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Molokai Kupuna Legacy
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My name is Mitsuo Watanabe.
I was born April 19, 1928,
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When I became a teenager,
my father, my mother died.
Okay?
Then my father remarried
and then he got sick and he ended up in Kula Sanatorium.
My oldest brother was in the military.
My next oldest brother
contacted tuberculosis, so he ended up in Kula Sanatorium too.
That left only me left over.
So I had to support the family, go to work.
At age 17, I had to sort of put school and go to work.
My father came from Japan
and he came to Japan because
Molokai Ranch owned half of the island those days.
Molokai Ranch needed workers,
but no place for them to live.
So they hired my grandfather, my father at the time,
to build a home where Homei Pune Hana is now.
Above that, they built homes for people.
Molokai Ranch hired the employees to live there.
Those days, you live with several different families together at one time.
You didn't have a choice.
So that's how the camp started to expand.
Those days, you don't answer back.
If you want to go to sleep, you go to sleep.
If you tell you to eat, you eat.
Not like today.
These days are too free.
You don't know how.
When you want to talk, that's it.
That's final, no an and buts about it.
The thing I remember about Molokai when I was 10 years old
was that I was a boy scout and I was at Camp Helena
on December 7, 1941.
And I remember this well because from there,
I can see diamond head and I can see the plane flying around.
At that time, we didn't know anything
until the police came to the camp and told us we have to go home.
So the scout master asked him why.
The Japanese are bombing Pearl Harbor.
There's a war going on.
We broke up the camp and went home.
All we know is that you have to live within your means
because you know that while you're not going to get supplies
or monorail, there's no boat going to come for a while anyway
because there's a war going on.
And submarines were all over the place.
I don't know if you believe me,
but I tell you that I was about 11 or 12 years old
so I was in a boy scout.
So they asked the boy scout to patrol the shoreline
all these things.
We used to walk and any time we see light in the ocean
we have to let the scout master know.
So every night we used to go down.
And for us it was a lot of fun.
You know, it's just like playing.
We didn't know anything about the war.
They told us you walk down the shoreline
and any time you see light in the ocean
they gave us a number to call.
So every night we used to go.
It's just like play for us.
It was a lot of fun.
You stay away from your parents.
You know, nobody can grumble at you.
Nobody can tell you when to sleep.
How they bled on the ocean.
Just walk.
We were all playing while we were walking.
I never forget those days.
You didn't have anything.
You know, you read the paper and you see
what the outside world is getting, right?
You know, all the things.
And you know that you don't have it on Molokai.
So you learn how to live with what you have
and that's it.
Survive.
And to me it was a blessing in disguise.
Because when you get older
you become more self-supportive
and you don't have to rely on your parents or anything.
I see a lot of time when I see these Honolulu people come.
Soon the parents die or they can't get along with the parents.
They're lost.
They don't know what to do.
Whereas on Molokai you don't have a choice
because you learn from when you're young.
Tell you those days when we have dinner
you only eat ball rice with the pickle in the middle.
That's all.
That's your meal.
And you eat that thing.
Morning, lunch, supper.
Same thing.
You don't have a choice.
But the good lesson is that you know
what is hard it is, life is all about.
And that's how when you grow up
you realize how fortunate you are today
with all those stairs, roof.
Ten people sleeping in ten all over the place.
I used to be sort of a key person on Molokai on sport.
I was in coach basketball.
I coached little league baseball.
I coached barefoot football.
Basketball.
All this kind of stuff I used to coach before.
Because I was one of the only few people that knew about sport
because I used to do a lot of reading magazines about sport.
I used to love to read sport magazines.
So I became really knowledgeable about sport.
Well, I remember reading the magazine
about Little League World Series.
Have you ever heard of Little League World Series?
Well, I used to keep up with sport.
So when I saw that Little League World Series
telling myself, why can't Molokai participate?
And so I called Maui, a guy named Ayan Mayehara
who happened to be a good friend of mine.
And I asked him, how do I get Molokai
to get involved in Little League?
And he was so happy to find out
somebody in Molokai was interested in that.
And he was in charge of Maui County.
So he came from Maui to Molokai
to tell me about Little League, teach me,
gave me a manual.
And the funny part about the manual was this.
He gave me the manual.
The first page is that you are not to smoke,
drink in front of the children.
And I used to smoke those days.
See, that was a lifesaver for me.
You know, I'm glad I thought of it
because then I quit smoking.
And I became more healthy
because you know that smoking is not that good for you.
At those days, if you care less,
if you see your friend smoking, you smoke too.
But you don't know how it ruined your health.
So that was a good thing.
So I owe a lot of my life to Little League baseball.
That's why I do a lot for Little League.
Be a La Paz.
You know how the start,
how it all happened,
we were practicing with the high school.
The high school was parking on a regular field
where the Baptist Church was.
The Little League we used to practice.
One day, the high school boys can really hit the ball.
