For those of you who have traveled to Honolulu Hawaii, you most likely heard or even stopped in for a Cecilio & Kapono concert. They were a big part of my teens years while attending school in Honolulu (Punahou and BYU-Hawaii Campus). In the 1970& 1980z
 Sony made these HUGE headphones with these radio antennas that one would pull up or push down back into the speakers on each ear. I rode my back from Kahala(behind Diamond Head and where I grew up on the island) to Makiki (Punahou School on Punahou Street) with these headphones..built in AM/FM radio and C&K was bound to be found on one of the 3 stations in HNL. There is a song on the album called LOST AGAIN a great song EZ tune to mellow to and just relax everytime i see Barry aka Barack Obama on TV i think of LOST AGAIN from C&K. If there is one thing Barry has its the Hawaiian "Aloha Friday" spirit. Aloha Friday does not have to happen on Friday..it can happen anytime, day or moment. its when a wave comes over you and u do not feel like going to work, doing your homework, or doing anything. just let everyone know you are having an Aloha Friday and its only Tuesday...i think ppl get it and ppl work around it.  It happened to me while at BYU-Hawaii...i arrived to class at 8am and the note on the board was...MAKAHA...be there asap...Makaha is one of the best beaches on the North Shore of Oahu the surf is awesome so the prof wanted us to be there to enjoy what was a unbelievable spectacular day..it was..i still recall that class that day that moment and it was not Aloha Friday we talked about Spiritual things relating to the Gospel and the Plan of Salvation laid out by Our Father in Heaven. IF any of you have young kids or grandchildren and have concerns about tuition etc be open minded and consider BYU, Hawaii or Idaho, Utah or Virginia. for a private university (the worlds largest) you will be hard pressed to find any college that offers what BYU does for the same money. Currently BYU is 1200.00 a semester, not sure what BYU Hawaii is but its always been less expensive than BYU Provo Utah due to the school wants mainland kids to be at BYU Hawaii so the Pacific Island kids from Samoa, Tonga Philippines,NZ, Australia, Fiji all over the Pacific....that attend  BYU Hawaii...to teach by more of an example how to study. the classes are sort of easy for mainland kids cuz the lessons are taught a few times for English is not the primary language for most of the Pacific rim kids...the cultural things that are learned are forever ingrained, food, customs and the various languages. Im fluent in Japanese from this diverse culture I had and soon embraced it..being blond and blue eyed is not easy in Hawaii. Its minority status even at Punahou. Punahou is mainly Chinese, Japanese and Kamaaina (white ppl who have lived in the island a long time) not to be confused with Haole (white tourists) The only req to get into any BYU is good grades (really competitive accademically at BYU regardless of campus) one signs a contract that u will not be drinking, smoking, having premarital sex or doing drugs i would add..i think drinking coffee and tea would be something that one would want to avoid so u dont stick out like a sore thumb. great football, basketball and never an assignment paper, homework,quizzes or exam due on Monday (school policy)  due to the school realizes that most kids do homework on Sunday and as any BYU student will tell you..you have zero time on Sunday to do any homework due to church sunday school and all the other related church meetings students have while at BYU. Tuesdays are great at BYU...no class are on the schedule from 10am to 11am...a non required devotional is going on at the Marriott Center and should never be missed the guest speakers are always someone interesting and someone you would love to have over for dinner. While i was there Jimmy Stewart was there, Walt DIsney, Gerald Ford, JWillard Marriott, (the one and only) Robert Redford taught there during the winter on Environmental Concerns he lived in Sundance which is 2 miles from BYU and would fly in on his helicopter. he had too many speeding tickets and i believe he lost his drivers license...lots of celeb kids go to BYU. I had a 7am New Testament class and Marie Osmond was always the first one to be there. she told me she hated being late for anything and didnt want to cause a commotion coming into class late.. Johnny Whitaker(little Jody on Family Affair with Brian Kieft)  was there when i was there, i would see him in the gym locker room a lot he loved running. the Fieldhouse has an indoor track that is one mile in circumf. and while is huge the inner areas are for intramural sports, like golf, baseball, football and i think they had a tennis court. i ran every morning before classes started. its just a great place. I had non Mormon friends and i never pushed the church thing, i felt they are surrounded by 31k kids most of them Mormon and if they wanted to learn more they didn't have to search hi and low to ask anyone. I just friended them as if they were anyone else a child of God with faults and weaknesses like my own.  I have had an unusual life. i have known poverty from scant supply to a life full of friends in high places multi millionaires and i don't know that they are any different than me other than their net worth...the only real difference is money buys lots of comfort which should never be confused with happiness. I have dated a girl that lived next to Bobby and Ethel Kennedy in McLean Va. Her name was Heather Campbell Heather was best friends with Kerry Kennedy as they were the same age. Heather worked at the WH as her mom Beverly Campbell was Nancy Reagan's publicist and NationalSpokesperson for the Mormon Church. Pierce and Beverly went on an African Safari and while they were gone, Heather was driving home from the WH...it was the day Michael Jackson recd an award from Prez Reagan..anyway, Heather ran her car into a tree and was killed instantly..and not a scratch on her..no one else was involved...a very odd accident. I recall getting the call and my heart just...well just never recovered. i think of her all the time. Pierce and Beverly moved to AZ and Beverly writes childrens books for little girls. I am afraid to call them in fear that Beverly will chew me out for not moving on and forward. Beverly is a person who is so guided by the Holy Spirit.i have never known her to be wrong.  anyway, its been an interesting life and IamSorry my emotional breakdown caused me so many problems not being able to sort out fantasy from reality. I found that fantasy is always better than reality and coming down from fantasy is damn near fatal. IamGlad that few will read this sparing me from a rating of FUNNY.
