Saved by the YMCA
By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist
At a dinner last week to launch the Central YMCA's annual support campaign, one of the volunteer organizers of the event gave a stunning testimonial.
"I can honestly say the Y saved my life," he said.
"You know how people ask, 'Could you really kill a person?' For me, that question was answered. I could. I could pull that trigger."
Though everyone in the room knew this man, he asked that his name not be used in the newspaper. "My mom knows I was a bad boy, but she doesn't know how bad," he said.
It was the late 1970s. He was a high-school junior. He came from a good home, but drugs and violence were all around. "It was easy money. We weren't recruited. We were begging to get in," he said. "It was all around Hotel Street. The prostitutes would sell the marijuana and the deal was sell five bags, get one free. And when they couldn't return the amount they took or the money for it, it was my job to make sure I got it back."
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That meant violence. No negotiating, no mercy.
One night, he and his friends had just beaten up a woman when her pimp tried to intervene.
"One of my friends handed me the gun and I just ripped it right across the guy's face. I cocked it back and held it right to the middle of his head. I remember the guy crying and begging for his life. I knew right then I could take his life."
The one thing that stopped him was the voice of his counselor from the Central YMCA. "Till today, it's clear in my head. I heard Brenda Nakamura saying to me, 'You're better than that.' I dropped the gun and we ran.
"If not for the words of my counselor at the Y, I would be either dead or in jail right now."
Instead, he works for a financial company and has held managerial positions at some of the most high-profile agencies in Hawai'i.
He graduated from high school, though just barely. He went into the military. When he came home, the same violent life came calling, but so did his youth leaders at the Y. They got him involved. They slowly gave him leadership roles. He became the kind of counselor that he had looked up to as a kid.
"They showed me how I could be a positive force not only for teenagers and kids, but for adults as well."
This was the first time he was moved to give a testimonial.
"People talk about why programs like this are so important. I for one can say that I was saved by the Y."
Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.
