Kalama Beach

       For a few years now I’ve flown to Hawaii three or four times a year to visit my elderly parents who are in their eighties. My father is in a nursing home now. He has vascular dementia. My sister Cynthia who lived in the next town over, passed away in 2015. My brother Bob had a massive stroke and lives on Maui. I usually get a layover on Maui to meet with him and his wife for a few hours. 

Me with brother Bob and his wife Kathleen at the Zippy's in Kahului, Maui.

Then it's on to Oahu to see my Mom and Dad. Mom has had to adjust to taking care of the house and finances by herself. She goes to visit my Dad every day to feed him his lunch. I try to go back three or four times a year to help her out.

Mom feeding Dad lunch.

Mom and I visiting Dad.

       As soon as people hear that I’m going to Hawaii, they forget the beginning of the sentence about visiting to help my parents and assume I’m going on vacation. But when I go to Hawaii, I’m going to my other home. I'm a native Hawaiian. I’m going to see my family, not to be a tourist. I get irritated when people ask me if I went to Aulani, or ask where my tan is.

       I’m usually driving around to visit my father, take my mother to doctor’s appointments, and cramming a lot of errands into a week-long visit to make mom’s life easier after I leave. The only tan I get is if my left arm is out the window when I’m driving. My husband John is in Washington, holding down the fort, so I’m kind of on my own. Yes, Hawaii is a beautiful setting, but taking care of elderly parents is the same no matter where you are.

Entrance to Hale Nani Rehabilitation and Nursing Home. 

       For me the highlight of my trips center around eating local food with my mother and my brother-in-law Bruce, or by myself—at Zippy’s or the Chinese restaurant close to my parents’ house. I savor the special dishes that I can’t get in Washington:

Mom and I eating macademia nut haupia pancakes and bacon.

Saimin

Somen salad

Zip min at Zippy's

saimin, zip min, somen salad, kalua pork and cabbage, chicken long rice,

Kalua Pork and Cabbage

kau yuk (Chinese pot roast), crisp gau gee min (noodles with crispy fried gau gee which are similar to won ton), shrimp with black bean sauce, 

Variety of malasadas--plain and stuffed.

malasadas, Chantilly cake, dobash cake, 

Dobash cake.

coco puffs, the list goes on and on. These are my comfort foods from Hawaii.

       I also like to go to a store named Don Quijote to buy souvenirs to take home. It’s in the heart of Honolulu and when John and I lived in Hawaii in the 1980s, Holiday Mart was in the same building. That’s where we went to buy groceries. I swear they haven’t repainted the double decker parking lot or changed the tile flooring since we were scraping by when John was a student at UH. We used to look for our favorite and fastest cashier, Alberta before there were scan barcodes on everything. Alberta had the prices memorized!

       As shocking as this will sound, I don’t go to the beach often when I visit. I think the last time I went was two years ago. The closest beach is only a half a mile from my parents’ house. But here’s the thing. If you go to the beach in Hawaii, you will notice that locals rarely go alone. My parents taught me to never go alone. They were very strong swimmers. I am not, and I know that I’m no match for the Pacific Ocean. In Hawaii, there are currents named for where they will take you—like the “Molokai Express.” Hawaii is 3000 miles from any other land mass. So, I’m cautious. Even strong swimmers can get in trouble and drown.

       My favorite beach, Lanikai, has been overrun by tourists thanks to magazines ranking it among the top 5 beaches in the world. So the beach where we used to play most often as kids, and where my cousin’s ashes were scattered after she died, now has tour buses dumping tons of tourists there. My aunt, who lives across the street from Lanikai beach sometimes spends hours trying to get home and then finds tourists parked all over her yard. So I don’t savor Lanikai’s gentle waves much anymore.

Lanikai Beach, 2013

       A few years ago, it was my last day in Hawaii after a few weeks, and as I was packing I realized I hadn’t even been to the beach. It was getting late. I decided to go to the beach closest to my parents house, Kalama Beach. This beach can be dicey, a little dangerous sometimes. It’s not gentle like Lanikai or Waikiki. There’s a strong current and no life guards. (There aren't life guards at Lanikai either.) As I closed the screen door behind me, my mother cautioned, “You be careful! I don’t like you swimming by yourself.”

