Hawai'i Ways, Hawai'i Days
'Pigeon Park' stirs fond memories

Pigeon park. That was what we Ishikawa kids called the Honolulu Zoo when we were small, back around 1950. I think my kid sister, Karen, named it Pigeon Park when she was about 3. We liked the zoo and we looked forward to going there to feed the pigeons roasted peanuts. I remember an old man at the entrance sitting on a box, selling boiled peanuts. I thought all along he was saying, "boy peanuts"; he was saying "BUY peanuts."

Dad used to buy us some, and to this day, I love those things. And Dad always bought roasted peanuts, too, because the pigeons loved them! We went to Pigeon Park often and we always enjoyed it. Of course, the strawberry shave ice (was there any other kind?) helped make Pigeon Park even more fun.

Serious shave ice eaters followed a certain protocol (we kids took eating so seriously). First, you had to take the cone from Dad without having the top fall off. Boy, if that ever happened, you’d just as well go to the car and wait: Your day was ruined. But if you got past that part, the next step was to pull out the small wooden spoon and begin pressing the top down into the cone. You had to do this to keep from losing the top to gravity and melting. (You were permitted to cheat and begin nibbling off the top, but sucking on the straw at this point was a waste of time; all you’d get was air.)

And no matter what, you got sticky hands. Once you began lowering the top, you could start sipping the sweet juice from the bottom of the cone and eating with or without spoon. All during the eating process, you were supposed to plunge the spoon up and down into the cone to generate more juice. We didn’t know why this made juice, but we knew that juice came out when we did it. It was one of the mysteries of life. While eating your shave ice, you were oblivious to everything else going on around you because eating required your total concentration! What a treat!

An important part of going to Pigeon Park was chasing the pigeons. You did this until you got older, say around 6. Then you passed that duty to your younger siblings. (As with other rituals, you could always regress and join the fun for old-time’s sake.)

After we had our shave ice, and fed and harassed the pigeons, we would look at the animals. A lot of the animals looked — well -bored, but the spider monkeys were fun to watch! The chimpanzees, with their big pink ‘økoles, were simply too embarrassing. We used to like the birds because they were colorful, and they moved around. I remember the cranes were at the front of the zoo, nearest the beach, and whenever an airplane would fly by, the cranes would cry out loudly. We figured they thought it was their Auntie Nellie or something.

We also liked the myna birds. They used to make wolf whistles, and I think they said bad words. My Auntie Tsuru told us the sailors taught the birds to whistle and say those things.

Pigeon Park was surrounded by date trees, and at the base of each date palm frond were horrendous, long spikes. We used to look for ripe dates to eat, but you had to negotiate those long spikes to get at them. But they were really good to eat, almost like cracked seeds. Well, not really, but the dates were free!

Of course, Waikiki Beach was right across the street from Pigeon Park. The ocean used to come right up to the card and checker players along Kalakaua Avenue back then. You could look right over the wall and see fish back then. And there was not much of a beach on the Diamond Head side of the Waikiki groin, either.

But the best thing about Waikiki Beach was the aquarium. To me, it was the most fascinating place of all. I remember we went into a dark, cool building to see the fish in the tanks. There were huge moray eels that stayed inside pieces of concrete pipe that were placed inside their tanks. The huge carp were a favorite of mine because of their sheer size. But I loved all the fish; I knew them by name and I could stay for hours if Mom and Dad would let me. Today, I am still fascinated by fish and aquariums.

Nearby, the natatorium was always crowded with swimmers. It had a high-dive platform, a springboard, I think, and a water slide. I didn’t know how to swim very well, so I just watched the big kids and men jump, dive and slide into the pool.

Instead of diving, most guys jumped off the high platform. To keep from having to pinch their noses to keep the water out when they hit, the guys used to make a nose guard by tearing off one side of a Coca-Cola cup, leaving the bottom intact. They would bite down on the bottom to hold the cup in place when they hit the water, feet first. The cup kept the water from going up their nose. Pretty ingenious, huh? Some of the kids used to jump off the natatorium’s walls into the channel on the ‘ewa side of the pool. That looked spooky to me, so I just watched.

Yup, the aquarium and the natatorium were pretty neat places to go when we were kids. But as much fun as they were, we still thought Pigeon Park was really special because there, we could run around, chase the pigeons, and eat peanuts and shave ice!

Alan Ishikawa is a frequent contributor to Hawai‘i Ways, Hawai‘i Days.

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