Sure, the past is not meant to be lived in, but it certainly can inform our future. This issue is not meant to be a sappy recollection of the good ol’ days but an exercise in remembering.
Editor’s Letter: Perhaps the most enjoyable part of putting together this issue was the finding, the digging into tattered cardboard boxes and sifting through hundreds of childhood photos. The wrinkled Ziploc bags, labeled hastily with titles like “family – give away,” “judo camp” or “high school gang,” hold decades-worth of memories and capture moments likely to have been forgetten. Smiling faces frozen in time at a wedding, a graduation, a Christmas party – Disneyland; sad ones too, the tears after a season-ending soccer game, the pout after being left out at a childhood sleepover.
This, our Nostalgia issue, is not meant to be a sappy recollection of the good ol’ days but an exercise in remembering. To remember to make it a point to reminisce, to sit down and spend a few quiet moments with an old timer, parent or grandparent – or our own thoughts – and hear about the time they walked 20 miles, barefoot, to get to work; when a dozen eggs cost two quarters and a drive-in movie was less than a dollar; when kids swam in pools created by rain and neighborhood doors were all left unlocked; a day with the family spent at the park, picnicking and running relay races.
It’s obvious, but it must be said: The reason it’s important to remember is so we don’t forget. Sure, the past is not meant to be lived in, but it certainly can inform our future.
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Featured Stories:
Big Wind Kites
Jonathan Socher started making kites on Moloka‘i in 1980. He and his wife Daphne met at an ashram in India in 1971, traveled the world, briefly lived in Los Angeles, then moved to Maunaloa on Moloka‘i in 1976.
Classic Beauty
A classically beautiful editorial for our Nostalgia issue, shot in Manoa on O‘ahu.
Plantation Days Gone By
The year was 1987 – the summer before my senior year in high school. I had gotten my first real job working at Dave’s Ice Cream in Waimalu. It was the perfect gig for a workforce newbie.
A Future Rooted in the Past: Kuha‘o Zane
Where so many of his contemporaries hold a keen focus solely based on what is now, what is modern, what is current, Kuha‘o can’t shake the past. And all for good reason. For Kuha‘o, it’s what’s behind him – his history, his lineage – that’s shaping what’s ahead.