The Neighborhood Gang Invades the Kaiser Estate

         Henry J. Kaiser was one of the original “Daddy Warbucks”.  One of his many industrial triumphs was to make Liberty ships during WWII.  He was able to crank them out at an amazing speed and was a great help to the Allied war effort.  Here’s a brief bio of the man from Wikipedia.

Henry John Kaiser (May 9, 1882 – August 24, 1967) was an American industrialist who became known as the father of modern American shipbuilding. He established the Kaiser Shipyard which built Liberty ships during World War II, after which he formed Kaiser Aluminum and Kaiser Steel. Kaiser organized Kaiser Permanente health care for his workers and their families. He led Kaiser-Frazer followed by Kaiser Motors, automobile companies known for the safety of their designs. Kaiser was involved in large construction projects such as civic centers and dams, and invested in real estate. With his acquired wealth, he initiated the Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-profit, non-partisan, charitable organization.

          Back in the late fifties he was probably the richest man in Hawaii.  With his great wealth he built a series of stunningly large and opulent catamarans that were used for dinner and sunset “booze cruises” in Waikiki.  They were all painted pink, his trophy wife’s favorite color.  He also bought a large chunk of Waikiki beach down at the western end and created the Kaiser Hawaiian Village.  It was designed as a sort of destination resort.  The spacious grounds were lushly planted and scrupulously landscaped.  On the grounds, Henry J (as we, his close friends called him...), also built Hawaii’s first and perhaps only movie theater/auditorium within a shiny silver geodesic dome.  The “village” also had a beach club for the local people.  My family were members of the club for awhile.  I remember swimming in the pool, doing cannon balls off the diving board (back when they were allowed), and scarfing cheeseburgers and french fries.  All about twenty yards from Waikiki beach and sublime ocean swimming.  But heck we were in the ocean all the time; to swim in a pool was cool.

                                                   Henry J. Kaiser the fierce looking mega-industrialist

A couple of shots of The Hawaiian Village as it looks today.  Mr. Kaiser sold the compound to the Hilton Hotel chain for a number of dollars that I probably wouldn't be able to comprehend.  The upper picture with the rainbow on the side (it's actually a ceramic mosaic) was under construction in 1968.  That Summer I was home from college and I had a job installing the wiring for phones.  I personally "pulled wire", as we called it, for this magnificent edifice.  We worked on the building when the floors were just cement slabs and there weren't any walls yet, just a 2X4 nailed across the opening.  We would eat lunch looking out with our legs dangling over the edge of the slab.  I remember lunching on the 30th floor in that position.  After a quick sandwich, I lay back, legs hanging over the precipice, and took a quick snooze.  I dreamt I was falling from a great height and awoke with a start.  No more lunch-time leg dangling for this wire puller!  Now I'm very uncomfortable with heights (it's not fear, yet).  I blame Henry J.

       When our family lived in the Kahala beach area, just past Diamond Head, Henry J lived just down the road.  We had a house on the water; Henry J had a bigger house on the water.  When we moved across the bay to another beach community, Portlock Road, at the base of Koko Head Crater, we lived in a lovely house also right on the water.  In a few years, Henry J followed us to Portlock Road and built himself a house on the water at the end of the road.  To use the word “house” is actually quite demeaning to Henry J’s new crib...  In truth it was a grand and opulent estate on ten acres of land.

  

     It had it’s own harbor that he had dredged out for his catamarans.  It had a dog house for his wife’s French Poodles.  This dog house was the size of one wing of our, very nice, house.  The dog house was painted pink inside and out as were the dogs.  Mrs. Henry J loved her pink!  The dog house was air conditioned and it had vanity tables...  The compound also had a basketball court surrounded by a garage that had about twenty stalls for various luxury conveyances.  On the one side of the court that was not garage, there was a lava rock wall about twelve feet high.  Above that wall stretching away from the garage/b-ball court area was a playing field the size of a football field.  

     As you can see from the photo, below, Henry J was not only a wealthy and powerful industrialist, he had the girth of Henry VIII which is not conducive to basketball and other field sports.  The basketball court and football field were built for his adopted son Mike Kaiser.  I suspect that old Henry J was much too busy building shopping malls, marinas and large housing developments and he was much too obese to be the kind of dad who’d shoot hoops with his son or throw the ball around with him.  Instead, he expressed his love by providing these sporting amenities for the prodigal son.  There were people on staff at the estate who could some times fill in as a surrogate dad and occasionally play with Mike, the lonely rich kid.  But it wasn’t the same as having a real pal-around dad; or having a ‘good kids’ gang like us to play with.