       The sun was setting which was good because everybody else was leaving so I was "swimming" against the current in the public right of way leading the the water. My slippers slapped the bottoms of my feet past the legendary naupaka bushes with their half flowers and I plowed through the soft sand sprinkled with the familiar tiny pine cones from the ironwood trees. 

       I wore some old board shorts and a tankini top with a pareau wrapped around me. I laid my ancient straw mat, towel and slippers near some local Hawaiians—who are usually sitting in the shade of trees or a tarp tent, not sprawled out on towels to get a tan. They looked at me with faces that said, “Eh, you local. Why you by yo’self? Kinda late too.”

       I just raised my chin to them, and then waded into that perfect clear green/blue water, scooping salt water onto my chest, shoulders, and face the way my father had taught me many years ago. I timed it so I got past where the waves were breaking and then dove under one. The water felt so good I couldn’t help but grin and toss my wet hair. Then I rolled over, laid back and floated with my memories.

      Every time I go to Kalama Beach I remember a story my Dad told us. When he was a teenager, he and his buddies were bodysurfing. One of them caught a wave and to show off, he curled one of his legs back so that his calf and foot were sticking up out of the water. As they watched, a barracuda jumped out of the water and bit his calf. They found this hilariously funny.

       When I was in 8^th grade at Kalaheo which was a junior high school back then (now it’s a high school), some friends threw a surprise birthday party for me at Kalama Beach after school. John and I went there countless times while we lived with my parents after we first moved to Hawaii as newlyweds. Sometimes my brother and sister were with us. Like me, my sister would scream a little and try to walk on water when a piece of limu (seaweed) wrapped around our ankles. Years later, I passed my parents' water safety lessons on to my kids and then watched them boogie board and frolic in Kalama’s waves.

       This is also the beach where my brother Bob learned to body surf. He was probably five years old. I’m not sure my mother was fully onboard with this idea. When we were little, we weren’t allowed to have blue or green bathing suits. My parents wanted us to wear bright colors so that if we got in trouble in the water, they could find us. My brother’s swim shorts were red with white trim stripes.

       I listened carefully to my father as he gave my brother instructions: “When a wave comes, I’m going to push you really hard. You curve your shoulders in and kick as hard as you can.”

       When I asked if I could do it too, he told me girls couldn’t body surf because even when they curved their shoulders in, there were two bumps stopping the water from flowing through the tunnel of your shoulders and chest. At nine years old, I know that I didn’t have my bumps yet. I think he just wanted it to be a father-son moment.

       He took my brother pretty far out. My mom was wading in the shallow water and watching them. My four year old sister and I were sitting on the beach watching too. A big wave swelled. My father launched my brother.

       We watched for his head to pop up. It didn’t. We looked for his red bathing suit. Nothing. My Dad started swimming in toward us, stroking quickly with his head out of the water, looking for Bob. My mother started swimming out, searching too. 

       It seemed like forever, but it was probably only seconds. My brother skidded up onto the sand on his belly, then jumped up and down with glee. “Let’s do it again!” He’d gone way past where my father thought he’d pop up. He was a natural!

       My memories ebbed. The moon was rising. The tide was changing. I could feel the current pulling me, so I kept an eye on “my locals” to keep track of how far I was being pulled. They were keeping an eye on me too.

       I bodysurfed a few waves, in spite of my bumps. It felt so good! All the stress I’d walked in with had disappeared. After the ocean threw me back up onto the beach, I took the hint. I gathered my stuff up, wrapped my pareau around me, smiled a thank you to the locals who nodded and smiled back, and then I headed home. They started packing up too once I was in.

       It was another good memory of Kalama Beach. Maybe the next time I go, I won’t be by myself.

Laura Keolanui Stark is back home in Washington state. She’s not going up in the Space Needle or doing any tourist stuff here either.

Snow in Snoqualmie Pass Quilt

I first saw this quilt in the Jan/Feb 2013 issue of McCalls Quilting Magazine. It was designed by Patti Corey and named “Misty Pines.” 

