and I believe that the puka in the okole is also the okole oke puka, correct? Man, do I ever miss home (1115 Ukana St, Aliemanu Hts, 1950s... also Nanakuli - went to Nanakapono School there - wonderful times.)

THEN they ruined the Islands by going statehood. Now it's just another NYC and the old beauty is long gone.

Tunnels through the Pali, more than half of the old Ala Moana Park is GONE.... bet that a 9-year-old cannot walk the length of the streets from Old Honolulu into New Honolulu alone today, can he?

Go to the photo morgue at the Star Advertiser and take a look at the old photos of Ala Moana Park... you'll see what I mean. and no one is taught the history of Hawaii any more. Hell, I'm 74 and I still remember the words to the old Hawaiian National Anthem, and the meanings of the words. Can't dance the dance, but I can talk the talk like crazy. If not, then I can find a cut short and get some shave ice while I try to remember. Oahu was once a beautiful place. Not any more. I miss Thomas Square and the banyan trees, the fountain there, and the Academy of Arts across the street. I miss the Purity Inn, and two-finger poi... I miss the people and the whole thing of it all...

It was once, but will never be again, heaven in the Pacific.

Lived there during a good time... pre-statehood. Tripler saved my life with a narrow few-minutes margin for a tracheotomy and I still have my dad's red and white car plates from when we lived there. Hawaii, I believe, was the first state to put photographs on driver's licenses, but I may be wrong.

I bet that even the old Kodak photo area at Ala Moana is gone now, too.

Remember the coral retaining wall at the edge of ala Moana park, before you went down to the sand?
Gone.

The whole damn place has changed, and not for the better.

Is Kamehameha Day still a state holiday, or have they changed that, too?

I know that today if I were to go home, just to stand on the corner of Beretania or even Ala Moana Blvd, that I would just stand there and cry. They would send someone out to pick up the old man who was standing there crying, and would not understand him when he kept saying, over and over, "Pau ʻole ... ʻaʻohe mea e like me ia."