                                Probably not the kind of dad who's going to play ball with his kid.

      My brother and I were part of one of the two principle neighborhood gangs of Portlock.  We were the “good” kids who played sports during the non-school days.  By sundown, we were all washed up and in our tropical PJ’s ready to watch “I Love Lucy” during the parent’s cocktail hour.  Then it was dinner; wash and dry the dishes; and off to our bedrooms.  The “bad” kids were engaged in various delinquency projects during the day and hanging out on the street at night.  They would congregate on the grassy strip of lawn next to the road; in front of J Aku Head Pupule’s house, opposite Bill Quinn’s house.  

     J Aku Head Pupule (known by all of us neighbors  as just  Aku (Mr. Aku to us kids)) was the most popular “radio personality” in Honolulu in those days.  His real name was Hal Lewis.  He was purported to be one of the highest paid disc jockeys in the whole country.  He had five kids and the youngest, Lance, was in the bad kid’s gang.  The Quinn’s across the street also had five kids.  And despite the fact that Bill Quinn was the governor of our state, his middle son was also in the bad kid’s gang.  In fact he was the ring leader, which is probably why they hung out there; so Stinky Quinn wouldn’t have to travel far to be bad...  There was also a lady’s auxiliary that was appended to the bad kid’s gang.  The lot of them would spend their evenings smoking and drinking and making out.  They were a little older than us as a rule and we did our best to stay out of their way.  

     The two places where we commingled, was football games on the street and our neighborhood surf spot, located conveniently near our house.  So our gang of about a dozen played basketball in one guy’s driveway and football, softball and volleyball at this large expanse of lawn right on the water that was actually four large lawns with no obstacles between them.  We were fortunate to have as part of our gang a couple of kids who lived in one of the houses with the conjoined lawns.  It was the size of a football field and made a perfect playground for us ‘good’ kids.  After the yard work was done, my brother and I would join the gang for land sports, unless the surf was up.  Then we’d drop our bats and balls; grab our surfboards and paddle out.  As childhoods go, I’ll put ours up against anybody’s.

     One memorable day, the gang decided to peddle out to the Kaiser estate to peek through the bars of the gated driveway and check out the action.  Maybe we’d get a glimpse of the famous pampered pink poodles.  Instead, what we saw was Mike Kaiser taking batting practice with a pitching machine.  We couldn’t believe our eyes.  The kid not only had his own playing field big enough for baseball or football he had his own damn pitching machine!  And he had one attendant to shag down the baseballs.  He eventually caught sight of us gaping through the barred gate.  He went over to his attendant and said a few words.  All of a sudden the gate slid open and Mike waved us in.

Here's part of the gang.  I'm on the far right, brother Tom, behind me then it's Rocky, John and Shorty.

My little brother Randy is in the boat.  In this photo we're getting ready to launch little Randy out to sea for his Spirit Quest Journey.  BON VOYAGE, RANDY!

     We grabbed our gloves from off our handlebars and ran down to the  field.  My brother, who was the ringleader of the good kids gang,  introduced us all around and we decided since we didn’t really have enough for a game, one guy would bat; one guy would catch; one guy would take throws and feed the pitching machine; the rest of us would spread out in the field to catch the batted balls.  After the batter had had a few turns we’d all rotate.  We looked at each other and couldn’t believe our eyes.  Not only have we breached the gates of the great estate, we’re playing ball with the heir apparent and his marvelous pitching machine.  

     When my brother came up to bat, Mike Kaiser was playing left field, near the lava wall.  Twelve feet below was the basketball court.  My brother hits a long high fly ball to deep left field.  Mike Kaiser takes off after it.  One moment we see Mike’s retreating backside, the next moment there’s no Mike.  Oops.  Mike had fallen over the wall, while chasing my brother’s fly ball and crash landed on the asphalt basketball court, twelve feet below.  I guess it could have been worse.  He didn’t hit his head or break any bones, that we know of.  But he did severely sprain both his ankles and was carted off in an ambulance attended by many semi-hysterical estate workers.  We kids, seeing that the game was over and that all the adults were attending to poor Mike, took this opportunity to poke around a little.  I remember I was in Mike’s bedroom playing skittles with one of my buddies when someone finally rounded us all up and politely asked us to leave.  

     Despite the fact that all of our phone numbers were in the Portlock Road Neighborhood Association Phonebook, Mike Kaiser never called us up for another game.  I figure it was his loss.  We were great kids, except for my brother.

Mickey da Mayor of Happy Acres