Mom's Last House

My mother moved to Billings, MT five years ago after taking care of my two great aunts Gladys and Helen in Duxbury, MA for their last twenty years of life; both lived to be 96yrs old. She took very good care of them. Mom always wanted to be a nurse and between the age of 60yrs and 80yrs she had the opportunity for family home care. She tried to apply to be a nurse in the US Army at age 42 and was refused with a letter saying she was too old. In high school her report card of all A's would have gotten her into nursing school young but, she didn't have the money to attend college. And, then again she had me at age twenty.

I hated her selling the house I loved at 205 Surplus St. She inherited an antique half cape house from Aunt Gladys. It was a house I visited a few miles from the home I grew up in. It had a large yard and backroom off the garage where I had pajama parties with my high school friends. Later I made an art studio out of it. I loved that house and so did Mom. Age made her do it. She felt she had to be near one her daughters and she chose Donna who lived in Billings. So at age 81yrs she moved to a new place never having lived outside of a 30mile radius of her birth town Plymouth, MA .

We found a beautiful one level home in Briarwood for her, only a mile and a half from Donna. Most of her furniture was moved with her and she did her magic in decorating with a Western flair now incorporting her antiques with red leather couchs and grey stone fireplaces. It was a hard transition for her but a necessary one. She visited her home at the Camp in Plymouth, MA once a year in the summer with the whole family reuniting. Sitting on the porch overlooking the pond was her favorite time there last summer. As my cousin, Morton, reminded me she didn't want to leave. He is feeling guilty about that, but, she couldn't have stayed. She needed Donna and her new home to survive happily and she knew it.

I started visiting her when needed and at Thanksgiving time, I really liked her new home and the lifestyle she enjoyed with Donna and Ralph in the Prarie. Montana is really a wonderful place and a good second home for her. I am now here with my two sisters planning her funeral arrangements. When I got off the plane from Honolulu I went with Donna and Gayle to Smith's funeral home to pay a last visit to Mom. It was good, I started with the Lord's Prayer and ended with Goodbye and aloha as I walked through the doorway of the visiting room.

The news of my mother's death hit me like a lead balloon. I was having lunch with my three friends in Honolulu, when I got the call from my sister Donna who was visiting. In the parking garage I returned Donna's phone message. She asked me if I was driving, I said no, she told me she had some awful news, "Mom was dead." I asked how and she didn't answer, saying instead she and her son Peter would meet me at my house ten minutes away. I sat in my car and wailed at the news of losing my mother. I called my friend on the third floor who came downstairs and took me back upstairs to calm down.

When Sylvia embraced me I said my mother was everything to me; she was my mother and my father. She did everything she could to make my life better. I felt like a bomb had hit my soul. I felt all alone and so far away from Mom. The next day I took a flight to Billings to meet both Gayle from Texas and Donna to help with the arrangements. I was surprised to find a calmness in being in Mom's house and surrounded by her clothes and furniture.

I took a nap on her bed yesterday as we covered mine with clothing she had that is to be given away. I opted to sleep in her room so that Gayle and Ella wouldn't have to. Last night I slept in her beach coverup in her bed in her sheets. I slept well and felt okay again if just for a night.

I will miss my mother terribly, she always talked to me when I called. I don't remember her ever being too busy to talk. I bounced problems off of her and she tried to help. My mother was generous to me and I have grown in to the woman she wanted. I am a happy adult, successful in business, friends and family. What more could she ask for?

A devoted daughter. Coral

Remington Reality not Paul Brown Institute School for Beauty

Waited six weeks for my appointment, really looking forward to a day of me.

I went to have a haircut, pedicure and manicure on Wednesday. Drove downtown, parked at Alii Place and walked the walk. I've done this a dozen times.

Inside the school, the receptionist Tim was in back, stood for a while at the counter and the young girl from the school decided to help me. Looked at the list of names to do my hair and nails; didn't recognize the name. James was there and I have had a cut with him twice and a facial. A student took me to a young girl who then washed my hair in cold water and very hot water. I told her she could add pressure to her wash and she didn't nor did she wash the back of my head. Okay, it's over.

Went to have my hair cut in a bob, she then pinned my hair in two clips so I looked like my pigtails had just flown away. Next, she changed her approach to cutting an inch off my hair in the back by reconfiguring the clips. After thirty minutes and her teacher Maria swooping over for the third time talking in zeros I was loosing confidence in this whole ordeal. Maria( the teacher) asked her, " are these your best scissors?" I never heard the cut of scissors from the student. Maria did take two cuts.