When I saw it I was immediately reminded of driving through Snoqualmie Pass on my way to and from WSU in Pullman, WA while both of my kids were in college. Before every trip 5-1/2 hour trip I’d check to see if there was “snow in the pass.” The elevation up there is more than 3000 feet, so it's not unusual for the weather to be snowy in the pass while it's raining down here at sea level. 

      On one trip following Sarah’s graduation, John and I were moving her furniture back home to the west side. John was driving his Ford F150 loaded with a dresser, desk, and other household items covered with a tarp. I was following him in Sarah’s Audi.

     It was below freezing and the sun had already set. As we got closer to the pass, just west of Ellensburg (the halfway point), one of the warning signs announced dangerous snowy conditions in the pass. I called Sarah and asked her to go online and check the Department of Transportation’s website to see what was going in the pass.

       She did and reported that as she was checking, they were closing exits on I-90 up in the pass, seven total. A semi-tractor trailer truck was among the many accidents causing the closure. I called John, up ahead of me in the truck and told him to get off at the next exit. We pulled into the deserted parking lot of a closed fruit stand and decided we better turn around, go back to Ellensburg, and get a hotel room.

     That’s exactly what we did. Luckily, we got the last hotel room at the Holiday Inn Express, where the phone was ringing off the hook. We were nervous about leaving an apartment worth of belongings secured with only a tarp in the parking lot as it snowed, but we had no choice.

      The next morning, the pass was clear and we made it safely back to Puyallup with everything, including our nerves, intact. (see August 15, 2013 blog post)

      In ideal conditions, there's snow in the pass frosting the  trees, but the pavement on I-90 is clear of snow. That’s when the views of spruce, Douglas firs, cedar and hemlock trees covered with snow are breathtaking and it's safe to calmly appreciate them. Those are the memories that the “Misty Pines” quilt brought back to me. I had to make it!

      It was different from any other quilt that I’ve made. The skill level of this quilt is “Advanced.” It’s not because of the construction. I’ve made flying geese blocks many times before, and the angled strips are basic units. What makes this quilt “advanced,” is that it is a study in contrast. The description in the magazine says, “In Patti’s stunning quilt, careful placement of fabrics creates a dramatic scene of snow-covered trees backed by winter darkness.”

      The original is composed in grays and white. But up in Snoqualmie pass, it’s dark green, gray, and white, so I changed up the color scheme. There wasn’t much, if any, gray in my fabric stash. The original quilt used fabrics that had textures from nature—stones, or mottled bark. I also used those. 

In addition, I shopped for fabric online and at local quilt shops—Pacific Fabrics and the Quilt Barn in Puyallup, Evergreen Quilting and Trains in Tacoma picking up green fabrics to fit my color scheme--batiks, including some with stacked points that looked like pine trees to me.

 

Fairy Frost fabrics added some shimmer.

I cut and carefully placed pieces on my design wall making sure that light fabrics started at the top, falling into pointed dark mountain fabrics that contrasted with increasingly lighter trees that were snowy white at the bottom. When the quilt top was completed, I stood back and admired it. It was majestic and quiet, everything I’d envisioned.

Quilt top up on my design wall.

      But a quilt top isn't a quilt until it's quilted. I made the backing, layered it with the batting and pin basted it. That’s where progress stalled. 

      I couldn’t decide how to quilt it. I wanted the quilting to look like snow falling. But the snowflakes I doodled looked too childlike. The free motion designs I found looked too playful. This quilt called for something elegant and subtle.

      While the quilt rested on the table next to my longarm sewing machine with two other quilt tops waiting to be quilted, life happened. I lost my sister Cynthia to breast cancer. My father’s vascular dementia worsened and he was moved into a nursing home. My brother had a stroke. Daughter Sarah earned a master’s degree at Northwestern University in Evanston outside of Chicago. Son Johnny started working at Amazon in Seattle. Husband John had major back surgery. 

      New quilting projects caught my eye. My longarm, barely used, had locked up in August 2017 when I tried to get back to quilting. It went into the shop to be repaired.

     As 2018 began, I unfolded the quilt that I in my mind I called, “Snow in the Pass.” I was determined to complete it. It was too beautiful to sit folded up any longer. It should be hanging up by the stairs in our family room, while it was still winter. Quilts are supposed to be warm, but I wanted this one to look frosty.

