| Title: | Meower Power - Where Differing Opinions are Respected |
| Notice: | purrrrr... |
| Moderator: | JULIET::CORDES_JA |
| Created: | Wed Nov 13 1991 |
| Last Modified: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 1079 |
| Total number of notes: | 28858 |
I recently returned from a long anticipated vacation in Hawaii. We visited
the "Big Island" (Hawaii) and Maui, and spent almost all of our time away
from the major resort areas, literally circumnavigating Maui and driving
almost all the way around the Big Island, except for an impassable stretch
of the Hamakua coast on Hawaii's northernmost peninsula of North Kohala.
An unforeseen feature of our vacation was the cats we met.
We started our vacation in Volcano Village, on the edge of Hawaii Volcanos
National Park. We stayed at My Island Bed and Breakfast, a wonderful
B&B run by Gordon and Joanne Moore. My Island is notable for three things:
its location and surroundings (rain forest and tropical flowers), the
incredible breakfasts served each morning, and Maka.
Maka is a Siamese/Birman crossbreed - he has a Birman's colors and coat
pattern, but his coat is short like a Siamese's. He lives a life of
leisure in paradise. He's the center of attention for a continuing stream
of guests, whom he watches from his favorite perches on the copying machine
or the stairs. He's been immortalized in two stained glass windows (along
with other Hawaiian icons like torch ginger or the Iwii) and the guest book
is full of mentions of him. Maka (which means "eye" or "beginning"; I
don't know why he was named thus, or if my renderings from the Hawaiian are
accurate) has a wonderful disposition, and at the end of a long day of
touring it was nice to be able sit by and pet him for a few minutes.
On the way to Waipio Valley (at the southern end of that inaccessible
stretch of coast I mentioned earlier), one passes through the town of
Honokaa. At the Honokaa Trading Company (an "antique store") was a little
black kitten who was all purrs and claws the moment I picked him up. "You
want him? Take him home.", I was told by the store owner. I hope he's
well cared for.
On Maui, along the famous (if not notorious) "Road to Hana" (highway 360),
we stopped at the Pua'aka'a State Wayside. Here we found at least two
large families of not-quite-feral cats living off the leavings of
picnickers. There was one family of tabbies; Mom and Dad were brown, but
the two youngest kittens were orange. There were two brown adolescents,
one whose stripes were broken into spots. One of these was almost
friendly, and had an interesting propensity for reaching out for things
with his paws. My guess is that the two age groupings reflected the
survivors of two litters. The other family was solid black. There was
obviously some cross breeding between these two families, as there were a
number of brindle/tortoiseshell youngsters around. These cats were all
quite adept at cautious begging, and we watched one jump up the side of a
trashcan and dig through the trash with one paw while hanging on to the rim
with the other. When we returned to the car, one of the little orange
kittens had climbed up into the wheel well to get out of the drizzle.
All we had to offer was some coconut/banana bread (which the cats loved).
The "road past Hana" (highway 31) gets a bit rough past Oheo Gulch. From
Oheo Gulch on the east coast of Maui to the Tedeschi Winery on the
western slopes of Haleakala is about 27 miles of lonely road. This is
ranch land; here we encountered a roadside sign warning "Cattle in road
next 18.6 miles". About the only sign of civilization (such as it is) one
encounters out here is the Kaupo Store. The store was open when we got
there (it isn't always), but they were out of t-shirts in my size. A Kaupo
Store t-shirt is more of a prize than an "I survived the road to Hana"
t-shirt from the Hasegawa General Store in Hana. While the store owner
took my home address so she could send me one when they restocked, I
absentmindedly petted the little white kitten asleep on the counter. The
next thing I knew, he was climbing up my chest, his purr box going a mile
a minute. I picked him up and cradled him in my arms while continuing my
conversation, and he went back to sleep, purring as loud as I've heard any
cat. He was all white, except for some light tan shading around his nose
I asked the owner his name, and she said the kids called him "Store Kitty".
