Sweet smell of patriotic duty
By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer
In the shade of full plumeria trees, patriotism was measured one blossom at a time.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
This is how it happens every May at this time, on warm mornings just before Memorial Day. Some of the thousands of lei that will decorate graves at Punchbowl on Monday start here at the Koko Crater Botanical Gardens.
Lorraine Akana was among the volunteers from the Friends of Makua Ali'i and the Platinum Seniors who helped the Hawai'i Job Corps gather plumeria blossoms from the city's Koko Crater Botanical Gardens yesterday. The flowers will be strung into Memorial Day lei for graves at National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
They start on the blue-gloved fingers of volunteers such as Lorraine Akana, who snapped off the pink blossoms yesterday morning with practiced speed before tossing them into a cardboard box.
The 67-year-old Makiki resident has been coming here for nearly five years with other seniors who help the city prepare for Memorial Day. Yesterday, about a dozen members of the Friends of Makua Ali'i and the Platinum Seniors joined Hawai'i Job Corps members for the job.
"It's tradition," Akana said. "It's for our dead, to honor our dead who gave their lives for us."
Akana wrinkled her face with a smile, her fingers still pinching off blossoms.
"And it's good fun," she said.
Like an aural exclamation point, Elinor Matsumoto gave a hearty laugh from beneath a nearby tree.
"We all just work together, having a good time," said Matsumoto, whose flower-picking speed is surpassed only by the speed of her lips.
"We just talk, talk, talk," she said. "This is good therapy for us. If you stay home and watch the four walls, that's no fun. I'm happy I can contribute my time."
If you'd like to contribute lei for graves at Punchbowl and the State Veterans Cemetery at Kane'ohe, they should be 20 to 24 inches from end to end and should be tied. Drop them off today from 9 to 11:30 a.m. at Ala Wai Community Park; the Halawa, Wai'anae, Wahiawa, Waiau or Waipahu district parks; the Makua Ali'i and Kane'ohe senior centers; and the fire stations in Kalihi, Waipahu, Waialua, Kane'ohe, Kailua, Waimanalo and Hawai'i Kai. Also, at the Municipal Building from 8 a.m. to noon today.
The group hoped to gather enough flowers to string 3,000 lei, which they will do today with a group of 50 seniors.
Drop off your lei
But opinion was divided on whether there were enough blossoms this year. Winter rains knocked down some of the blossoms on trees that grew thick with green leaves. The plumeria boughs, laden with thick flower clusters, were so heavy they drooped to the crater floor.
Nathan Wong, a city recreation specialist with the botanical gardens, liked what he saw yesterday. He held some blossoms and said the lei they make will look just fine when the annual ceremony is held at National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
He nodded at the seniors whose help he counts on every year to gather enough flowers.
"Probably a lot of them do have relatives buried at Punchbowl," he said. "They have family members who have been in different wars, so they have connections."
The nation's war dead, old and new, were here in this crater, their sacrifice honored by the volunteers.
"They are being remembered," Wong said. "And I think more so now, with troops in Afghanistan and Iraq they want to show their support. This is their way of showing support."
One blossom at a time.
Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8012.
