I was living in an old cane shack in Hilo wondering what to do with my life. I’d just graduated from UH Hilo, now what?
I didn’t have to wait long for the answer. It came one morning when some guy stopped by and said he was flying to the mainland leaving a job behind that was made for me. So I put on the shirt and pants I bought at the Goodwill and walked into Hilo to follow my fate.
Suddenly I was in the VISTA Peace Corps, my mission from the president was to go into the schools in Hilo Town and create a program to ease the prejudice and bring harmony to the islands, that’s all.
I was a little rattled, a big calling for a 28 year-old surfer living in a cane shack by the Wailuku River. I had no idea what to do, but I straightened my shirt to look like I knew what I was doing. It worked and the adventure began.
My job was to go around to local schools and meet with kids and tell them about each of their races. One day we’d read Hawaiian stories, the next day Japanese stories,Chinese, Portuguese, do skits, the whole get together thing.
The idea was if they got to know each other they’d get along better. But who knows? Maybe if they got to know each other they wouldn’t like each other. No one thought of that. But I charged ahead and it was working.
I wrote a song to bring the island kids together. They loved it! It was the big theme song of the schools. I’d strum my guitar and look out at the smiling faces of the boys and girls, singing and clapping together. Isn’t that the goal of just about everything in the world, everyone singing the same song? I was doing it in my little island world.
One day I walked into the Hilo office and they asked me if I’d like to go to San Francisco to learn more about school programs, an all-expense paid trip to the mainland! Ah well, yea I’ll go! Somebody was smiling down on me. Life was good.
I continued meeting with kids, sharing stories of the different cultures, and singing the song together. I worked for a year in different schools with 3rd and 4th graders. I hoped learning about each other’s cultures brought some aloha to the island.
Time moved along. A year later I wandered into a May Day Festival in the Hilo Armory. All the keiki in all the schools were wearing leis, singing and dancing. I was in the stands when a class from an elementary school, in the cutest harmony you ever heard,started singing my song. The chorus rang out, “We are the colors of the rainbow, we are like flowers in the sun, sometimes we might be different, but we know we all are one.” Real chicken skin. It turned out that my song, “Colors of the Rainbow,” was sung for years in all the schools on the Hilo side. Some good aloha.
Dennis Gregory writes a bi-monthly column for West Hawaii Today and welcomes your comments at makewavess@yahoo.com