I'm not sure I know why, but my few minutes with Store Kitty will always
remain one of my most treasured memories of Maui, right up there with the
pod of spinner dolphins that accompanied our boat out of Kealakekua Bay
on the Big Island (where Captain Cook first landed on Hawaii and was later
killed by the natives).
Our last feline encounter was at Mama's Fish House, an exceptional
restaurant along Highway 36 between Hookipa Beach (site of the heaviest
surf on Maui, easily visible from the summit of Haleakala 10000 feet
above and 15 miles to the east, and hence the focus of surfboarding and
windsurfing on the island) and the little town of Paia. The house cat at
Mama's is a black angora, probably the least optimal breed for a tropical
context. This cat, who was sleeping on a bench outside the entrance,
is utterly indifferent to all the attention he gets. He'll let you pet
him, but he doesn't respond. At all. As I sat next to and petted him
while we waited for our table, I set a terrible example for a little girl
who wanted desperately to pet him, but was told (repeatedly) by her mother
"No, don't touch him, your hands are clean for lunch". "But I can wash
them again." "Don't touch the cat!"
The number of cats we met in Hawaii was a pleasant surprise, as on other
islands in the Caribbean we had mostly encountered dogs. The one
exception was Barbados, where the resort we stay at (Sam Lord's Castle)
hosts a large, multigenerational family of polydactyl black and white cats.
| T.R | Title | User | Personal Name | Date | Lines |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 448.1 | Not So Happy Ending to the Story | LJSRV2::FEHSKENS | len - reformed architect | Tue Jan 25 1994 08:49 | 38 |
Yesterday I got a self-addressed package in the mail. It took me a
few minutes to figure out what it was.
After we got back from Maui and my tee-shirt arrived from the Kaupo
General Store, I realized I had no pictures of the little white kitten
"Store Kitty", despite the fact that he was one of my fondest
recollections of an overall wonderful trip. In a typically off the
wall move, I bought one of those recyclable Kodak cameras and packed it
up with a stamped, self-addressed mailing envelope and sent it to the
Kaupo General Store with a note asking them if they would please take a
few pictures of Store Kitty and the Store, and send the camera back in
the enclosed mailer, and I'd get the film processed and send them back
a set of prints.
Months went by and I heard nothing. I wondered if something had
happened to Store Kitty, and hoped it was simply a matter of them
writing me off as a crazy mainlander.
Sure enough, the package I got last night contained the camera and a
note from the Store's owner, Linda. She said that they had indeed
"lost" Store Kitty and that she had set the camera aside until a
happier time. Eventually they got two new kittens (which her kids
named Sparkle and Sparklett), and she found the camera while cleaning
the place out, and remembered me. So, she took some pictures and
returned the camera with a note explaining what had happened.
Unfortunately, shortly after taking the pictures, they "lost" Sparklett
(I assume that's a euphemism).
I haven't seen the pictures yet (the film's just gone out for
processing), but Store Kitty remains a treasured memory, so I'd like to
add Store Kitty and Sparklett of the Kaupo General Store, Hana, Maui,
to the Silver Lining Memorial.
len.
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| 448.2 | Return the favor? | AKOCOA::LEINONEN | Tue Jan 25 1994 10:06 | 8 | |
Len,
What a sad story..... I'll bet that when the pictures come
back the owner would love to have you send her a picture
of Sparklett - it's probably the only pictures they'll have.
Heidi
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| 448.3 | Done deal... | STUDIO::COLAIANNI | I have PMS and a handgun ;-) | Tue Jan 25 1994 10:28 | 5 |
Len,
Store Kitty and Sparklett will be added to the SLM list.
Yonee
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| 448.4 | Maybe Just Adopted? | LJSRV2::FEHSKENS | len - reformed architect | Tue Jan 25 1994 12:00 | 18 |
re. 2 - She asked for a picture, and I had planned to send them a whole
set anyway, it was part of my original request.
