Family Stories, Part One

For English, we’ve all been assigned to tell family stories that we’ve heard from parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and so on. My grandfather is currently in the hospital with a heart aneurism, and will be flown out to Stanford tomorrow for an operation. In his honor, I’ve decided to center my three family stories on him and my grandmother.

When I was a bit less than two years old, I was able to call most of my family members by name: Mommy, Daddy, Gramma, Auntie Laura, Uncle Greg, and so on. The one person who I never called by name was my grandfather. He always said that I was saving a special name for him—and he was right. But when I pointed at him and dubbed him ‘Pomper,’ he looked—according to my mom—very taken aback, and a more than a bit disappointed. Everyone else thought it was adorable, and started calling him Pomper, too. He quickly got used to it, and now he refuses to respond to ‘grandpa.’ Everyone calls him Pomper now. It’s his license plate, and when people ask him ‘what’s a pomper?’ he likes to say that ‘only a little girl with blond hair and blue eyes knows that.’ Even now, after the little girl—me—has grown from 2 to 14, he and I are still close, and I still call him Pomper.

Pomper’s real name is Paul, but he’s always been called Mickey by his friends. Because of this nickname, he named his construction business Mouse Builders. He started his business in California, but after a few years he was offered a one-year job in Hawaii. He, my grandmother Cynthia, and their three children (my uncles David and Peter and my mom), came to Hawaii, intending to stay only until my Pomper wasn’t needed for contracting anymore—but they liked it so much that they decided to live there. Pomper continued his business in Hawaii, and renovated many buildings in Chinatown, and won an award for one of the construction jobs he did there. Since starting Mouse Builders, my Pomper has always run his own business, and enjoys it very much. He says that he isn’t happy unless he’s working, and he’s not happy working unless he’s working for himself.

My grandmother left college when she was 19 to marry my Pomper. When she left school, she promised her mother that she’d go back one day to graduate. Four children later, she carried out her promise, and went back to school at age 40. She went on to law school afterwards, and 9 days after she got her lawyer’s degree she helped to win the Protect the Koho’olawe Ohana case. In 1990 she began a political career, and has been elected House Representative for her district every single time she has run. Like my Pomper, she has no intentions of retiring any time soon.

Although they both work hard, my grandparents love to travel, and almost every summer they go to Europe together. One trip to France was particularly memorable to my mom, who went with them. She always loves to tell this story about the trip:

My grandparents and my mom were at a small hotel in Southern France. The day they were going to leave, my mom and Pomper took the bags out of the hotel room while my grandma was preparing to leave. They waited for her at the end of the hall, but when she came out of the room, she stood just outside the doorway, and began—as my mom puts it—yakking at Pomper about the room key, the condition of the room, and so on. She didn’t stop, and my Pomper, starting to get annoyed by her lack of mobility, suddenly had an epiphany. There was a long rug that ran down the middle of the hall, and while neither my mom nor my Pomper was standing on it, my grandmother was. While she continued to jabber away, Pomper bent down and yanked the rug out from under her feet.

She got up quickly, and erupted against my Pomper, who was doing his best not to snicker, and then against my mom, who was almost crying because she was laughing so hard. Even now, when my mom tells the story, my grandmother gets a bit indignant about it.

I chose to tell these particular stories about my grandparents because they illustrate their love for family, work ethic, dedication, and sense of humor. I very much look up to both of them, and hope that I have inherited some of their qualities.

Introduction / the Purpose of Blogging

I believe that when you write, you should show a character's personality through stories and actions, instead of simply telling. I'm going to do the same as I describe myself-- I'm going to tell stories.

I'm the kind of person who, on a four-day weekend off from school, will spend my day home alone listening to World War Two radio broadcast recordings on my dad's record machine.

I'm the kind of person who plasters my room walls with posters of people like Gandalf, Dumbledore, and Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Vader, and the Beatles. In fact, I only have one poster in my room that would be socially acceptable by the standards of non-geeks, and it's of Jack Sparrow.

I'm the kind of person who will spend as little time as possible on Algebra homework, but only so that I can hurry on to English and History.

I'm the kind of person who would rather die than dance in public... unless I'm with my friends and we're listening to 'Popular'-- for irony's sake-- on someone's iPod speakers, and we all get up to sign along and do what we call the foot-dance.

I'm the kind of person who believes-- and has acted on the belief-- that it is better to have a friend who hates you but is alive than to have a dead friend.

I'm the kind of person who will laugh until I cry on the bus because I'm reading something funny, and not care about the weird looks I get.

I'm the kind of person who, during the fall, lives for football games-- but only because football season is Marching Band season.

I'm the kind of person who gets high off Root Beer, roller coasters, and fun.

I'm the kind of person who might commit murder if I hear the phrase "This one time, at band camp..."

I'm the kind of person who will never judge a friend but is a bit too quick to judge someone who judges.

I'm the kind of person who write incomprehensible sentences that use the same word too many times.

And most importantly to me, I'm the kind of person who will never let a friend down, who will never drink and drive, who will never willingly hurt someone, and who will always try to help the people I love.

Being who I am (a geek stuck in the past, to be blunt) I don't particularly want a MySpace or a FaceBook. But for a while I have wanted a blog, and now, with this English assignment, I have the excuse to get one. Blogging means being able to share your views with the entire world without the distractions of 'friends' or reviewers or stalkers. Blogging gives you a chance to really take advantage of the Internet: you can link to your favorite websites, play music, show videos, post pictures... anything the Internet has to offer, you can somehow incorporate into a blog. And there isn't so much distraction that you forget the lovely old days of just reading and listening. You can have recordings of old radio broadcasts, quote books, or even just write your heart out without any fancy technological additions. Have a blog also means that as soon as you have finished writing something, it can be out in the world in seconds. It is a wonderful feeling to know that after I post this-- sitting in my home in Hawaii-- someone in England or Australia or South Africa can find out about me, get to know me, and talk to me-- all within an hour. So despite being stuck in the past when it comes to music and history, I love the Internet, and already I love blogging. Blogging means communication, potential, entertainment, and above all, freedom.