     I decided to quilt snowflakes of different sizes on it like fragile lace, using metallic white thread to give it some sparkle. (This is the first time I used metallic thread. I’ve heard nightmares about metallic thread shredding and breaking. I consulted Nancy Ziemann online for her needle recommendations. Her advice was invaluable and I didn’t have any problems.) I traced the snowflakes on Golden Threads tear away paper, pinned them to the quilt, and then sewed on top of the paper using my walking foot.

The angles were too sharp and precise for free motion quilting. When those were done, I went back with my walking foot, switched to silvery variegated rayon thread, and quilted gently curving lines lengthwise to look like gentle snowfall.

      It was ready for a binding. I was unsure what color the binding should be. Should I combine different fabrics for the binding? This was a scenic art quilt so it was tricky. I also needed to make a label. I slept on it overnight.

     In the morning, I looked for the magazine that the pattern had come from so that I could acknowledge it on the label. I usually set aside any magazines that I make a quilt from. I thought this quilt was on the cover of American Patchwork and Quilting. That wasn’t with my saved magazines. I went online to look at the covers of back issues. No luck.

I googled “pine tree quilt” images. There it was! I had been looking for the wrong magazine, plus it wasn’t on the cover. The correct magazine was indeed in my special magazine collection.

    Online, I went to McCall’s Quilting magazine and searched for “Misty Pines.” When it came up, it showed that last year they did a monthly quilt-along to demonstrate how to make this quilt because the kit was so popular, it sold out. I clicked on the last episode to see how they handled the binding. I’m so glad that I did that.

     They didn’t bind it. They made a facing! Perfect for this quilt! I watched the video of Laura Stone Roberts apply the facing. Her instructions were easy to follow. I sewed the facing on, learning yet another new technique.  Then I added a label, and hanging sleeve, hand stitching them on, and pulled off the tracing paper snowflakes. 
   “Snow in Snoqualmie Pass” is finished at last!

No binding showing because of the facing. Thank you trusty hubby quilt holder!

Here, you can see the facing sewn to the back of the quilt.

Laura Keolanui Stark is choosing her next quilt to finish. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.

Life with a Super Hero

      It’s not always easy to be married to a Super Hero. Sure it’s great when you need a jar of applesauce opened or a car lifted up and moved, but there are other times when it’s exasperating.

      Super strength, speed, and impatience can be a tricky combination. One of the earliest examples of John’s super powers happened when he was just a boy. Another Mom was complaining about something her son did when John’s mom quipped, “Well, has he ever pulled the door knob entirely off the door because it wasn’t opening fast enough? My son John did that the other day.” The other mom couldn’t top that.

John says he was 12 when he started working out,
but here's evidence that he was younger. 

      After we’d been married awhile, John’s mom told me that while he was growing up, they were on a first name basis with the doctors and nurses at the emergency room. He had a lot of energy and was fearless.

      John started working out with weights and participating in sports when he was twelve. As a teenager, he was on the high school wrestling team. 

      He was also a boxer and competed in the New York Golden Gloves. He trained in the Huntington Athletic Club, the same gym Gerry Cooney trained in. Cooney went on to fight Larry Holmes for the heavy weight title in 1982 as well as Michael Spinks in 1987, and George Forman. Their trainer, John Capobianco, had John and Gerry spar often. Although Cooney was taller at 6’6” and was a heavier than John, John gave him a run for his money.

     Cooney went pro. John went to college, first to Quinnipiac in Connecticut, then to Syracuse University.

      We met at Louisiana State University. That’s also where John met his best friend Lee who was majoring in Chemical Engineering and teaching Kung Fu at the armory gym on campus. 

      John was working out and boxing there. A Venezuelan Kickboxer challenged John to spar. John agreed. Lee sat on the sidelines with some of his students. He saw it as a teaching opportunity and told his students to watch carefully. They would see why martial arts was superior to boxing.

      John got in the ring with his opponent who threw kicks at him. John covered up and planned his strategy. The sparring intensified to fighting. It didn’t take long for him to get the guy’s number and clock him. Fight over. Lee introduced himself and asked John to teach him to box. Lee and John became roommates and buddies with many tales to tell.