And one of the balls almost hit my Little League's head.
And that's when I started to look around
and I saw this spot all clear with trees.
So I went down to see the Molokai Ranch manager.
His name was Harrison Cook.
And he told me that the ranch will give me permission
to be La Paz.
And he looked at me and said,
I'm in one condition.
You are not to ask Molokai one single penny.
You want to clean the land, you clean,
but you can get your own equipment,
you clean them and we are not to spend one penny.
I said, it's a deal.
Or what I did, I called Maui County the mayor.
His name was Eddie Tam.
I don't know what I had in mind.
He said, oh, that's a good idea.
So he called the manager of Molokai
who was in charge of Molokai the county.
Next day, they get all the equipment,
they clean up the whole area.
After they clean them all up,
then I had my friends.
Only on weekend,
this guy named Arnold Freel,
he had a construction company.
And at that time he had excess of the whole island
about land where I can get built and all that.
And he went on to see him and he said,
oh yeah, he said, you go tell my men
if they're willing to donate their time,
they can use the truck.
Every Saturday and Sunday,
they go with the truck, get to the farm.
And that's how our little league's park is there today.
It was all carefree, all swamp,
rain over there, all mud and everything.
So we'll get send up or send up first,
then the dirt on it,
and then raise the wire up,
and then build a park there.
And that's how the little league's park is there today.
When we completed this guy
who was in charge of Little League for County Maui,
his name was Aimee Myhar,
he came to look, he was just amazed.
He said, you know, that park was
the best park in the county of Maui.
I didn't know anything about park,
I just read the manual and just
had all my friends come over there,
ran the place and put up the fence.
That's all.
All old stuff,
we just paint them up and look like new.
The pipe was old,
Moloka ran donated the pipe,
but all old pipe, not new pipe.
And the fence, the wire and everything,
like Moloka Electric used to buy big generators,
they used to ship them to Moloka.
My boss, Henry Yamashita,
I used to ask him if I could take
all the wood lumber from the equipment,
take them to the Little League park
and make that as a fence.
I never forget those days,
all pickup chunks here and there.
Then one day the county came
and said they want to take over the park,
they said, be my guest, take it.
And that's how it is today.
But when they took over,
it was really made,
and the fence and everything was built already.
Because Moloka Electric employees,
the welders used to come and weld the backstop
and everything for me.
I was lucky in that area.
Well, I coached about eight years.
Yeah, coached.
And then after that, the Little League,
I don't know what you call a guy.
He come from Maui.
His name is Ayan Mayahara.
And he wanted the Little League program
to join the national program.
So he came to Moloka to help me
organize the Little League program.
But one advantage we had was the Little League park.
And when he came over, he saw the park.
He said, you got it made
because we got the park already.
The park is ours.
You know, the Moloka rents in,
you can use the land, pay the park,
provided that I don't ask the rent
one single penny, just the land.
And that's how the park is still there today.
I coached because the need is there.
I coached for about seven years.
We were playing and this guy from the mainland came
and looked, you know, and he was impressed
with how the kids were playing the Little League.
So he just, he told me, you know,
it would be a good idea if we were to take the kids
to the mainland to see the United States.
So I said, see, we can't do that.
We don't have money.
And he taught me how to raise money.
So what he did was, first we built a park,
you know, where Moloka drug is right next to the park.
But the key was the concession, you see.
And the problem, not like today,
but those days you don't have too much
that border health problem, the regulation, you know.
Those days you will see the food inspector say,
what are you going to do?
And you can say, oh, this is for the Little League.
Oh, go ahead and build.
They don't even bother about it.
Well, everybody washed their hands.
And we used to average about five to $600 a day
on hot dog.
And we used to say, plate lunch.
And we used to get all the games there.
We average about four to six games a day.
We start from early in the morning about nine o'clock.
The first game and the last game is about five o'clock.
Those days were Sunday, you know,
because everybody would work Saturday.
You know, it's not like today,
today you work Monday, Tuesday, Friday.
The only days you work Monday to Saturday.
Only Sunday, you get there.
So Sunday is the day that we play Little League.
Yeah, because I was reading one time on Maui.
See, a Maui team went to California to play.
It just happened that the guy who runs the Maui Little League,
his name was I and my horror.
I knew him well.
So off season, you know, I just happened to bump into him,
had lines to get together.
And I asked him, you know, about the trip that the team that he took.
So I told him that, see, if you can do that,
why can't Molokai team go to it?
He said, nothing wrong with that.
He said, all you do is you raise the money.
And that's how we went to California,
Compton, California, brought up the Little League team.
We played eight games there.
Out of the eight games, we won seven.
We won the last one.
Yeah, went over there and we played them.
And they thought we were from Hawaii.
So we beat the hell out of them.
We played eight games.
We won seven out of the eight.
And they were the holiest.
They were so impressed.
They said, they want to come to Molokai.
