Bamboo

       More Letters From Paradise
                Bamboo

An interesting short article in our local paper told about a guy who had built a bamboo bicycle. Did I save the article? I did not, and spent a lot of time looking for it. Never did find it. Most unusual idea building the bike frame of bamboo, instead of metal. All he had to buy were the wheels,crank and chain.

This got me to thinking about bamboo, and its many uses. My first encounter with bamboo came when I was a kid living in San Marcos Texas. We cut our fishing poles from stands of green bamboo. When dry, the poles dried into the familiar yellow poles.

The cutting board in our kitchen is made of bamboo, and tag that came with it said that bamboo is twice as hard as maple. I like it.

I saw an ad for a speaker amplifier for smart phones. It consists of a section of bamboo, three inches thick, about twelve inches inches long. There is a nine inch slit in top in which to stand your phone, and amplify sound. Costs $25. a bit much, but you could always make your own, and save a lot.  

There is great interest lately in wood flooring for apartments in our building. Some people are replacing carpet for wood floors. There is a wide range of woods to choose from, and bamboo is very popular. People doing the change from carpet to wood floors have found that the wood floors cause noise,where carpet had soaked up the sound. Teena and I thought about changing from carpet to wood but rejected the wood, because of the sound problem, and carpet feels so very good on our bare feet. You never wear shoes indoors in private homes here in Hawaii.

Some other uses of bamboo came to mind. Bamboo scaffolding, used in the construction of buildings. Used in many parts of the East, but not here in Honolulu. Bridges and boats too. There is a lot of bamboo furniture sold here in the city.

There was once an Indonesian restaurant we loved to frequent,(alas no more) that served a sweet rice dessert in a section of bamboo.

I am also remained of a calypso song I knew while serving in the Navy. It was all about the "Big Bamboo." I'll let you figure out what the singer was saying. That's enough about bamboo.

     Aloha
     Grant