"Ah, yes," he said, eyes cast toward the west. "There's a storm brewin'."

Within minutes, our van was engulfed in rain.

We pulled up to a stop light as my husband barked orders.

"Batten down the hatches, lassie!" he shouted as he expertly wrapped the shoelace around his hand and gave it a quick tug.

The van's wiper groaned as it crept across the windshield to stand upright.

"Yank on that rope," he yelled.

I gave my end of the shoelace a hard jerk. The windshield wiper moaned as it crawled back to its original position.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing: one pair of black athletic shoelaces, each one tied to a wiper blade.

"When did your wipers stop working?" I asked.

"A couple of days ago," he said, then shrugged, maneuvering the van into the intersection.

The rain had settled to a fine mist.

"We can air-dry it the rest of the way," he said with a laugh.

I've always known our kupuna to be tremendous scientists. They engineered sophisticated systems of lo'i kalo (taro fields) and loko i'a (fishponds).

They understood the movement of the tide and currents and took advantage of this by constructing massive fishpond walls that could withstand crushing waves.

In Mary Kawena Pukui's "Nana I Ke Kumu," she writes about an early explorer's observation of our kupuna.

The Hawaiian possesses the "powers of invention and ingenuity ... the industry of the Hawaiians (that was demonstrated in their) indigenous arts and skills ... the staining of the calabash, the artificial breeding of fish, the making and decoration of tapa."

My husband is indeed resourceful.

In the 16 years of our marriage, he has masterfully undertaken several creative projects. I am most impressed with the water feature he designed at no cost to us. When our copper gutter became clogged, he expertly sawed into the seam of the spout.

This clever invention created a waterfall effect, dumping rainwater onto the asphalt below.

But my husband's imaginative spirit urged him to place an empty Kirkland 5-gallon laundry detergent bucket under the gushing spout. Now we have a natural water feature without bearing the burden of a high-priced pump and filtration system.

There's another example of brilliant invention by my husband that has to do with his eyeglasses.

He had been in a wrestling match with our youngest son when his glasses snapped. My husband called a time-out, pulled open our junk drawer and grabbed a roll of duct tape.

Within a few seconds, he had expertly rejoined the two pieces with a strip of duct tape and resumed the wrestling match.

I've recommended he consider using a clear tape to draw less attention to the repair.

"My dear, duct tape is clearly my tool of choice," he pontificates. "If your kupuna were alive today, they would find my method of repair incredibly ingenious."