John and his buddy Lee

      But it wasn’t boxing that attracted me to John, it was his dancing abilities. The first time we met was not one of my finest moments. I was two weeks away from a broken engagement, and had decided I was going to get a cat and live the rest of my life as a spinster.

      My roommate Ann thought I needed to get out (maybe she just didn’t want a cat). She was a secretary in the Entomology Department where John was studying for his Master’s degree. I was an advertising copywriter at a retail store headquartered in Baton Rouge. One Friday afternoon in October 1978, she called me at work to say they had some new graduate students in the department and they were all going out to happy hour at a disco. She told me to go home after work and get ready to go out.

       I got home and planned to fake being sick to get out of it, but she showed up early with John and a female grad student and ordered me to get my purse and get in the car.         Let’s just say I wasn’t very pleasant. John was coming on strong and kept trying to impress me. I kept deflecting him and eventually broke down in tears about my ex dumping me. Any normal guy with some common sense would’ve run.

       But John the super hero, told me to just get up and dance. He coaxed/dragged me onto Pharoah’s dance floor which had squares that lit up like the dance floor in Saturday Night Fever. We shook our groove thangs. I got my emotions under control.

      Back at the table, he told me that he’d been to Studio 54 in New York City. At Syracuse University he boxed with a group of Puerto Rican guys. They got to be friends and introduced him to Latin and disco dancing. They were top notch dancers, so they (including John) danced in competitions. John had also taught salsa and disco dance lessons in New York. 

      I asked if he meant “holding on” dancing. He said yes. Could he teach me? Definitely. I thought he might be BS-ing me, but I softened.

      He was good on his word about the dance lessons. He taught me how to do the New York hustle—not the line dance one in Saturday Night Fever which he says nobody did in NY. The NY hustle is a six count dance with partners holding on to each other.  In my case, with John as my dance partner, sometimes that means holding on for dear life.

      When he leads, it’s not subtle. If he wants you to go in a certain direction on the 5 and 6 counts, there’s no doubt which way he wants you to go. When he wants you to spin, he winds you up, and if you don’t hold onto his fingers as you spot turn, you could launch into orbit!

      As I was counting steps and hitting my knees into his, he encouraged me, “Once you get it, it feels like you’re flying.” He was right, it really did!

      John disagreed with my spinster/cat plans. In December we got married in the Episcopalian chapel on LSU’s campus a little over a year after we met. Although I had met John’s father, other than that, our families had never met. John's family flew in from New York, and mine flew in from Hawaii.

      Somehow, after having our wedding rings engraved, I lost them. That wasn’t discovered until we were at the church and our friend who was the DJ at our reception looked in the ring boxes. John thought he was kidding when he told him there weren’t any rings. He wasn’t.

      John called me on the church phone from the room he was in. The lines connecting our phones were sizzling. After all the “How could this happen?" yelling, I told him very firmly that we’d just have to borrow our parent’s wedding rings.

      As our newly acquainted parents met to see whose rings would be used, John’s mother apologized to my mom, “I’m so sorry. My son John has a terrible temper.”

      My mother smiled sweetly and answered, “Well, you haven’t seen Laura’s temper.”

      When I stood at the back of the church holding my dad’s arm ready to meet my groom, I looked up front to the altar. My bridesmaids’ bouquets were trembling.  They had all heard the heated “missing rings” phone call. The groomsmen, John’s brothers, Lee, and Ray (from Syracuse University) looked back at me sheepishly.

Bridesmaids: Jaynie, Gail, Cynthia, Ann
Groomsmen: Roy, Glenn, Lee, Ray

      The first notes of “Here Comes the Bride,” boomed out from the organ. My eyes welled up. My father squeezed my hand and told me to take a deep breath. John looked back at me and beamed. I smiled back. My bridesmaids exhaled with relief. Their bouquets stopped shaking. All was right with the world.

      

After graduating from LSU with his Master's degree, John decided to get a PhD in Toxicology at the University of Hawaii. That's where he tried out Olympic Weightlifting. He also met another lifelong friend, Ed in German class.

      Ed was the Center on the UH football team. Because of that friendship, John got to work out with the football team. He met another athlete named Karl who was an Olympic weightlifter from California and a mathmetician. Karl taught John and Ed techniques for the snatch as well as the clean and jerk. They were always training to compete against Olympic bound athletes. In 1984 John won the state Olympic Weightlifting championship in the 198 pound weight class.

