MAUI NEI

BY RON YOUNGBLOOD, Staff Writer
Maui was a different place in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The condos and hotels were just being built in Kihei. On the west side there was Kaanapali and most of the beach was just beach. In Kihei and on the west side, vacation accommodations consisted of small apartment complexes.

Canadians were a prominent part of the visitor industry. No need to guess why when you consider winter in those northern climes. Some came to stay and build. Two prime examples were the Napili Beach Club and the Maui Lu.

Rental housing was scarce and what was available went to residents — usually by word of mouth. The rental section of The Maui News was less than a column long. Transient vacation rentals wouldn’t come along for another couple of decades. The tourists pretty much stayed over there while working folks stayed over here.

Those who moved to Maui in those days were a different sort. There were the surfers and hippies who came after watching surf movies of a land where wave breaks were empty and there was fruit for the picking, never mind the fact the fruit belonged to someone.

At one point, there were clusters of individuals living alternative lifestyles in tents and shacks — the two most notable being Banana Patch out Haiku way and behind One Loa Beach at Makena, which then was a far place indeed. Both were eventually shut down for building code violations and out of concerns for public health. City kids just didn’t know what needed to be done with their wastes.

“Those (expletive) hee-pees ruined everything,” an old-timer once told me. “Before the hee-pees come, I could grow plants in the front yard. Now I gotta grow ’em in the back.” This was the same 60-something guy who said he came to Maui in the 1930s rather than go to prison for growing pot. The judge gave him the choice.

What rankled locals the most about the “transients” was trespassing and being able to live without working. Many of those newcomers were very adept at applying for and getting welfare of one sort or another. Some had jobs when they arrived.

He was originally from California, a surfer who paid his own way. He shared a house up in Olinda and often stopped by in the morning to check the surf. From this particular house, rented by word of mouth, you could see the surf at Maalaea or off Kahului. Veteran board riders could look at those two spots and have a good idea what the surf was doing around the island.

He indulged in his favorite pastime only when he wasn’t working as a nail bender on some fancy condo in Wailea. One evening he stopped by and grabbed a beer out of the ‘fridge and plopped down at the kitchen table. After a couple of long swallows, he grinned.

“Almost got fired today,” he said and waited for the question. “OK, why?”

“We were putting up these four-by-12 beams, you know fancy stuff for inside. The beams had to fit exactly between the inside and outside walls. I was cutting a bunch of them with a circular saw.” He took another pull on the bottle.

“I’d measured them three times before drawing the lines. I started cutting while the other guys picked them up. After I’d cut four of them, one of the guys yelled at me.” He paused for effect. “I’d spaced it and cut on the wrong side of the line. The beams were a quarter inch too short and now worthless. The foreman about had a fit.”

We laughed but it was a narrow escape. Kihei was full of Mainland carpenters ready to step into any job. Other jobs could be hard to find.

Bullocks was full that night. There was one chair empty at a table for two. The other chair was occupied by a deeply tanned guy with a sweat-rimed baseball cap and well-worn cowboy boots.

“Can I sit here?” He nodded, but his eyes said he’d rather I didn’t. We ate in silence. He lit a cigarette — you could do that then — and looked up.

“You work?” I nodded. He seemed to relax a little. “Where?”

“For the county,” I said. That was all it took. Suddenly I was his best friend. Never did get his name.

Maui was different then, but maybe not that much.

• Ron Youngblood can be reached at youngblood@mauinews.com.