All –
I cannot fully express how intensely proud I am of all you. For the last year, you were inundated with flyers, class notes, e-mail blasts, and newsletters sent out by our dedicated communications committee trying to convince you to volunteer your time, blood, sweat, and (a few) tears to host the 2008 Punahou Alumni Lu’au for “just” a t-shirt. And you shouldered this heavy load with a smile and a willingness to pitch in when asked.
Hosting the Lu’au meant time away from family, taking off work, and for some of us, flying thousands of miles for the sole purpose of sitting in the cafeteria to scoop and portion poi, lomi lomi salmon, and poke in the morning, only to turn around and serve it all in the afternoon under the tent on lower field under the ever watchful eyes of Marsha, the cafeteria lady. It meant going into the yards and gardens of family and friends to cut and collect ti-leaf, monsterra, lauwa’e, and ginger, effectively providing free landscape maintenance just so we could haul it all back to the alumni house for the assembly of the decorations. It means that in all the years that I have seen the Alumni Lu’au – and I’ve participated in the Alumni Lu’au in some form or another for the last 10 years – that we had the best organized Alumni Lu’au in a decade.
What I will take with me for many years to come is how we came together as one team. Remember, this is the class that miserably failed to have a freshman class picnic for lack of interest. I know that during Lu’au weekend, the Discerning Class of 1984 made up for that missing picnic because I saw our shredding team pull together and had the kalua pork ready to go ahead of schedule and how our transportation crews hustled the kalua pig, chicken long rice, and all the other food down to the tents on lower field. I saw volunteers supporting volunteers, and our imu support and volunteer support teams making sure that we were all taken care of. I saw the bar getting slammed by guests wanting refreshments and how the bar team met that challenge with grace and coolness under fire. I saw how smoothly the honored guests were served as a result of the extraordinary teamwork between the student servers committee and hospitality committee – and to get the student volunteers to sing O’ahu Wa up at the cafeteria? Wow. They’ve never done that before. And I saw the imu team clean the imu pit by pulling out all the pohaku, kiawe charcoal, and the roaches and centipedes, only to re-load the imu a week later with thousands of pounds of kindling, kiawe, pohaku, busted up banana stumps, pig (it’s just butt), ti and banana leaf, and more, not only under Friday’s blazing hot sun, but under the even more blazing eagle eye of Emeritus Number 1, Mr. May.
And what astonishes me is that you guys did it for “just” a t-shirt. A t-shirt that, by the way, was not only a great looking shirt, but for the first time in my memory, the hosting class’s t-shirt design was adopted by Punahou as the logo for the entire Lu’au – so a big thanks to the t-shirt committee for putting that all together.
In closing, I need to say that I feel a enormously guilty. All I did on Lu’au weekend was walk around, ask you how you guys were doing or if you needed anything, and the only answer that I got back was “Don’t worry, we’re doing good” or “Relax, we got this under control.” You guys made my job the easiest job of the entire Lu’au.
I thank you from my heart, and I’ll see you next year at our 25th Reunion!
Steve