      John and Ed rode mopeds back and forth to campus. It looked awfully funny because they were huge buzzing around on their tiny mopeds. The two of them were like gigantic, unruly boys who didn’t know their strength.

      One of John’s friends in the Entomology department got his Datsun blocked into a parking space. No problem, John lifted it up and moved it out so he could pull away. Just a little extra weight training.

     Once John and Ed went to their friend Jim’s house to clean their carpets. After they moved the furniture out, it was obvious that it looked like wrestling ring. Ed had also wrestled in high school. The only hitch was that Ed outweighed John by 50 lbs. John ended up with a broken bursa sac in his elbow. There was also a broken lamp. Jim's wife Pam showed up in the midst of the mayhem and with hands on her hips gave them a much deserved scolding.

The Ed, Jim, & John Wrestling and Carpet Cleaning Company

     Fast forward to John as a proud father of son Johnny and daughter Sarah.  
He built them a wooden swing set. We knew exactly where we wanted it, at the base of a hill in our backyard, on a terrace. John and the kids worked all day on it. When it was time to finally set it up, he sent the kids inside to get me.

      “OK, this is what we’re going to do. We are going to drag the swing set up the hill. Then you are going to hold onto the top leg on your side and I will hold the leg on my side. When I say ‘Go,’ pull it down with all your weight. Then when it starts to fall, let go.”

      I was afraid. I looked down the hill, “Why didn’t you build it down there to begin with?”

      “Look, just do what I said.”

      “But what if it keeps going and falls off the terrace and breaks?”

      “Just do it. It will be fine. It’s physics. Grab the leg on your side.”

      With much trepidation, I did what he said. The whole structure flipped and landed like a gymnast sticking a perfect 10 landing. Our elderly neighbor who unbeknownst to me had been watching the whole time, shouted out, “Nice job John!” The kids, standing a safe distance away, clapped with delight.

The physics swing set.

        In injury situations, Johnny bore the brunt of John’s “walk it off” mentality. When Johnny fell off his bike and landed on a freshly chip sealed road gouging his knee, John walked him and his bike home. He started rinsing the gravel out of the wound and told Johnny to quit crying. 

      When he saw the actual bone of Johnny’s kneecap as he sprayed water in the gouge, he realized how serious it was. He bandaged it up and sent Johnny on his way.  

      Another time, Johnny was on the elliptical running machine barefoot. He hit his pinky toe and in pain, called to Dad for help. John looked at it and proclaimed, “It’s dislocated. I’ll pop it back into place, just hold on.”

      It wasn’t dislocated. It was broken. The emergency room doctor said John did a good job setting the fracture.

       Sarah took all this in and learned to come to me if she was injured or confer with John over the phone where he couldn’t actually reach her. She also gave John his family nickname.

       One day were going somewhere and I was driving my Camry. John went to the passenger door to get in. The next thing I knew, he was having a fit about something. I looked through the window and he was holding the door handle up in his hand, unattached to the car.

      I leaned across the passenger seat and opened the door from inside. “What happened?”

     He got in holding the outside door handle and fuming, “Look at this! This car sucks! Who makes a piece of crap like this?”

     “You broke my car!”

     “I can’t believe Toyota made such a crappy door handle!”

     “You broke my car!”

     “What is this made of, cheap plastic?”

     “You broke my car! Apologize!”

     “Why would they make such a defective piece of crap?”

     “You broke my car. You need to apologize.”

     “Well, I’m sorry, but I can’t believe they would make such a poor quality handle. All I did was try to open the door.”

      When I told this story to Sarah, she started laughing and said, “It’s like you’re living with The Hulk. ‘Hulk open door, get in car.’” She was right! I AM living with The Hulk.

      At the Toyota dealership when I checked in to get the handle replaced, the service lady asked what name the car was under. I told her it was under John Stark, but that she needed to change that. Her hands were ready on the keyboard. “What’s the new name?”

      I told her to change it to “Hulk Stark” because my husband ripped the door handle off.  Who does that? She laughed.

