Deli Sign
In 1979, I returned to the Big Island from the mainland, where I had spent a year learning the trades I would need to get a contractor's license from Gary Cohen, and then a year learning the hot tub business from Mark Taylor at his Satori Japanese Bath Company. I was returning with a small bankroll, a bunch of carpentry tools, and four unassembled hut tubs.
I bought a big fixer upper of a shack out in sparsely populated Ainaloa subdivision, on the edge of the rainforest. It was across the road from a vacant lot we'd purchased in 1975. I was moving in there with Johnny as soon as escrow cleared.
The place had been built by a guy named Steve who had killed somebody in an odd set of circumstances, and had to sell to help pay his legal expenses. When he had moved there years before, he began his introduction to the neighborhood by firing off his handgun into the air, bang! bang! bang! bang! bang! bang! just to let everyone in earshot know that he was armed. Then he went around to the four or five nearby houses, about 100 yards apart, to inform them that he was going to grow pot up around our end of the road, and claimed that to be his zone.
I figured that buying his place I could improve the neighborhood by removing any excuse for him to be there, and bring peace to the little hollow at our end of Jewel Drive.
His trial was going on at the time and I had to go to the jail to get him to sign escrow papers. Here's what happened that got him into that fix. He had an orange Ford pickup, and that evening, he readily admitted, he had taken some LSD and then driven into town to get some beer. In his court testimony, he recounted how he was "blazing out of Pahoa" towards home, with his pistol on the seat as was his custom, when he passed by the spot where Kahakai Blvd intersects with the Keaau-Pahoa Road. Waiting at the stop sign was a local man who saw the orange Ford pickup truck and presumed it was someone he had a very big beef with, who also had an orange Ford pickup. It was a case of mistaken identity, and a karmic example of two dangerous characters finding each other at night on a country road.
The guy started following Steve very close, honking and flashing his lights. Steve kept driving on. Then the guy following was in such a rage that he started ramming Steve's truck from the rear. At a wide spot in the road, Steve pulled over. The other guy pulled in front of him, and got out with a tire iron in his hand and walked toward Steve yelling. Steve emptied the gun into him, bang! bang! bang! bang! and then drove off home, leaving the dead guy there by the side of the road.
After a day or so, the police figured out that it was Steve from the description of his truck. He readily admitted it, and he was charged. That's where I came in. He was in jail the whole time I was getting the sale together. Finally he was sentenced to about three years in Kulani Prison, upslope from Hilo. The judge gave him a few days to settle things before he went to prison, instead he got on a plane and flew to Oregon. He had jumped bail while we were still in escrow. After a few weeks, he changed his mind and called up the judge who sentenced him. The judge agreed to let him come back and start serving his sentence without any penalty for his flight.
Anyway, I had to hire a notary to go up to the prison to get his signature. The sale was completed, and I took possession. So I had this big shack to furnish. Of course my one stop shop would be Gaughen's Emporium in Keaau. Tim's big second-hand store had been a hangout of mine for years, and his entire inventory was available to me to trade for future work. We sold some my hot tubs out of there; so I had many ways to trade for merchandise.
There was this tall piece of home made furniture, that had about 10 wide flat shallow drawers for artwork, I assumed, and it would be perfect for our own art projects. We had it in the house for quite a while when one day we had to pull all the drawers out because something had fallen down behind them from the top. Besides what we had lost in there, lo and behold, there was a stained glass "Deli" sign.
The art cabinet had been in a short-lived deli across from Gaughen's Emporium in Keaau that had been defunct for a year. They must have lost the sign in there the same way we lost whatever it was we were looking for. It's been a feature in all the houses I lived in ever since.
Garage sale shoppers will be disappointed that this item might not be for sale. Finder's keepers notwithstanding, I may sell this to whoever lost it, and give them a deal. It is an excellent piece of real stained glass work, with lead caming and beautiful colored glass.
I ran into Steve about six months later. He was out on a weekend furlough. He tried to sell me some pot. They had grown it in the forest around the hang loose Kulani Prison.
Not for sale. Uncle John's Garage Sale is just the name of the book.