Trying to figure out how to escape this girl with my hair intack, forty minutes later I said I needed to go to the ladies room. I went to Tim at the desk and confided in a low voice "I have no confidence in the girl cutting my hair," I don't know what to do. Tim said he would get a supervisor.

I saw him talking at length to a man in a bright blue shirt and short white hair whose name is Kevin. It looked like they were having an argument. It took a long time and I lost more confidence. I went up to the desk and asked what is going on, is he helping me I asked the young man sitting there, he said he didn't know?

My hair was dripping wet and the two clips stuck in my hair made me look like a cartoon character. Finally, the blue shirted man came over to me and sat down. He started talking to me very patronizing. Repeading over and over again, that I needed to understand this was a school. I felt he thought I was either deaf or dumb. He tried to get me to know him on a personal level but, I was so upset by this awkward situation I did not want to chat about his realtor experience on the mainland.

Things got worse after I put the problem in the schools hands, my haircut was finished by Tanya to perfection. She led me to my next manicure appointment where the manager of the salon Maria stopped me.

She told me I was not welcome to come back and that she had cancelled my manicure and pedicure because I had upset a student. Maria refused to hear my side of the story, told me if I wanted to talk to her, I would have to follow her around the office as I spoke. I said I would like to tell my side of the story, she refused.

I asked to speak to her superior and she said she had none. I said okay let me talk to Paul Brown, she said he had nothing to do with the school. I asked again who her supervisor was, she said well, I suppose you could talk to the President of Remington College. She didn't give me his name or phone number. Everyone had disappeared from the front desk.

Maria told me I had no right to get out of the first student's chair and it was wrong of me to not let her finish the cut. I really could not sit there longer. It was a train wreck.

I left after Tim and everyone abandoned their normal stations for "The Maria." Went to get my car and stopped to speak with the President of Remington College. He said his name was Ken, no last name given on the second request. Did not follow my story and gave me the fraternity handshake upon leaving; something like this isn't goodbye it is adios. Weird.

Ken said he would get back to me, I have waited two weeks for him to call me or write. He has not contacted me with a followup.

So now I wonder if Paul Brown whose name drew me there in the first place, and whose school I have bragged about to my friends for years has nothing to do with it as Maria said.

What happened to the instruction of this school? Is it now about learning abuse. Maria was abusive to me, and as an educator most destructive. She is teaching the student, a client is always wrong and if a difficult situation arises, kick the client out. As an instructor Maria is not instilling the confidence to her students required to do such a job. The first student was not ready for what Maria said anyone in the school could do. It was the faculty who put the student in that awkward position not me.

I learned from Maria that I should have said I was sick, left the salon and called later for an appointment with James. A request I did not know I could make but, learned from Maria, who also said I had made special requests before. Not true.

I will never go back to Remington, and I will try to tell everyone I know how horribly I was treated by Maria.

Metcalf Street, Honolulu, Hi.

Before buying this house, I went there alone, and sat across the street getting the feelings from the place. I was centering myself, before making the commitment of buying a place with the last $25,000. I had from the life insurance payoff to put down. I could put 10% down s I had to pay PMI for three years because I didn't have the 20% down which is customary for down payments. There are rules for no longer having to pay Mortgage insurance which have to do with debt ration and home value and if you have paid on time for the length of the loan.

Again, I showed Stephen and his brother the house and they were pretty silent about the whole idea. There was a lot of termite damage under the house. Actually, the termites had eaten and left already. There was an abandoned VW bus in the yard full of stuff. And, come to find out there were people with their dog living under the house that my realtor Myron had to shoo out. He also moved the car out of the front yard.

David was my contractor and he made me have the green shingles removed by hazard masked guys because it was 2% non friable asbestos. Warren who worked a the ship yard told me I did not have to remove them as long as we didn't disturb them the asbestos was no threat. However, David said his men would be nailing into it. So I paid $4000. for the removal and stayed clear from the place while it was being done. David replaced evey footing under the house and repaired some of the redwood tough and groove walls. Bathroom walls were waterproofed and new plumbing for the whole house by Roto Rooter($5000.).

The house was painted white by a woman and her crew, Stephen painted the screens and replaced tiles on the floor. We had to repaint every room inside the house as well and put in new lighting fixtures and some mahogany doors in the bedroom

Armstrong St., Honolulu, HI.

When United Airlines decided not to pay into our pension any longer and handed what money they had to the Pension Guarantee Board I retired early afraid for my 30yrs investment with the company. Everyone told me no problem you will get the same amount of money later if you stay. I was young, 60yrs, and a widow with a daughter in a private college on the mainland. Not exactly the time to retire. But it was the time, and I would have lost a lot more of my hard earned money had I stayed as my colleagues have and still can't afford to retire. I took an excelerated pension payoff and invested in four houses. Two in Manoa and two in my hometown of Duxbury, Ma. across from the ocean.