I think as a young kid I found living in a fantasy world worked really well for me. My home life was lower than miserable. As i have commented at the age of 4 my dad dove off a diving board and broke his neck leaving him a quad and bound to a hospital bed and wheelchair. He spent 7 yrs in many hospitals around Illinois where he is from and his  family has been in the same town ever since they arrived to Naperville/Warrenville/Wheaton/Glen Ellyn IL.
My dads family hails from England and were part of the exodus from the UK to the USA as they had all converted to the Mormon church. the history of the Mormon ppl in IL is large. Being industrious ppl they build this extremely prosperous city on the Mississippi river called Nauvoo. Apparently the near by towns resented all this wealth and burned the city down and murdering Joseph Smith the founder of the Mormon Church. Brigham Young realized a huge problem realizing that all the people would not make it to Utah so he sent half back East, my dad's family being one of the many heading East. they settled in Naperville/Warrenville. The purpose of ppl being sent back East was to establish farms so as the new immigrants from Europe would know where to go for rest, rations and supplies to ready them for their journey to Utah.
My dad was in WWII where he met my mom as she had volunteered with the USO in Hawaii as my dad was stationed there...they met and eventually got married. My dad bought a swamp behind Diamond Head and in those days ppl could buy land in HNL today its 99 yr land leases and has been i think for over 50 yrs.
Dad irrigated the swamp and built a house there thinking he would have this little place to come back to someday.
After the war, my parents went home to IL. My mom's family is from a very small community called River Forest IL its next to Oak Park IL and not far from the city of Chicago.
July 20th 1957 my dad dove off a diving board in Barrington IL and hit his head on the bottom of the pool. There was not any notation on how deep the water was but the diving board was there regardless. Many men had dove off that same board that summer and all had died from their head and neck injuries. My dad did not. He was strong and athletic and I guess lived for another purpose which as a kid gave me much pause as to why all this suffering was going on and why we suffered from scant supply. The family was real estate rich but cash poor for sure. Being only 4 yrs old I didn't have a real grasp of what was about to fall my way. A life of loneliness, the feeling of not being wanted, feeling like i was in the way and sure didn't feel loved. I was all alone all the time. My mom spent everyday at the hospital for i guess she was waiting for him to die as the Doctors said dad would not live long ( they were wrong by 26 yrs) as they thought a month, then 6 mos, then a yr then 5 yrs and after that they gave up.
My mom would place with neighbors or relatives while she went to hospital to be with her husband. I can only imagine the trauma she suffered all of her life. In the meantime I was being sexually abused by a neighbor/relative its a topic one does not talk about as a survivor of sexual abuse its too hard to talk about and as a kid and given my family situation who was i gonna talk to? the pattern was already set I had no one to go to so i kept everything inside.
When i was 11 my dad came home from the hospital and i did not know this man. he was a stranger, and certainly his physical condition gave me a fright. his hands, fingers all gnarled and his knees all bent. Oh God what was plan here for this very young family? I believe to this very day that my older siblings all suffer from this traumatic the family all experienced but given the age differences all of our traumas impacted us differently but as a 4 yr old now an adult being exposed to adult sex i was already very old.
