HondaReport.com - Early morning Bulldog

Maybe it was those slow, meticulous steps in the photo dark room. Or Mr. Masuo's constant harping about the deadline guy from our publisher, Hawaii Hochi. Whatever it was, those days on the high school newspaper staff at Kaimuki will never leave this memory bank.

When folks from other places ask, 'Where are you from?', local people usually say the name of their high school they graduated from. Castle. Waimea. St. Joe. Or they refer to the neighborhood they grew up in. Laie. Papakolea. Manoa.

Maybe folks down South or in the Midwest or right there in football-crazed Texas are the same way. But it's a given here. People feel rooted, for better or worse, with where they come from, often to the point of pride in both the good and not-so-good elements of our surroundings. Nobody with half a conscience is proud of his neighborhood's negative elements, but we somehow endure them.

When I lived in Kona, nobody I knew would temper the perception that pakalolo was a serious problem. A close friend who managed a local convenience store and gas station, a total anti-drug, non-drinking nerd, said at least 75 percent of his customers bought rolling papers. He told me this with a straight face and my jaw dropped. "At least 75 percent," he said.

Maybe it's because I spent most of my time at work or wandering alone in the then-newly opened Wal-Mart, or singing karaoke in the bowling alley bar after midnight (after work), but I just didn't see a lot of the whole ganja thing while I lived there. And yet, the perception and talk outweighed any experience I had there. The only guys I ever encountered who took a toke now and then were basketball junkies like me. A doobie after two hours of pickup games, People are so spread out in the area, it wasn't like police officers were patrolling the parks and gym constantly. I suppose that's why my one-time adopted home on the Big Island has that rep.

The day I actually learned that I could write entire sentences and string them together to tell a sports story was also a day that linked me to Kona forever. Well, not in anyone else's mind. Just in mine. It was J-Day, or Journalism Day at UH-Manoa. For us high-school newspaper dorks from Kaimuki High, that meant it was the second-biggest day of the year. (The actual biggest day was when we learned whether we won the award as best prep newspaper in the state. I am not kidding.) I'd just started writing sports articles in The Bulldog and the three-week span between each edition was nerve-wracking enough for all of us in the days before MacIntosh computers and digital photography.

At J-Day, the whole essence of teamwork and deadlines was completely different. We broke off into our writing categories and had a short, short deadline to write a story about a featured individual. In this case, spring of 1982, it was Doug Kyle, a linebacker for the UH Rainbows. He answered a slew of questions from the 15 or so of us. I didn't ask a single question. I just kept writing my notes, half nervous and half in awe that we were in a room with a UH football player.

Within a few hours, the results were announced, and because I didn't finish my story in the allotted time, I was done for the day. At least the stress was over with and I wasn't nervous anymore. Kids from across the island were winning honors, and when the private-school writers won, a part of me was absolutely unsurprised. A funny thing happened, though. I thought I heard my name called. I looked around, and my teacher gave me the look, the same one he gave all of us when we were slacking, joking around too much, and not dealing with our deadlines right. What Mr. Masuo was trying to tell me was, they called your name, dummy, so get your butt up to the podium.

I don't know what my face looked like, but my heart was beating pretty crazy as I walked quickly to the stage. I don't even remember who presented these certificates, but hearing my name associated with "first place in sportswriting, underclassmen division" was a shock. I went back to 'my people' and sat down. How did they screw this up? Somebody must've made a mistake. I knew they did. And yet, I sat there, my classmates congratulating me, and nobody from the J-Day program ever came back and told me there had been a mistake.

Then I realized that I was dressed like a bum compared to almost everyone else. Brown corduroys. Rubber slippers. The kicker was my brown T-shirt with "KONA GOLD" right across my chest. I didn't even know what 'Kona gold' was. Maybe it was about the way the sun set over the ocean there. It was just a kinda cool-looking shirt someone game me. (Even my mom, the original McGruff and drug-hater, washed that shirt regularly without knowing what the hell it meant.) Someone as naive as I was. Standing up there before hundreds of kids and a bunch of teachers, wearing that shirt as if I were a proponent of something that deadens your brain and kills all desire but the one to eat Doritos and Ding Dongs at 1 a.m.

The following year, our staff won its second award as a group. I think it was a second-place finish as best high school newspaper in the state. That was slightly more amazing than winning my own award because our group of kids was so diverse and nutty, somewhat like our stern taskmaster, Mr. Masuo. There was Jenny Yim, the editor-in-chief. Manabo "Mabo" Sato, a cartoonist and photographer, a Japanese guy from the South (not kidding, you should've heard his accent. It was kinda cool.) Julie Brutlag, a gentle and easily entertained photographer. Amy Tsuji, a fellow sports fanatic who was the most outgoing person in the class. Oh yeah, she's hearing impaired. There were a lot of cool people in that old classroom who sweated like dogs (pun intended) for the Kaimuki High School paper.

J-Day doesn't exist any more, and it hasn't for a number of years, I hear. That's too bad, because it gave an otherwise nonachieving young person like me a chance to find a niche in this strange, amazing world. I don't think the point of it was winning or losing. I don't even know where that old certificate is anymore. But the experience helped me realize that a kid from Kaimuki High, from Mo'ili'ili and Ala Wai Park, could compete with the finest kids from the world of haves, and that meant something to me when little else did at that age.

It's been 25 years since that enlightening experience, and though I forget about it for years at a time, I kinda wish I could go back in time for a day or two and meet another one of Mr. Masuo's deadlines. We did all of it, the after-school work, dealing with the ancient headline machine and even Masuo's Barry Manilow posters, with laughs and our best efforts. It's a weird thing, I guess, to be up at 6:01 in the morning, with a ton of different deadlines and photos and stories to complete during one of the busiest stretches of the year, and be thinking of something a quarter-century ago.

It feels fresh in my mind right now, though. Maybe moving back into the old neighborhood — different street, same flavor — is stirring something within me. Whatever it is, I like it. If J-Day ever returns, it would be cool to see the Bulldog staff wearing T-shirts with a little more pertinence and representation than the one I had on back then. A simple "KAIMUKI BULLDOGS" would do just fine.

Or the head of a Bulldog, just like the school mascot art, with "THE BULLDOG" printed right underneath.