It hasn't been easy but, I found that it was my kuleana, I love houses and I like fixing them up. This Armstrong house was really ugly but, in Manoa, and I could afford it. Now after a design by Fritz and contracting by Joe, the house is beautiful and I never want to leave. It is big enough to have friends spend the night with no problem. I can walk the dogs on the wide grass sidewalks in the shade of the mature Acasia trees. The green parrots greet me with a screech at the end of the driveway. And most importantly, I feel at home here. Safe.

Armstrong St., Honolulu, HI.

After my husband died, I decided to use the life insurance money I received as a down payment to buy a house in Manoa I had tried to buy two years before when Kuhia was alive, the owner agreed to a price, my realtor wrote up the offer and the owner changed her mind because her new husband didn't agree. Kuhia said to me, I would like to see it. I told him he wouldn't like it. It looks like a shoe box according to my sister Donna. A shoe box with four bedrooms and two baths. Two years later I saw the house for sale sign on the street and went in and offered the realtor a dual agent relationship and the asking price, which now was $80,000. more than two years prior. I got the house.

My boyfriend at the time looked at the house and said he would not like to come home to this place. I offered to buy it together. He declined. Now he and I live in the house and have for many years.

My Nephew Peter's House

My nephews Peter and Mark have been visiting Hawaii since thier early teens. Peter transferred here from UMass in his sophomore year. He graduated from the TINS school at UH and was on the swim team as well.

He and my late husband used to have a lot of fun together watching Schwazenegger and Eastwood action films while Emma and I hid in my bedroom with tamer shows. We all played Star supermarket TV bingo. On vacations, we would drop Peter off at Ala Moana to surf early in the morning and I would pick him up after work to see his hands all wrinkled from being in the ocean so long. He went through the standard harassment from locals who made him wait to catch a wave.

Uncle Kuhia gave these kids presents like an electric guitar to Mark and a surfboard for Peter, no wonder they kept coming back. To be honest with you, Kuhia was the closest they could have gotten to their late maternal grandfather.

Now, Peter lives down the street in his own house with his family of two kids, a wife and a dog. When I heard he was buying a house, or I should say his wife and her father-in-law were buying a house. I went to check it out. I thought it was the house below theirs as it had a for sale sign . I was worried because I didn't like the place. I wanted Peter and his mother Donna to buy a house on Liloha Rise which had three floors which would have been a good investment. The attorney who did buy it, CPR'd it and lives there on one floor, his sister on the next and a rental on the third. Why doesn't my family listen to me?

Peter is a well known athlete and gives triathlon clinics to many people, some of whom encouraged him to become a pilot which he is. I remember when he called me and said he was going to become a pilot; I said it is in your blood. He said why, and I told him Grandpa Dick was a pilot. My father was a pilot and owned a private plane so he could spot fish in the Atlantic Ocean.

I have enjoyed Peter's babies as much as I will my own grandchildren, it is so nice to be with young children. In Hawaii it is good to have family near, as so much of locals lives are focused on family. Coming from Massachusetts, I have always felt that void.

Now his mother, my sister Donna, comes from Billings,Mt. a few times a year to visit her son, his family and me and my daughter Emma who has returned from CCA and a ship sailing around the world, where she was a ship's photographer. Emma is back and is establishing her photography business.

So I have made a Circle

I moved to Hawaii in 1966 with my husband Bob, his first job was at the University of Hawaii, Manoa for a three year contract. I had a BA in English Literature with a minor in Art History and he a Masters in English from the University of Connecticut, Storrs. We lived in Manoa at University Faculty housing on Dole street in a studio apartment. It was small but, we managed. We could afford it after looking in Waikiki which we could not afford.

We lived in a rented house in Manoa before moving to Monrovia, Liberia at the end of three years. Our house there looked like the tailfin on a Cadillac. I began a small business of dress designing; I was a tie dye queen, had the dresses embroidered and sewn by the male Liberian tailors along the main road. Most of my clients were white embassy people from the US and France.

One of my friends from United just said I had come full circle and I wondered if I had published this in error. Well, I guess it is coming. Bonnie, just got the punch line. I will be interested to find others in the loop. Remember thinking my great aunt and uncle who had travelled the furthest in the world ended up at home, in Duxbury, Ma..

Manoa is where I live now, forty years later, where I started on Oahu. My favorite place on the island to live. I love the grassy sidewalks, the old big white houses and the tall, green trees that shade all of this. I wish I didn't have to leave the neighborhood.