He said, you come over.
Provide it.
You pay your own.
Once you come to Molokai, I'll house you people.
So I see all the families really helped.
So they used to take a boy here.
And it was a good thing to decide first,
the Little League kids get to mingle with the Little League kids
in a family home, see how they live, right?
And the parents get to see how the men and how the kids act.
So it was a good lesson for everybody.
And it was so successful that they invited us to go to California.
We went there.
And what a time we had there.
It took us everywhere.
Disney World.
Everybody who can think of, we just suggested they weren't going there.
And they paid for everything.
You know, the entrance and everything.
I remember Disney World went there.
I think the police opened 10 o'clock in the morning.
And we didn't come home till midnight.
The kids just had a ball.
The only loser was me.
They don't have my money.
So I got a tissue out of my money.
I didn't have my wife there.
When I first went to Mama Kai Electric,
my job was to wash Coca-Cola bottles.
Those days, no more canning of bottles.
What happened is they go to the machine and the machine washed.
But a lot of times the machine cannot wash everything
because some stuff is stuck in the bottle.
So one of my jobs was to check all the bottles as it comes out.
I got to look, see if it's clean.
And if it's not clean, I take them back and put them back in.
I remember those days well.
I worked there for 42 years for the company.
Oh, everything used to be.
We sell Coca-Cola, make ice.
We had a freezing refrigerator.
In those days, everybody loved to go deer hunting.
But after they shoot the deer, you cannot leave them out,
open in the next days, gone rough already.
So that Mama Kai Electric cooler was a life saver
for most of the hunters.
And my job was to take care of all that section.
So I used to bribe them.
You give me one high leg, I charge them cheap.
So don't ever think I was an honest guy.
I was the biggest cook on Mama Kai.
Maybe, maybe I'm still am.
But I never get caught.
If you live on Mama Kai, you have to go farm yourself.
Otherwise you starve.
Or you go hunting.
In those days, you go hunt for deer or pig.
I'm not a hunter.
So my friends used to go and...
I used to do favors for them.
And they don't pick.
In those days, you don't want bear, you want meat.
And that's how we lived.
I was in a very unusual situation because
my father, when I was about, oh, just about 8th grade, I think,
my father caught tuberculosis.
So they ship him to Cullosan, Ethereum.
My mother died right after that.
So what happened was that my aunt from Honolulu
came over to become my stepmother and take care of us.
At that time, we had six of us.
So all my life, I really respected it.
When I was older, I was the only guy that really took care of her.
She didn't have to work.
I gave her all the support she needed, money, anything.
I used to take care of her because I realized how much she sacrificed.
Oh yeah, she was a good seamstress.
All our clothing, she makes all our...
Even our underwear, she makes.
We don't have to worry about nothing.
You know, the only days before, when you go to store and buy rice,
they come in a bag, she gets a bag.
I don't know, she put them in a washing machine and everything she washed.
And then she made baby D's for us, t-shirts for us, with a rice bag.
She was that good.
But no money.
My father was sick, he cannot work.
In those days, normal such things, well, fail, anything.
You know, my money is too bad.
Nobody can help you.
So she only sew and make a living.
So she did a lot for us, sacrificed a lot.
Never forget that.
Well, it didn't do much.
I used to just go to work, come home, take care of the yard and everything.
She used to cook.
Those days, no more TV.
So you go to sleep, you get up, you go to work.
Oh, I was terrible.
Play hooky.
I want to tell you a story.
I used to tell her the story.
You know where the homipunehana is now?
That's where we used to live.
I used to walk down to the gym.
They had a gym.
Instead of going to the basketball school, I would go to the gym and play basketball, shoot pool.
And then I became the best shooter in the world.
Then, in the middle of the night,
the ball fell in.
I used to go to practice.
I became the best baller in the world.
I'm a poor example of education because
every time, time to go to school, I used to walk down.
I passed the gym.
I see the pool table.
Nobody should pull.
Instead of going to school, I'd go to the pool table and practice.
And then the basketball.
I wasn't too smart.
I don't think I'm smart either today.
Well, the future generation, all I can say is there's a law.
And you stay out of trouble.
Don't make your own law.
If the law says 35 miles an hour, stay within the limit.
Sooner or later, you can get into trouble because that's 35 miles an hour.
Then you're going to boy 40 miles an hour.
You don't get caught.
Next thing you know, 50 miles an hour.
Sooner or later, you're going to get caught.
And that's how they get into trouble.
What is the most special thing to you about growing up on Molokai?
The people.
To me, no place on earth.
People.
You know, if you were, anytime before you're walking down the road,
some are going to stop and offer you a ride.
That was the style of Molokai.
The people were like that.
It's like one big family.
And people die like that.
The whole house would be full of people.
All our friends come pay their respect.
That's how it is.
The only thing is amazing.
Today doesn't happen.
It's a different world today.
You've got to expect that because life changes.
