Date: February 20th, 2022

Location: Russell Pakani’s Residence, Pana’ewa Homestead. 

Interviewer: Ainaaloha Ioane

Interviewee: Gracey Flores

Summary:

Gracey Flores:

My name is Gracey Flores, and I am the granddaughter to ummm William Kulakauka Pakani ummm a lot of people know my grandfather has ummm Uncle Bill and growing up umm you know we would refer to grandpa’s home as umm Grandpa’s or Grandpa’s place ummm as we got older we would refer Grandpa’s Place to ummm da Bay or down da Bay because my grandfather lived right there on Waiokawa Bay and ummm I remember growing up ummm my dad Russell Pakani and my Uncle, umm my Uncle Chunky who’s actually my dad’s older brother, he would take us, me and my siblings, umm I’m the youngest of three kids and all my cousins, and ummm dey would take us down to Grandpa’s every Sunday. 

(1:06)

And I remember as a child I remember sometimes my uncle would come and pick us up. So, he would let us know, K, we going Grandpa’s, and ummm you know make sura you get all your, your clothes ready make sure you get your towel, and he would tell us we going early, cause, you know, cause Uncle wanted to go holoholo. So, you know as kids, we, I remember us, you know preparing ourselves we had to make sure we had all of our stuff ready and that we are up early so dat when uncle come, ummm you kn0w we are ready to go. You don’t want to be that person or dat guy dat miss da bus down to Grandpa’s cause you going stay home all day bored, so you know as children I remember getting ready and ummm I remember ummm we used to jump in da back my dads truck or in da back of my uncles ummm my uncles flat bead and all of us keiki would jump in da back and we would head down to Keaukaha, and I remember right when we hit da road to go into Grandpa’s was like dis feeling of excitement and I remember ummm just driving into Grandpa’s place was just like an adventure in itself right you know just all of us in da back of da truck and going off roading so….

(2:25)

I remember, one of my earliest memories about grandpa’s I was about four or five years old, so I was born in nineteen eighty so ummm dat was back in da early eighties and I remember my dad would take us swimming in Grandpa;s pond and I remember one day my dad just threw me in da pond and I guess back den das how you learned how to swim, you just get thrown in and so ummm sure enough that’s what happened to me my dad threw me in next ding you know boom I was swimming… and so ummm…. I remember me and my siblings we learned how to swim in, in grandpa’s pond. I remember once I learned how to swim ummm I didn’t want to get out, didn’t want to get out spent hours swimming in Grandpa’s pond. And I remember we would practice our powdahh, and I remember we would have powdah contest we with cousins and I remember we used to take ummm da empty soda can sometimes was an empty beer can and we would take the can and powdah and if da can flew outside the pond supposedly you was da winner for for doing dat and dats someding we enjoyed, is soo ummm challenge with my cousins. We spent you know hours in dat pond. You know something about that pond it’s, it’s very, very cold and so if… ummm your start to shiffer right and… ummm… (4:00 minutes) and I remember you.