When viewing this online auction, it’s best to focus solely on the many nifty items and the potential bargains to be had. Otherwise, thinking about the sell-off of what used to comprise St. Francis School in Manoa, shuttered in May after 95 years due to falling enrollment, might be just too sad, even for non-alumni.

There are myriad intriguing items, such as band instruments, kilns and potter’s wheels, AV equipment, sports gear, robotics kits, desks, chairs. Koi fish, too.

The online auction runs Monday through 6 p.m. June 23. View the 1,000-plus items at oahuauctions.com, and know that proceeds will help defray the defunct school’s debt.

Gotta lava a new Pohoiki boat ramp

It’s good that state engineers have found that it would be cheaper — $14.5 million — to build a new boat ramp at what remains of Pohoiki Bay in Puna than to dig a channel to the old one.

However, shouldn’t this have been evident? It would have been one thing to dispatch bulldozers to dig out some dirt or sand, but it’s lava that did the filling in at the bay, which is now Pohoiki Black Sand Beach. Bad enough to rebuild roads across lava. Here, let’s move the ramp to the water, not the other way around.