At age 80, Mitchell Kaawailanui Kalilimoku has to be one of a handful of full-blooded Hawaiians remaining in Our Honolulu. From his bed at the Maunalani nursing home atop Wilhelmina Rise, the metropolis that spreads out below his window is light years from the world he knew as a boy. Only the ocean, broad and calm, is the same.

That's because Kalilimoku grew up at the end of the road on Kaua'i at Ha'ena. That's where the cliff-bound Napali Coast trail begins, and a heiau is dedicated to hula.

Kalilimoku said he's seen hula dancers on the heiau dedicated to Laka and night marchers. He also said a dog grew as big as a cow before his very eyes. Mostly, though, his memories of Ha'ena before automobiles and helicopters and tour buses is about a life of bare essentials.

He said his family of grandparents, parents, eight brothers and a sister ate fish caught in the ocean and poi made from taro grown nearby. There were no stores in Ha'ena.

I asked him what they used for fishhooks. He answered, "Anything we can," including aku bone carved with a sharp stone and sanded with coral.

Some six families lived at Ha'ena at this time, about 1930. His own house was made of wood with a tin roof. The family cooked on an outside fireplace made of stones and frequently stoked up an imu. They kept chickens so the diet included meat and eggs, boiled or fried, and also bananas. "If we lucky, we kill a wild pig and imu 'em," he recalled.

Kalilimoku didn't get to see much of the outside world. He once walked the 11-mile trail to Kalalau Valley and often went into the closest valley, Hanakapi'ai, to fish.

None of his family danced the hula, but Kalilimoku remembers dancers at the heiau. "To us the hula was sacred, something we consider private," he said.

Kalilimoku said they harvested 'awa root in the mountains and pounded it to make the drink. After work in the evening, his grandfather offered some to the gods before taking his first sip.

For entertainment, the family talked story, sang and played 'ukulele. The kids played at the Ha'ena Caves, and one evening, Kalilimoku said, he saw spirits marching. At another time, when he was alone on the beach, a stray dog grew bigger and bigger until it was the size of a cow. Kalilimoku said he ran home.

He said he saw his first car at Hanalei, up the road from Ha'ena, his grandfather's Model-T Ford. Kalilimoku said he quit school at age 11, when his parents died. His grandparents sent him to Honolulu to live with an aunt and uncle. He liked Honolulu better than Ha'ena because there was more excitement.

Later he was drafted into the Army during World War II, then worked in construction. But his clearest memories, as he gazes down on the ocean, are of the end of the road at Ha'ena.

Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073.