Dad's Lessons

          I can’t even begin to count the things my dad taught me while I was growing up and all these years later, I’m still using most of it.

The first thing I remember learning from him was how to read. I must have been about 4-years-old because it was before I started school. I’d sit on his lap while he read the newspaper and pick out words that grew into sentences and eventually paragraphs. When I got old enough to walk to the library by myself, he always asked what books I’d checked out and sometimes he read them too. We talked about a Johnny Unitas biography that I checked out, a book about the Battle of Britain, and many others that I brought home.  It was our little book club, before book clubs. My love of reading soon expanded to writing, which eventually led to a career in writing.

Dad holding Cynthia, with Bob and me, Ft. Benning, GA.

When I was in 9th grade,while Dad was teaching my younger brother (and some of his neighborhood friends) how to play basketball, I indirectly absorbed his lessons. He had gone to the University of Hawaii on a basketball scholarship, so he knew his way around a basketball court. I learned how to shoot a layup, that there weren’t any good excuses for missing a free throw (even blindfolded), and to pivot a lot while using your elbows and rear end to protect the ball when someone’s trying to take it away from you. No matter how hard I tried, I never could dunk or palm a basketball—just too short and small-handed, but it was still a lot of fun and I held my own playing intramural basketball in junior high school.

Three decades later in an aerobics class our teacher had us do relay races dribbling a basketball the length of a room, around a cone, and back. When it was my turn, as I dribbled across the room, I could hear my father’s voice coaching me, “Don’t think about running, your feet will take care of that. Concentrate on keeping the ball out in front of you.”

Dad and I up on Tantalus, Oahu, Hawaii.

          From his years as an infantry officer in the Army, he taught my brother, sister, and me to be prepared to move quickly. Sometimes it would be like the lightning round of a game show, “The house is on fire. I’m lying unconscious on the floor. How would you get me out?” or “OK, you’ve got a half an hour to ship out. What do you take? Go!”

Grandpa and Grandma with Johnny and Sarah, Puyallup, WA.

    In 1993 parts of those two scenarios came into play. A chicken farm in back of our house caught on fire and the hot red flames quickly spread to the woods on the other side of our fence. With Sarah sitting in a backpack, I turned the sprinklers on in our yard and threw some clothes onto our bed wrapping them up in the bedspread (a trick passed on from my Dad’s mother when they hurriedly evacuated from Pearl City, Hawaii on December 7, 1941 shortly after the bombs fell). Johnny gathered up his favorite toys while I grabbed our photo albums, and threw it all in the trunk of our Toyota Corolla. While curious onlookers ran through our yard to watch the flames and barbecued chicken scented smoke billowed behind our house, I pulled out of the driveway with our kids and a carload of possessions.

Although the fire got close, our house escaped untouched. I hadn’t had to use my father’s other fire advice: that if you’re in a building that’s on fire (or under fire), never go up. The higher you climb, the less chance that you’ll survive if you have to jump out a window. I thought of that when I watched desperate people with limited options jump from the Twin Towers as they burned and crumbled on 9/11.

My dad, Larry Keolanui

Maybe the most influential lessons learned from Dad weren’t intentionally meant to be “official” lessons, but the stories that he told us about when he was growing up have stuck with me. One of my favorites still makes me laugh every time I hear it.

The class clown in his elementary school decided to make a prank call to scare his teacher on Halloween night. The next day his classmates heard about what happened. He had dialed his teacher’s phone number and when she answered, he threatened in his best creepy, Bella Lugosi voice, “Mrs. Marsland, tonight you die!”

I’m sure her student pictured her cowering in fear, but she was a seasoned teacher. She didn’t skip a beat, “Michael Wilson, you stop that right now!”

He stammered, “Um, I just wanted to wish you a Happy Halloween Mrs. Marsland,” then hung up.

Lessons learned: never prank call a teacher, and you better be able to think on your feet because the tables could turn on you at any time.

This morning I talked to Dad on the phone and something else he taught me was reinforced—honesty. One of his stories had made a lasting impression on me. I called to double check some of the details for this blog. This is how I remembered the story.

In Hawaii, some of the private schools host carnivals to raise funds. When he was in high school, my father and a group of his friends went to Punahou School’s carnival. They were enjoying the rides and food, including shaved ice which is like a snow cone. A big guy walked up to one of the girls in the group and shoved the shaved ice that she was eating into her face.  Her date, who was much smaller, turned to his buddies and asked, “Do I have to punch him?”

They unanimously agreed that he had to fight the guy, and pushed him toward what he knew had to be done, “Yeah, you can’t let him get away with that!”

I can’t remember if he was pummeled, or somehow managed to become a triumphant David against Goliath, but that story gave me a ruler to measure men’s masculinity with.

When I started dating, I’d ask myself what my date would do if someone smashed a shaved ice in my face. I have absolutely no doubt about what John would do, without hesitation. There would be a hefty price for a shaved ice smasher to pay. When Johnny started dating, I knew what he’d do, maybe before the guy’s hand lost contact with the paper cone holding the shaved ice. When Sarah started dating, I’d size up the boys who came to pick her up. Could he pass the shaved ice test? He didn’t necessarily have to punch the guy, but he had to do something about it. I don’t care what women’s lib says, I still think that on a basic primal level, men are supposed to protect “their” women: dates, wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters.

In fact, in the larger scheme of things, this lesson is something that applies not only to men, but to women as well. Granted, you can’t be a hot head flying off the cuff about everything, but, when someone does something that’s blatantly wrong, will you take a stand or will you look the other way? Dad’s story made me think, and I passed it on to my kids to make them think too.

Returning to the phone conversation with Dad this morning--to fact check the two stories, I asked him to tell me both of them. He retold the Halloween story almost exactly the way I had written it for this blog. But my version of the shaved ice story was different, much more dramatic.

In reality, the big guy at the Punahou carnival didn’t purposely smash the shave ice in the girl’s face. He accidentally bumped into her and unknowingly made the shaved ice spill on her. The smaller guy was Dad’s best friend. My dad chuckled affectionately when he explained that his buddy wasn’t a fighter, like my dad back then. Also, his friend wasn’t dating the girl, just standing by her. And lastly, although that day there was a lot of male bravado flung around about how they thought the situation should be handled, ultimately no fists flew.

So, even though all these years, I used my skewed version of the story to categorize people as fighters or wimps, this morning I learned a lesson in getting the facts straight, and I agreed with the wisdom of not over reacting to unintentional mistakes. This latest lesson was generously sprinkled with some humility. It’s really no surprise, I’m still learning from Dad!

Thanks for all the life lessons and my continuing education Dad! Happy Father’s Day!

Laura Keolanui Stark has always liked a good story. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.