May 2008

From the Editor...

Rochelle delaCruz

from the editor…

Skip Spring and Go Straight to Summer

Now that it’s May I think we can finally celebrate some warm weather, although around Puget Sound, we were all a bit confused at the end of April when we got dumped with a big surprise snowstorm, confounding not only the trees and flowers that were happily blooming, but us folks too. Lots of people had to go hunt for their knit hats and gloves that they thought were safely stored away. For us locals, it meant keeping on long pants and socks and pushing da slippahs back into the closet. With Easter arriving extra early this year, this unseasonal snow a month later seemed extra LATE!

So let’s keep our fingers crossed that winter is finally over; or else, gotta hele on to Hilo sooner than planned. But the bad news is that airfare prices are on the rise after the shutdown of Aloha Airlines and ATA! Not like we have the option of jumping in the car and driving home (although with outrageous gas prices, that doesn’t seem much of a choice either, even for those who can.) It’s true that escalating prices are happening all over the U.S., but in the Islands where the cost of living is already higher, the pinch is even more painful.

Still, there are a few rays of hope. The upcoming Waiomina celebration and Hawaiian-Suquamish collaboration make me smile, as does Maile Hudson’s story about finding her way back to the Islands, Leroy Tagavilla’s Kahiko Kula Volkswagen Club and Frank De Lima’s student program. And then of course, there’s the big event in Seattle at the end of May, the Northwest Folklife Festival that’s been going strong for over 37 years. Last year and again this year, Northwest Hawai`i Times is happy to sponsor some Hawaiian events, so we hope to see you at Seattle Center over Memorial Day Weekend. I’m pretty sure by then we’ll be in shorts and slippahs. If not, just grab your sweatshirt and come anyway.

See you there! ~RdC

Back to From the Editor