While I was in Hawaii for Peace Corps Training, it was not the Peace Corps that changed my life, it was Hawaii itself.
All through my four years of university, I somehow managed muddle through under the dark cloud of a depression, caused by being dumped by my high school girlfriend. My life was not very joyful. I went to classes, my social life was pretty much nil, and I worked nights at a Boy’s Club running the recreation room. The main thing that put any excitement in my life was music, which which was dynamic and changing. It was Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Byrds, The Buffalo Springfield, Steppenwolf, Jimi Hendrix, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, etc, etc, etc. The music kept me going through the gloom.
Once I got to Hawaii, it seemed as if I had come alive again. It seemed that I had been thrust into a paradise. Everything was vibrant, lush, full of beauty, and inspiring.
During our Peace Corps free time on Saturday afternoon and Sunday, all of us trainees were eager to explore the Island of Hawaii. There were some group excursions planned by the staff, who took us to Hilo, Volcano National Park, and some beaches. I was quite surprised to discover how few beaches the Island of Hawaii had. It certainly didn’t live up to the mental picture I had formed. Most of the coastline was made up of inaccessible high black cliffs. The beaches that did occur were small and scattered, but interesting because some had white sand, green sand, and others black sand.
I formed a relationship with Charlene, an Italian girl from New Jersey and on our days off, we would hitchhike to the dry side of the island to spend the weekend sleeping on the beach with our Peace Corps blankets, beside the surf at Hapuna Beach.
I loved Hawaii. It over-loaded the my sensual side. The colors of everything in Hawaii were so brilliant and intense. The cerulean blues, so deep, and the reds and greens so vibrant and alive. The tropical fruits, native plants, the dramatic volcanic geology, and pounding surf all captivated me. For an Indiana boy, just to look out and see the ocean instead of a corn field, was life changing.
Hawaiian shirts had always seemed like a joke to me, but after I had begun to absorb Hawaii, I understood, and I even bought a pair of blue Hawaiian-printed bell-bottoms, printed with large white flowers. I loved Hawaii’s dramatic topography, built by geologically-recent volcanic eruptions, then covered with palms, ferns, and other exotic tropical plants I had never seen before.
I found both the warm breezes whispering off of the Pacific and the intense rainstorms, that mostly occurred at night, awe inspiring. Pepeekeo, like Hilo, was on the “wet” side of the island, but you were pretty much guaranteed sunshine, by traveling over the high middle section of Hawaii, past the verdant-pastured ranch-land of Parker Ranch, then down to hill to the dry leeward side of the island into the desert-like environment of Hawaii’s west side. It was this sunny dry side where we discovered Hapuna Beach park which seemed to be the Big Island’s best beach.
Hawaii had so much to offer; jungles, mountains, ranches, waterfalls beaches, volcanoes, and deserts. I was not the only one aware of this paradise, by 1969 Hawaii had already begun to experience an influx of “hippies” who had abandoned traditional lifestyles, and who had travelled to the island to stay, eking out a living the best they could. I was envious, but I forced myself to keep my mind on the Peace Corps; the reason I was there.
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