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.
Ahem.
"Ching-chong Chinaman sitting on a fence," Logan recites in his always-booming voice, "trying to make a dollar out of 15 cents."
Kvetch all you want about that ching-chong business, but cut Logan some slack as he divines the hidden wisdom of the verse.
"That’s me," Logan says. "My wife and I enjoy our life together, and part of that is being productive. That means a lot to me — just being productive and trying to get that dollar out of 15 cents. It’s not always easy."
Logan, who earns a living selling homemade poi and kulolo, enjoys a uniquely rich life leveraged on the seemingly meager currency of his boyhood on the North Shore. Logan and his five siblings grew up on a chicken farm in Laie. When the daily chores were done, he would join his sibs and cousins in paipai fishing, splashing the shallows to rouse moi, oio, weke and aholehole into the large nets they set.
After graduating from Kahuku High School and attending Columbia Basin Junior College in Pasco, Wash., Logan found work as a commercial fisherman, learning the ropes from respected seaman Leo Ohai and eventually serving as captain of an akule boat.
In the early 1980s, Logan landed a gig as a diver for a film production. That led to specialized training from local special effects master Archie Ahuna and some two decades of work on TV shows such as "Tour of Duty" and "Lost" and films like "Pearl Harbor" and "Tears of the Sun." He also worked as a stage hand for local theater groups and traveling productions.
During lean periods, Logan fell back on poi- and kulolo-making to make ends meet. After retiring from special effects and stage work, Logan and his wife of 38 years, Renee, continued to sell their taro-based products at open markets and other venues.
"It’s a lot of work," Logan says. "But this is something that has been handed down in my family, and I’m happy to pass it on to my children and grandchildren."
For Logan this is no academic point. Pounding poi or baking kulolo is not an exercise in cultural preservation to be trumpeted by grant-seekers in aloha shirts.
"As a fisherman I liked seeing things that few people have seen — traveling to the Leeward islands, listening to music that Hawaiians on Niihau played for us over the CB radio," he says. "Now I like being able to make poi and kulolo the way we were taught as kids, which not a lot of people still know how to do.
"We’re in the same class as farmers or fishermen. There are no days off, no overtime pay. You do it because you enjoy doing it and because it’s a way of life."
