August, 1961, Intermediate School Has Begun

Hilo Intermediate School Spartans:

"Sons of the blue and white,
Our hopes are met in you today,
From the field of battle
Soon will come the call
To fight in array!
Lift high your banner,
Loyal 'er be,
And when the day is done
We'll sing our song of victory!"

7th grade. Walking all the way from Lanakila. Kapiolani Street, past the St. Joseph's School Nun's dormitory/apartments, till almost to Mauna Loa School (corner of Ponahawai and Kapiolani), turn up and cut through the graveyard (Homelani Memorial Park), there is a trail through the sugar cane field that comes out by the Lyman Boy's Club, up Haili Street, turn right on Laimana Street, cut up by Mr. Tsuji's Wood Shop, across the schoolyard, past the gymnasium, and hang around in front of the bandroom because the "gang" was there. (Note that the corner of Kapiolani and Ponohawai plays a part a few years down the road because one of my good friends lived in that house but, that is a story for another year).

Edmund Nakano, Bobby "Moose" Usagawa, Russell Arikawa, Leslie Nishimura, Ralph Black, Leonard Paik, Bruce Hisanaga, others I'll no doubt remember later....Glenn didn't want me hanging around with him so I don't know exactly where he hung around. I think it was fairly close to where I used to because by that time, we were moving into a new circle of friends because our bowling had taken us away from the "rough" gangs. All the aforementioned guys used to bowl at that time.

Lyman Boy's Club, The Lyman Museum, Halai Store (corner of Haili and Kapiolani), diagonally across the corner is the St. Joseph's Catholic Church, go toward Waianuenue Street, you would get to Hilo Union School where, as Myron jogged my memory, we did attend for a little while before returning to Kapiolani Elementary.

By the way, the 7th grade was when we were forced to wear shoes. Junk, that policy was. Also, around that time, the fashion was beyond bell-bottom trousers, in Hilo, it became "Drapes" and Glenn had, I believe, a 22 or 24 inch bottom on his pants. How come Mom nevah make me one khaki pants that wide, too? Mom sewed all our clothes so we were always in our own fashion. But, we had to buy the shoes from the guy who drove that big gray truck with all the cloth .. we just called him the "Cloth Man." It had the tracks on the bottom of the soles and the shoes were actually plastic, made in Japan, I think. Preferred "hadashii" (barefoot), anyway. 7th grade, we were growing up, or so we felt at the time.