Growing Up Local (August 6, 2023)

“Make sure to watch the credits all the way to the end.”

My friend, Bill Teter, was on his way out of the theater; I was on my way in.  Bill just retired at the end of this past month, after teaching high school English and coaching the Speech and Debate team for 33 years.  The high school is the University Laboratory School, here in Honolulu.  The Lab School is my alma mater; I graduated in 1972.  I, too, taught English there a long time ago.

The film Bill had just seen, and I was about to see, premiered last night at the Consolidated Ward Theatres in Honolulu.  The title is Growing Up Local, and it’s directed by another Lab School grad, James Sereno, Class of 1984.  It is a labor of love undertaken by James 15 years ago.  This was a celebration of the culmination of his dream made reality.

I was intrigued by Bill’s comment.  What, I wondered, would I see at the end of the credits?

Growing Up Local is also the title of a collection of poetry and prose authored by folks who have their roots here in Hawai‘i.  One of the short stories, “Way Back to Pālolo,” was written by Stuart Ching, a Kaiser High School graduate.

James, a USC-schooled film student, loved that story so much that he decided to turn it into a movie, so he and Stuart, 15 years ago, began collaborating on a script based on that piece.  The title they settled on is, of course, the title of the anthology.

Incidentally, Stuart, before finally settling into the English Department at Loyola Marymount College, taught English at the Lab School for a year.

The Growing up Local anthology was published by Bamboo Ridge Press, founded by McKinley High graduates Darrell Lum and Eric Chock.  That was in 1978.  The Bamboo Ridge, Journal of Hawai‘i Literature and Arts has been published continuously since then.

Darrell Lum, Eric Chock, Bill Teter, and a fourth person, Jim Harstad, co-edited the Growing Up Local collection.  Jim was my 11th- and 12th-grade English teacher at the Lab School.  My junior year was Jim’s first year teaching at our school.  I like to think that my class broke him in, when, in fact, it was Jim who broke us in.  He is one of the primary reasons why I became an English major.

Jim, I should mention, was a strong supporter of Bamboo Ridge Press from the beginning, and he had many stories published in the journal over the years.

So as I sat there in the theater, I tried to guess why it might be that Bill would encourage me to see the credits all the way to the end.  I did not find my way out of this cloud of speculation, so, hey, whatever it was, I would just wait and see what those last credits would reveal.

The film began.  Right away we are drawn into an intense confrontation between a father and son, Stanley.  The father is a boxer who never realized his full potential as a fighter.  The son, a senior in high school, is an up-and-coming boxer, being trained by his father.  The father hopes to realize through his son’s success, the glory that eluded him.

It is a violent opening.  The father is yelling at the son, repeatedly and ever more heatedly, to give his all to boxing.  So enraged is the father at what he sees as the son’s lack of total commitment, that he screams at the boy to hit him to prove that he’s giving his all.  Ultimately the boy cannot hit his father.

After this blood-pumping opening, we settle into the story of Stanley’s final year of high school, his friendships, his love life, and his plans for the future.  One facet of the story is a cross-island rivalry between the Waimānalo boys, Stanley’s group, and the Pālolo boys, led by Bobby Castro.

At one point, Stanley and company drive to Pālolo to confront Castro and company.  I had to smile when I recognized Adam Campbell, doing a very brief one-line cameo outside of Pālolo Gym, informing the Waimānalo boys that Bobby Castro is inside the gym.

Adam was a student of mine at the Lab School.  He wrote an amazing story, “30 Calibre,” about a teenager who’s challenged by his uncle to shoot a pig on the uncle’s farm.  The uncle grows increasingly angry, shouting repeatedly and ever more heatedly, as the boy will not obey his commands to shoot the pig.  The story ends with the boy laying down the rifle without firing a shot.

Just after Adam wrote it, The Hawai‘i Review, a literary journal published by the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa English Department, put out a call for fiction and poetry written by authors of native Hawaiian ancestry.

Jim Harstad was my boss at the time.  I said that I wanted to submit Adams’s story for publication consideration.  Jim knew Adam’s story and thought it strong as well.  But, we both agreed, it would be a long shot given that Adam was a high school student.

However, Adam’s story was accepted.  I will never forget the day we all headed over to the U.H. lo‘i to hear Adam read his piece, a high school student whose writing held its own among works by older practiced, and many already published, writers.  His reading of the uncle’s growing rage building to the climax gave me chicken skin.

An hour or so into the movie last night, a curious thing occurred.   A moth, the kind that’s maybe an eighth of an inch, started fluttering around in front of me.  Up and down, side to side, it was in no hurry to move on.    This didn’t interfere with watching the movie, but it was odd.  Maybe 10 minutes later, the tiny moth flew away.

James Sereno’s Growing Up Local is a powerful portrayal of love, family, friendship, and hope.  It did not disappoint.  And now the credits rolled.  The suspense, Bill.  I tell you, Brah.

Then there it was.  At the end.  James Sereno had dedicated the film to his high school English teacher, Jim Harstad.  I choked up when I saw that.  Jim passed away suddenly, on July 19th, just over a year ago.  It was a blow to everyone.

Yesterday morning I fell in the ‘auwai by my house when I was clearing out weeds.  As I lay there reeling from the pain in my knees, one badly bloodied, I thought about the time Jim and I were staggering back from a hike up into the hinterlands of Pālolo Valley.  I fell in the stream on my back, and as I lay there in the water moaning, Jim asked me if I thought he should carry me back to his house.  I’m not a small person, but Jim was sincere, and strong.  I believe he could have lugged me all the way back to his place.  We settled, however, on drinking another beer instead, and that additional medicinal dose cured what ailed me.

After the movie last night, I limped around the Ward Centre area for a while, then went home and tried, but I couldn’t get to sleep.

James R. Harstad.  All he’d meant to me, to James Sereno, to Bill and the Lab School English Department, dedicating his life to furthering English education statewide.  To Darrell and Eric and the growth of Bamboo Ridge Press.  So much to think about.  So much to remember.

At about 3:00 this morning, I gave up.  I’d not been able to eat dinner when I came home; I thought maybe getting something in my stomach might help me sleep.

While I stood at the stove watching my noodles heat up, a little moth, the same kind I’d seen at the theater, an eighth of an inch or so, started circling me and dancing around the boiling pot.  It lingered for a minute or so and then flew off.

Some people believe that moths symbolize the spirits of those who have passed on.  I am one of those people.  And I believe, too, that Jim Harstad loved James Sereno’s Growing Up Local and has given it his blessing and two big thumbs up.