I wonder what happened to these cats, as there are no predatory animals
in the area (just horses and cows), and there's no traffic to speak of
on the road (maybe a few tens of cars per day), you can't drive very
fast on the road, and you can see quite a ways in both directions. I
hope that they simply disappeared, and were in fact "borrowed" by envious
neighbors (who might live 10 miles away; this is "Marlboro country").
The General Store is literally the only place for provisions of any kind
for maybe twenty miles in either direction, and they're very slow miles.
I never met Sparklett, but Store Kitty made himself a permanent home in
my heart.
len.
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| 448.5 | Big Brown Cats | LJSRV2::FEHSKENS | len - reformed architect | Mon May 02 1994 14:41 | 10 |
BTW, the pictures of Sparkle and Sparklett were wonderful; they're big
brown lovable tabbies who obviously don't mind being "cathandled" by
Linda's kids. I sent them a set of pictures a while ago. We're
planning to go back to the Islands next winter and look forward to
visiting the Kaupo Store again, and hope that we will be able to meet
Sparkle in person.
len.
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| 448.6 | Cats of Barbados | LJSRV2::FEHSKENS | len - reformed architect | Mon May 02 1994 15:06 | 57 |
There's another manifestation of Paradise about 10000 miles to the East
of Hawaii, namely Barbados. This was our third vacation on the island;
we had encountered cats at the resort we stayed at previously (Marriott's
Sam Lord's Castle), but this time we stayed at a smaller resort closer
to "civilization" and were surprised to find a pack of resort cats here
as well.
Our first encounter was with a small black and white ("jellicoe"?) cat
(a tropical Socks?) who sauntered up to us at brunch the morning after
we arrived, having correctly gauged us as more than willing to part with
grilled flying fish in exchange for the company of a cat.
Sandy had brought some packets of semi-moist catfood on the chance that
we'd meet some cats, so that evening after dinner we went back looking
for our jellicoe friend. We found instead an incredibly beautiful
brown tabby kitten. We fed him (her?) and he was quite happy with this
exotic imported meal. He then ran off into the bushes, where he seemed
to be playing with something.
Well, what do you expect to find near beaches? Right, crabs. Except
this was a big sand crab, like 5" across the carapace? The kitten,
either experienced with crabs or blissfully ignorant, was holding his
own teasing the crab, who was up on his legs and waving his big front
claws. I ran off to get my camera, and was able to get some pictures
of this confrontation.
The next day, we met the rest of the family, and in daylight we
discovered just how beautiful this kitten was. He had the classic
American tabby coat pattern, but bilaterally symmetric. His sibling
(also brown) had the tiger stripe coat pattern, and later when Mom
showed up, she had an almost ocicat like spotted brown coat. What
a gorgeous trio. We spent hours trying to figure out some way to
smuggle them out of the country... I got some cute pictures of the
little ones climbing the palm trees, sticking their pretty little faces
out from between the fronds.
The Brown family was wary of people; they'd let us feed them, and maybe
tolerate a little petting, and even let me pick the kittens up and hold
them for a moment. But they were no preparation for our little black
friend with the bushy tail. We met her in the parking lot, and she
came when called. We left some food for her, and when we came home
from dinner the next night, though she was nowhere to be seen, when we
called she appeared immediately and followed us into our room, where
she made herself comfortable on a chair, purring up a storm and rolling
over on her back so we could stroke her belly.
All these cats (even the adults) were small by comparison to Stateside
cats, but they seemed healthy and in good condition. The natives view
the notion of special pet foods as a sort of joke. We did find some
canned cat food in one of the local supermarkets, but at the equivalent
of US $1.25/can, it's easy to see why they expect the cats to fend for
themselves. Apparently the resort cats do quite well off guest
offerings and restaurant scraps.
len.
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