and back, greeting others with a "good morning" along the way. He carries a Nifty Nabber pickup tool with him to grab litter.
The walk, you see, is an important part of staying healthy for the cancer survivor, who 10 years ago was diagnosed with a rare form of multiple myeloma, which affects plasma cells found in bone marrow.
His doctor at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, where he sought help after first being diagnosed, gave him about a year to live. Two bone marrow transplants later, Larsen credits his doctor at home, Honolulu hematologist Jonathan Cho, for helping him outlive that prognosis.
Larsen underwent chemotherapy and recalls that the first round was particularly rough. "The chemo knocked me off my okole," he said.
As soon as Larsen could walk again, he and his wife, Pam, got back into strolling on the beach — Ala Moana, Waikiki, Kahala and Kailua — at all times of the day.
"This time I was a little grouchier," he said. "My wife and I would be walking and I’d see a chunk of opala. I’d say, ‘Look at that! What a bunch of slobs.’"
His wife encouraged him to do more than just grumble about it.
A week later, the Nifty Nabber he had ordered online arrived at the door, and Larsen began taking the claw grabber along for his strolls. It has given him a new sense of purpose.
He’s still undergoing chemotherapy treatment, and some days he doesn’t make it out. But as long as he can still walk, he brings the Nifty Nabber along.
"It brings me happiness when I look back and say, ‘Yeah, that’s pretty clean down there,’" he said.
Larsen, who just retired two years ago after a career as an estate and probate attorney for Cades Schutte in Honolulu, picks up all kinds of opala including plastic bottle caps, stray paper napkins, straws and, every once in awhile, a diaper.
"Beauty is fragile," he said. "Just look. Here, it’s just so beautiful. Hawaii is just simply a paradise. You can go around the world, which Pam and I have done, and there is no place anywhere else in the world like this."
Larsen said the litter is created by "all of us, not any one person or group of people." He’s accepted that there’s "no way you can get it all." Sometimes he’s returned to the same spot he cleaned three times in one day, only to find more rubbish.
"You just keep doing your best," he said.
He believes everyone who volunteers can make a difference, even in small ways, whether it’s picking up trash, donating money to a charity or serving on a school, nonprofit or community board.
It all adds up, he said.
"What I’m doing here is really manini," he said. "It’s so simple; it’s so easy. It keeps me happy. No more grouching."
