4 March 2008
List for March 4: Neighborhoods I’ve Lived In

Filed under month of lists

…not counting mainland neighborhoods.

1. I don’t know the name of it, but it was military housing in the area the freeway passes through as it goes past Pearl Harbor. My first home was there. I remember nothing of it.
2. You know that marshy, swampy area behind Pearl Kai, on the Pearl Harbor side of Kam Highway in Pearl Ridge? I lived there for a few months when my family moved back to Hawaii from California. It was military TLA. That HMC Karaoke place used to be a restaurant called The Beacon, and my family used to eat there quite often.
3. Catlin Park. This is military housing across Nimitz from the airport. It’s currently a vast, empty plain awaiting reconstruction.
4. Robinson Heights. This Waipahu neighborhood was the location of my parents’ first house. We lived there for about seven years.
5. I don’t know the name of it, but we lived for a year in that Waipahu neighborhood near the S-turn on Waipahu Street, where Waipahu Street crosses Waikele Stream. It was a rental.
6. Royal Summit. My parents still live there. I lived there for four or five years before moving out mostly on my own. It was a pain in the neck to get to because only one bus goes past there, and that bus was almost always too crowded to get on until the early evening. It’s close to a lot of stuff, but walking up that hill can be a bear sometimes!
7. Manoa. I lived in a private, off-campus dorm across University Avenue from the College of BusAd. Some of the best times of my life.
8. Pauoa. I tried to finish up my degree while working full-time, but it just wasn’t working. I had two roommates in a small, two-bedroom rental right across the old Honolulu Sake brewery. It was a great house, and I just LOVED living in Pauoa. I would love to own a house there some day.
9. Pueo. This Hilo neighborhood is right over the three bridges that cross the Wailuku River. If you look here, you’ll get a rough idea. Actually, I lived much closer to the intersection of Ohai and Wainaku. Scary neighborhood. There was a drive-by shooting in our driveway the summer after I graduated! I lived there only a semester.
10. I don’t know what the area right in front of the university in Hilo is called, but it’s sorta Waiakea, I think. I lived in an apartment building called The Collegian. Three semesters with the best roomie ever, two of them also with the worst roomie ever. A very, very convenient location, and I would live there again if not for all the college students and the landlord yelling his lungs out at people to “shut the **** up” late at night!
11. West Loch. Officially it’s in Ewa Beach, but people in the old part of Ewa Beach don’t think of it as Ewa, and I don’t blame them. I lived and worked (it was a residential counseling job) there for about a year.
12. Kapalama. I’ve lived two places in Kapalama, which has been home now for ten years. My current location, up the mountain and in the shadow of Kamehameha Schools, is much, much better than my first place here, down the hill and right near the intersection of School Street and Houghtailing. I saw many disturbing things at that intersection, which is one reason I almost never drive through it after twelve. There are other ways to get home.

Of these neighborhoods, my favorite is Pauoa, but Hilo gets a shout-out as well because I just love Hilo. Even Pueo, which was a druggy, spooky ‘hood, had its charms, and it was right across the river from downtown. I love downtown Hilo; I loved it from the moment I moved to the Big Island. There is a very strong chance that I will live there again some day. If Ryan and Jen ever actually make the move, it’s going to be mighty tempting to follow them over.

2008-03-04  ::  me