In 1997, I bought the farm. No, I mean I bought a piece of dreamland: Two waterfalls and expansive views. It was my first piece of land. Real estate was relatively cheap back then. I began cutting the grass and removing invasive species and planting. A couple of years later the monk moved nearby. I did a ton of work restoring the property. It was becoming one of the rare places you could be without seeing any non-native foliage. I shot my first feature film on the property – Ka’ililauokekoa. If you haven’t heard of it, you probably don’t speak Hawaiian.
Karen and I laid the waterline from the watertank to our house site. Things were really getting going!
After 4000 plants, much of it native tree restoration work, we were getting ready to build our dream house to go on our dreamland, but like many first loves, this was to end in heartbreak.
The Monk was on a rampage. He yelled at me every time I came up to work and “get away from it all”. He usually apologized afterwards. I knew what he had been through. Training the mujahadeen (Osama’s people) in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets for the good old US of A and this was after his wife was killed in Nam. Anybody would need some serious anti-psychotics to push down the demons this guy carried. Never-the-less, they were his demons. I couldn’t see my family, especially my kids, dealing with a guy who would brandish a 6 foot sword or shotgun when he couldn’t recognize you through his failing eyesight.
Enough was indeed enough. I got ready to sell.
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