      Living with The Hulk explains a lot. Like the time while I was in Hawaii and during a phone call with Sarah she casually asked me why the side view mirror of my car was on the work bench in the garage. I had no idea what she was talking about.

      I called Johnny to ask him about it since he works on our cars and he attempted a vague cover-up-for-Dad shuffle, “Uh, side view mirror? Uh, for which car? The Camry?”  

      The Hulk knocked my mirror off while pulling out of the garage. He didn’t want to tell me because whenever he pulled into the garage, I’d flinch and tell him he was awfully close to the side and he’d tell me I was over reacting. 

      Not only did he knock my mirror off, he also backed into the brand new dresser that they’d just picked up for Sarah, but it was OK because it was still in the protected box. Hey, it’s all good!

      Johnny was home from college and sleeping in one morning when John went up on the roof to blow the pine needles off. I was always a nervous wreck when he went up there because in our other house he fell off the second story roof, bounced onto the lower level, managed to catch the rain gutter with his fingertips and hang there for a few seconds over the garage before falling. So he said he didn’t really fall, he just dropped one story!

      In this house, we have an open beamed ceiling over the family room, so I could hear him clomping around overhead with the gas powered blower. He finally got it started after breaking the pull cord and tying it back together until he could get a new one. So it was angry clomping.

      Then I heard him running fast back and forth and swearing. I ran outside, but I couldn’t see him and I was trying to yell over the blower. I ran back inside and busted into Johnny’s room. “Something’s wrong with your father! He’s up on the roof in trouble! Get out there!”

      Sleepy Johnny climbed the ladder in his boxers and relayed the message down to me, “Dad said there was a hornet’s nest in our chimney and they swarmed out at him. He was fending them off with the blower, but since the roof is an uneven surface, he tore his calf muscle and can’t move.”

      I asked Johnny if we should call the fire department to get him down. Hulk Junior was insulted, “What do you think I can’t carry my father down a ladder? No! We’re not calling the fire department!”

      John somehow hobbled down the ladder. He was absolutely furious that his leg cramped up on him when he most needed it. He blamed it on getting old. The next day, when his calf started turning purple he finally went to the walk-in clinic. Old age wasn’t the problem, 40-50 hornet stings in his calf was the problem.

       Over the next couple of months, I really paid attention to John’s modus operandi. Sarah and I would giggle and whisper, “Hulk!” whenever we witnessed him breaking something and then being genuinely surprised by his strength. He always blamed the “defective” object for breaking or being in the way.

     Sometimes the quality of whatever broke truly was defective. One night I picked him up from the airport. He was returning from Europe. I pulled up curbside and he hucked his suitcase into the trunk. 

      He opened the passenger door without ripping the handle off, and then turned around and showed me his backside. “Can you believe this? Look at what happened to these stupid pants!”

      They were split open from the crotch all the way up to the waistband.

     “I flew out of Copenhagen and on the layover in Amsterdam I thought I'd do some squats to get the blood flowing. On the third squat, THIS happened!"
      He didn't have a spare pair of pants in his carry-on. He was the comedy hit of the Amsterdam airport, Kennedy airport while clearing customs, and Seatac airport. Apparently, ripped pants are universally hilarious. (He bought two pairs of those cargo pants online because they had lots of pockets and were light weight, perfect for travelling. He split the second pair too!) This is quintessential Hulk behavior. Scientist Dr. Banner also rips his clothes when he transforms into The Incredible Hulk.

      One day John finally caught Sarah and me laughing when he did something hulk-ish. He was usually so angry during his episodes, he didn't notice us snickering. We 'fessed up and explained that he was our own personal superhero, The Hulk. 

      He thought it was pretty funny and took ownership of the title. We bought him a DVD of the movie, Hulk t-shirts and Hulk hands. 

That’s who he was the Halloween after he had back surgery to repair an old high school wrestling injury.

      There is never a dull moment around here watching John muscle through life. This is so much better than living alone with a cat. I’m glad that in 1979 we didn’t let a pair of missing rings stop our wedding. (They were in a tiny manila envelope that had accidentally fallen into my bedroom trash can.) Happy 38^th anniversary to my Hulk John!

Laura Keolanui Stark continues trying to minimize any household damage from The Hulk. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.