Building 419 Revisited

       More Letters From Paradise
        Building 419 Revisited

Building 419 is no more. It had long been a race between the termites and a wrecking ball. But one time this warehouse was the most important building on Sand Island, Honolulu. For it was here that the bodies were returned to from Vietnam. And the dusty, empty building was believed to be     haunted with ghosts.

Standing in the now empty building you could have heard voices:
          "Hay Sarge."
          "What do you want?"
       "How many did we get today?"
              "Ten."
       "Easy day, for a change."
         "Yeah. an easy day."
   "How many did we get last month?"
            "Eighty."
"Goddam war, they say we are winning."
    "Not from the looks of it."
"You guys had better move your asses."
"The chaplin will be here soon for the service."
"Get the lead out!"

"Well, I'll be damned."
"I saw a guy's name on one of the body bags, and I knew him."
"So what, a lot of guys you probably knew passed through here on their way back home."
"I really knew this guy, we spent three lovely days in a shell hole in the jungle. He had just gotten married when he was drafted.  The poor sonofoabitch. What a way to go home."
        "Yeah, all of them."
 "Don't you guys forget the flags."
   "Yeah, those fucking flags."

I wrote this in memory of two of my students, Vince LaRocca and Bob Perry, who passed through building 419 on their way back home to Petersburg, Michigan.
      Aloha
      Grant    

(Saint) Jim the Plumber

      More Letters From Paradise
       (Saint) Jim the Plumber

Okay, I fully understand that in order to become a saint, you must first be dead. And Jim, our plumber is still very much alive inspire of some heart trouble. He is probably in his sixties, medium height, with gray hair, small mustache and a small grinning mouth. Jim hails from Arkansas. You can hear it in his soft speech. In high school he had a job as a "chicken sexer." This is very important to the chicken industry, and Arkansas has a lot of chickens. Growers wanted to know if a baby chick was either a male or female. Not many people can do this. It is one of the strangest jobs in the world. Jim said once that he knew more about chickens than God.

Jim is our building plumber. Our building has 407 apartments, ranging from one bedroom to penthouses on the top floors. That is a lot of plumbing. And that means a lot of leaks. Some of the apartments are empty until the "Snow Birds" return for the winter and turn on all their plumbing. Then the leaks begin. Rubber gaskets and seals that have become dry, fail to seal.

Jim is always on the run fixing leaks. I know to a fact that he has returned here from his home, in order to make a repair. He has also worked all night too.

Jim has always given gifts of bananas, avocados, and orchids to many of the people in the building. But in spite of all this, there are some people living on the 35th floor who dislike him. The problem  stems from the fact that large pipes run through the 35th floor, and sometimes cause major leaks. Drywall melts with the water, rugs and floors are ruined. Jim and his crew try to restore the damage. The residents take out their anger on Jim, who is not the cause of the trouble.

For some 14 years Jim has helped a Japanese woman to care for her wheelchair- bound daughter. The husband had left for Japan, some time ago, leaving his wife and a care giver to care for the girl.
A couple of days before Christmas, I asked Jim what he planned to do for the holiday. He said only, "I will be here, it's bath time. She can't lift her in or out of the bath tub.  Care givers don't work on Christmas."

      Aloha
      Grant