© 2022 John Oliver
All Rights Reserved
mail@unclejohnsweb.com
In 1979, I returned to the Big Island from the mainland, where I had spent a year learning the trades I would need to get a contractor's license from Gary Cohen, and then a year learning the hot tub business from Mark Taylor at his Satori Japanese Bath Company. I was returning with a small bankroll, a bunch of carpentry tools, and four unassembled hut tubs.
I bought a big fixer upper of a shack out in sparsely populated Ainaloa subdivision, on the edge of the rainforest. It was across the road from a vacant lot we'd purchased in 1975. I was moving in there with Johnny as soon as escrow cleared.
The place had been built by a guy named Steve who had killed somebody in an odd set of circumstances, and had to sell to help pay his legal expenses. When he had moved there years before, he began his introduction to the neighborhood by firing off his handgun into the air, bang! bang! bang! bang! bang! bang! just to let everyone in earshot know that he was armed. Then he went around to the four or five nearby houses, about 100 yards apart, to inform them that he was going to grow pot up around our end of the road, and claimed that to be his zone.
I figured that buying his place I could improve the neighborhood by removing any excuse for him to be there, and bring peace to the little hollow at our end of Jewel Drive.
His trial was going on at the time and I had to go to the jail to get him to sign escrow papers. Here's what happened that got him into that fix. He had an orange Ford pickup, and that evening, he readily admitted, he had taken some LSD and then driven into town to get some beer. In his court testimony, he recounted how he was "blazing out of Pahoa" towards home, with his pistol on the seat as was his custom, when he passed by the spot where Kahakai Blvd intersects with the Keaau-Pahoa Road. Waiting at the stop sign was a local man who saw the orange Ford pickup truck and presumed it was someone he had a very big beef with, who also had an orange Ford pickup. It was a case of mistaken identity, and a karmic example of two dangerous characters finding each other at night on a country road.
The guy started following Steve very close, honking and flashing his lights. Steve kept driving on. Then the guy following was in such a rage that he started ramming Steve's truck from the rear. At a wide spot in the road, Steve pulled over. The other guy pulled in front of him, and got out with a tire iron in his hand and walked toward Steve yelling. Steve emptied the gun into him, bang! bang! bang! bang! and then drove off home, leaving the dead guy there by the side of the road.
After a day or so, the police figured out that it was Steve from the description of his truck. He readily admitted it, and he was charged. That's where I came in. He was in jail the whole time I was getting the sale together. Finally he was sentenced to about three years in Kulani Prison, upslope from Hilo. The judge gave him a few days to settle things before he went to prison, instead he got on a plane and flew to Oregon. He had jumped bail while we were still in escrow. After a few weeks, he changed his mind and called up the judge who sentenced him. The judge agreed to let him come back and start serving his sentence without any penalty for his flight.
Anyway, I had to hire a notary to go up to the prison to get his signature. The sale was completed, and I took possession. So I had this big shack to furnish. Of course my one stop shop would be Gaughen's Emporium in Keaau. Tim's big second-hand store had been a hangout of mine for years, and his entire inventory was available to me to trade for future work. We sold some my hot tubs out of there; so I had many ways to trade for merchandise.
There was this tall piece of home made furniture, that had about 10 wide flat shallow drawers for artwork, I assumed, and it would be perfect for our own art projects. We had it in the house for quite a while when one day we had to pull all the drawers out because something had fallen down behind them from the top. Besides what we had lost in there, lo and behold, there was a stained glass "Deli" sign.
The art cabinet had been in a short-lived deli across from Gaughen's Emporium in Keaau that had been defunct for a year. They must have lost the sign in there the same way we lost whatever it was we were looking for. It's been a feature in all the houses I lived in ever since.
Garage sale shoppers will be disappointed that this item might not be for sale. Finder's keepers notwithstanding, I may sell this to whoever lost it, and give them a deal. It is an excellent piece of real stained glass work, with lead caming and beautiful colored glass.
I ran into Steve about six months later. He was out on a weekend furlough. He tried to sell me some pot. They had grown it in the forest around the hang loose Kulani Prison.
Not for sale. Uncle John's Garage Sale is just the name of the book.
© 2022 John Oliver
All Rights Reserved
mail@unclejohnsweb.com
All Rights Reserved
mail@unclejohnsweb.com