Boots Lupinui

Aloha mai kakou.

Aloha.

This is a story about magic.

Not the kind with the top hat and the rabbit and the holly lady getting sawed in half.

It's always a holly lady.

No, I saw real magic.

You know how when you see a magician and they tell you where to look and you're still amazed when the trick happens?

I'm going to tell you right up front where to look.

So the magic I witnessed happened in Kohala.

Kohala is a beautiful place.

It's full of stories.

Some of them are well-known, like the one about how the people of Kohala saved the infant Kamehameha from being killed, hiding him from whole armies so that he might grow up and fulfill the prophecy and unite our islands.

Kohala did that.

I was born here, on O'ahu, on the Windward side, in Kaneohe, right that way.

But my roots reach back to Kohala.

We'd visit as kids, and I knew, I knew that place was special.

A few years later, I saw the amazing documentaries of Eddie and Murna Kumai, yeah.

Documentaries about special places and a way of life that was disappearing all too quickly.

And I knew I wanted to make stories like that.

But regular guys, we don't get to do that kind of stuff.