Alahe'e again

After the heavy rains in October and November, the alahe'e are in bloom again, with a vengence! This one is about 20 feet mauka of Queen Ka'ahumanu Highway, between the Police Station/Humane Society Road and K-Mart. The blossoms are incredibly thick:

 alahee050.jpg

White Road is a few miles past Waimea, toward Honokaa. Turn Makai. At the end of the road is a trail leading to a cliff overlooking the back of waipio Valley. 

November 22, 1963

I was in 10th grade, in class, when the intercom announced that President Kennedy had been shot. They hooked up network radio (Walter Cronkite) and a few minutes later Walter announced, in that choking voice they replayed every year for a while, that JFK was dead. I didn't cry but felt like I ought to. I was very politically aware, although very conservative (YAF high school chapter founder), and wrote quite a few letters to the editor of the local newspaper, all critical of President Kennedy and the Democrats. I had written a letter published in the Thursday paper that blasted JFK for a number of foreign policy issues that I can't remember now. Friday afternoon and Saturday I was numb. It wasn't until Sunday, when they brought his coffin to the capitol that I cried. When the Marine Band struck up "Hail to the Chief" I suddenly started sobbing. Just then the phone rang. I picked it up. "I guess you're happy," a thin voice said. "What?" "I guess you're happy he's dead, ASSSHOLE!" the old man, or so he sounded, screamed at me. My parents told me they had received other, more threatening calls.
Anyway, R.I.P., JFK. You'd be 87 now, and probably still look better than Carter and Bush I.