I didn't have much of a life. i was home everyday after school to tend to my dad in his wheelchair, feed him dinner put him to bed, empty his urinal bag, change his cather and do something with the massive bed sores. I did this every night for 22 yrs so its not like i could go out..who goes out at 10 pm? plus it was the same then as it is now, few ppl liked me. I was just i guess odd. had no idea how to act with my peer group..but put me in a group of 50 yr old' i could carry on a conversation that they could relate to but high school kids no way had any idea of the depths of my struggles plus kids are cruel and mean when they are confronted with something they know nothing about...like here Mom and PaPaldy and their host of 'gang up on Robb' comrades just are clueless in being able to spot out someones behaviour as a cry for help. Imagine being a special ed teacher and this is a situation in your classroom. rather than be attuned to the childs issues do the opposite and bring them out for ridicule. a class act for sure..all for that big pension and i will not go there with the poor teachers in the USA only there for the sake of their life pensions. but its my perception of these ppl and some just follow cuz they too are lost and have never found acceptance in their own peer group. For the most part IamOver this mentality but what i do not understand is they do not seem to understand that they are gonna die too just like me and u which then makes us all the same so why is it their hearts are so hardened  so incapable of extending themselves with a kind word or some gesture to say...hi..? but like i said, IamOver this constant rejection of ppl. I realize my problems are my own and i do all i can to find my spot in life. I tend to keep to myself. IamTooGood looking which causes a problem too and being sort of withdrawn from ppl..ppl make assumptions and judgement calls rather than take things at face value ppl like to talk behind my back about my life or whatever IamUse to this as well of course if hurts but its been going on for so long i do not care as i once did.
After my dad came home from the hospital and the law suit settled my dad realized he did not have to be uncomfortable in the winters of Chicago. He had his little house behind Diamond Head that he built in 1943-44. The day after Christmas my parents and I would get on a plane to SFO and then get on a boat and head for HNL until June when school was finished for the semester. I attended two high schools one in Wheaton IL and Punahou in HNL.
there came a point when dad could no longer do this extensive travel he was finally deteriorating physically. I would put him to bed as always every night and he would say..'when will i die'...'i wanna die' as i write this now i am profoundly aware of how he must of suffered. his heart broken long ago. his mistake...diving off a board that ruined the family he had..he was irresponsible and had not given thought to his 3 kids, his wife. i never talked to him about it, he knew of my anger toward him for ruining my life. i lost my life at age 4. i lost my family at age 4. i lost my innocence
at age 7.
At his burial I cried in this sobbing and unrelenting way..as i watched his casket go into the ground i kept thinking..what was the purpose of all this...this was going to be the outcome. [size=2][font=Trebuchet, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory.[/font][/size][size=2][font=Trebuchet, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?"[/font][/size][size=2][font=Trebuchet, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] so i cried feeling now all of the sudden older. I now was without my father a father i did not know or have a father son relationship with and i realized I was never ever going to get that back. ever. it too had been taken from me.[/font][/size]
[justify][font=Trebuchet, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=2]I mentioned dad's eulogy was written by a very young John Grisham. I recall him coming over to visit with my dad on many occassions. His voice kind, his youngness in years somehow didn't show. He was a man full of compassion. I believe my parents attorney Al Woodward, father of Robert Bob Woodward of 'All the Presidents Men' fame Woodward and Bernstein told him about my dad. The Woodwards lived in Wheaton and had been friends of my dads family for a long time. Anyway, John said he had been writing my dads eulogy for many years. as he read this eulogy it was if he was reading a story from the begging of time of adam and eve and he filtered it to the birth of my dad. [/size][/font][/justify]
[justify][font=Trebuchet, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=2]The church was packed to standing room only the extra auxillary room the over flow room was also standing room only. Hundreds of ppl came to my dad's funeral it was something i had not thought about but he had been given a test and while its difficult to say at this time whether he won or lost that test i believe in all my heart that he has found his reward as im sure the Lord Jesus Christ said to him while his mother at his side...Welcome home my son, you have served your lifes call well.[/size][/font][/justify]
[justify][font=Trebuchet, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=2]My new problem was how do i enter into my peer group? I was so out of touch with 26 yr olds. I thought well..i no longer need to take care of  my dad...this was now my time. [/size][/font][/justify]
[justify][font=Trebuchet, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=2]I thought I can now finish my 4yr degree at BYU in Provo. I had started it while in Hawaii and I was full time Army at Tripler Medical Center and lived at home in Kahala. Things didn't go so well for me in the Army I was released with an Honourable Discharge and i returned to IL and within a few months my dad died.[/size][/font][/justify]
[justify][font=Trebuchet, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=2]My life so completely changed at BYU in Provo. I was happy or so I taught myself to be happy. I was living in this delusional world and it just go worse and worse. IamSure it was a mechanism so i would not have to get close to ppl. The shame and guilt over sexual abuse was now starting to haunt me so i kept pushing it further and further into someplace I didn't want to deal with it like out of sight out of mind.[/size][/font][/justify]
[justify][font=Trebuchet, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=2]TBcontinued[/size][/font][/justify]

I am sorry for all your troubles.