All in the family – Jeno Enocencio and grandson Maximus. - Photo: Courtesy of Jeno Enocencio

'Bungo' and Papa Joe,
growing gardens

By Jimmy F. “Jeno” Enocencio

As a small kid, my dad, “Bungo” and I would travel the cane field roads searching for young guava shoots in his '55 Oldsmobile Rocket. Fueled by guava and waiawī sticks, he'd pour hot water from the big palangana (tub) into my yellow washtub and sprinkle in handfuls of Hawaiian salt with the guava shoot. My body wrenched with kāki'o (impetigo sores) from scratching too much on mosquito bites. After I bathed and the scabs cleaned off with a tawashi (Japanese brown coconut fiber) brush and rag, and my tears dried from the pain, he applied Mercurochrome with the little glass stick (iodine antiseptic) on each of the sores. I was blotched in this red dye from head to toe until we gathered the next batch of leaves for a soak. To avoid wasting water, he added more hot water to the precious guava leaves and Hawaiian salt in my yellow tub to soak his “dead” leg.

During World War II my dad got into an accident, which killed his sergeant and pinned my dad's left leg under the Jeep; though crushed, he refused amputation. I took the task of shooing festering flies from his blackened leg swollen from puss with ti leaf, as I did at parties shooing flies from the food. Behind our unscreened plantation house was Mr. Shimabukuro's store. It seemed like 20 times a day, I was sent to buy him nonfiltered Camels, Philip Morris, Pall Mall, or Chesterfields for his habit. I was 6 when my dad died from a heart attack at the old Hilo Memorial Hospital; but it wasn't until dad carved out an airplane from balsa wood, which Papa Joe handed me after visiting him, that I shouted with all my might near the entrance of the hospital to my dad's room directly above on the second floor, “I love you daddy!” “I love you too Jimmy!” We kept on saying, “I love you” like little kids until the sounds faded into the banyans. The sound from the banyans came back as gunfire bursts and Taps played by an army bugler. The soldier presented mom and me with the American flag that draped my dad's coffin, and as a soldier saluted me he stared into my eyes, and I saw my dad in his eyes – he was 40 and yet alive.

Family time – Jeno's son Orion and his son Orion II fix a fence at the ranch. - Photo: Courtesy of Jeno Enocencio

That was 51 years ago back in 1957. He had left my mom and four boys with a VA survivor's benefit that amounted to $45 a month, 10 bucks for each boy and 5 for mom. When growing up, we'd look forward to those checks coming in. Living at Papa Joe and grandma's place high on the slopes of Wainaku Sugar Mill, mauka of Hilo Bay, I could see the barge sailing in the mail from Honolulu. That $45 would buy us cans of sardines, carnation milk and bags of rice. Sometimes we would get lucky, and mom would get us an aloha shirt from the second-hand store; everything being oversized so we could grow into it and hand it down from brother to brother until it shred when playing rough or getting into fights.

Mom continued to work at the tavern and other family members pitched in to help raise my brothers; we were everybody's boys. Papa Joe, our grandpa, raised chickens for eggs and meat. He had a garden assortment of paria (bittermelon) leaves, papaya, eggplant, okra, tanglad (lemon grass), marungay, pipinola (chayote squash) and a variety of kalo. He had an imu next to the garage and a fire pit in back where his dog Lucky lay and where tubs of 'ulu was cooked to make 'ulu poi or sliced as a table dish. The 'ulu and kalo were usually stored in huge clay jars and kept nice and sour for everyday use and for food storage. We'd eat the stuff that could spoil first and save the canned goods for when we ran out of fresh meat or fish. It was survival.

A young Jeno and his mother in Honoka'a, around 1953. - Photo: Courtesy of Jeno Enocencio

Everything was about survival and making do with “eating what get.” No McD, BK, Zippy's or the Jack to depend on for a quick meal. It's what Papa Joe and grandma cooked that day; fresh chicken and papaya, wild pork with bittermelon, pinapaitan (tripe soup), fresh 'ōpelu and sour poi – loved it! A great treat for me would be colored puff rice or Tomoe Ame (Japanese candy) with the small prize that could be bought for a nickel.

Jeno, and his younger brother Allen at 'Amauulu Camp 4 in Hilo, just around the time their dad died in 1957. - Photo: Courtesy of Jeno Enocencio

All you dads, this message is directed especially for you: go plant a garden in your boy's heart(s). Have 'em grow fond memories of you no matter how lousy a father you might be. Mālama and lomi his roots with good values and respect for others, especially for the wāhine. Constantly feed them with kind and encouraging words. Take 'em wherever you go and be good buddies to one another (they'll keep you from going to places that's pilau). If you do this, you will have a garden filled with a diversity of fruits that will be sweet to the taste, as mine have been.

Jeno Enocencio writes about the many hats he wears.
Email pointman_jeno@msn.com