I bumped into Michelle Santos on Facebook yesterday and we Kama’ainas got super nostalgic all over each others’ Facebook Walls, and here are some excepts:

Michelle:

Aloha oe, Chris!! Pehea `oe? E pili mau na pomaika`i ia `oe!!!

Chris:

Aloha kakahiaka, Michelle. Mai ka’i no au. Aloha mai e!!

Michelle:

eh, howzit, Brah? Whaddsdascoops? when we do talk story? I miss da kine local grinds…opihi and combomeals…onolicious, man…Fo´real. Been back to da Rock lately?

Chris:

It’s been since 1998, which has been a decade, which is very sad. I don’t even know if I would move back if I had all the money in the world, although I have become very very nostalgic recently so I might try to make a trip this year or next year. I miss Zippy’s and Graces and I miss Kona and Manoa. I miss Sans Souci Beach right in front of the New Otani Kaimana Beach Hotel and I miss hanging out with my Kama’aina friends at Outrigger Canoe Club. I miss Scuba diving in Waianae and eating burgers at Kua Aina burger at North Shore. I miss North Shore and driving the circle island in my Triumph TR6. I miss talking pidgin and wonder if I am even fluent any more. Rap Replinger is still my favorite comedian of all time. How about you?

Michelle:

i came back 2006. It is a rough place if you are a local. But as a tourist it is fine…I miss the beaches. I lived next to Ala Moana Shopping Center where my apartment penthouse was across the beach. I missed swimming there every morning..Lanikai, North Shore, Waikiki night life, Hanohano Restaurant on Sheraton´s penthouse, Snorkeling, sharkdiving, skydiving (it´s warmer there than in Norway for this activity…brrrrr) I miss my moped ;) I had my car parked all the time and just zoomed with that everywhere. I also miss Tantalus where I used to live since I picked fresh Hawaiian flowers there every weekend. I miss the pancakes at Ken´s house in Big Island, the lilikoi pancake sauces, chocolate and caramel macadamia nuts, fresh kona coffee…Ward Center Theater…

Chris:

Everything is flooding now. I miss Volcano National Park. I miss Molokai and all the Duduois. I miss Manele Bay on Lanai. I miss the Parker Ranch and what Hilo used to be. I love love love taking the drive up to Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. I miss looking at the snow and the crazy telescopes up at the top of the world. I miss Madam Pele and Maui and Manapua and the Punahou carnival and I miss Kolaipuhaku and Kaimuki and the drive along Kalanianaole highway. I miss being tan and I miss freediving off of Diamondhead and of being a Divemaster. I miss using Velvia film and shooting beaches and bikinis. I miss seducing women by packing picknics and taking either the motorcycle or the convertible roadster on the circle island, stopping for shave ice with ice cream and azuki beans in Hale`iwa. Wow, lau lau — now I have to sing to you….

Michelle:

aaaawww…i can tell you miss it very much. I know…i miss taking my dates on private beach picnics. I have this private beach that I always get and have awesome sunsets by Gold Coast. Man, lau lau??? hehhehehe, it certainly better than poi. I have to put so much sugar on that poi. Double-whammy on the carbs! Yikes! You should see my picture in Diverse and see how tan I was…I miss that too. I didn´t even have to lay on the beach…I just get cooked…;)

Well, Michelle Santos has herself a blog, a firm, MJS Strategies, and actually blogged about our chat as well, Aloha oe! (Part 1).

Image via Wikipedia

I have been blog-tagged by Jonathan Trenn, Adam Viener, and Alice Marshall. I am to reveal five things you didn’t know about Chris Abraham. Well, here we go…

1) Six years in a Hawaiian all-boys Catholic school – I was voted as “Most Likely to be Famous” by my high school class, an all-boy’s Marianist school in Honolulu, Hawaii, called Saint Louis School. Famous man include infamous. I was also elected student body president and was captain of the speech and debate team. I was also in the “Ranger Club” of my JROTC unit and wrestled at 180lbs. Incidentally, I moved to Hawaii when I was 6 and lived there in Salt Late, Downtown, and Kaimuki, until moving to DC for college at 18.

2) A total computer geek for a solid 23-years – My handwriting has always been appalling. So bad, in fact, that I did homework in elementary school on an Olivetti typewriter. When I was 13, I used my savings to buy one of the first PCs in my neighborhood in 1983, an IBM AT. That bugger had a monochrome monitor, no hard drive, dual 5 1/4″ floppies, and a 1,200 baud modem. I got onto some Hawaiian BBS’s. I had to fake being an adult to get onto the good boards. I envied the amber monitors, although I eventually picked up a color card and a color monitor. I never did buy a hard drive, though, until college. How the hell did I do without a HD? The A: drive always had to have a bootable floppy in there. What I really liked the most about the computer was that the keyboard clicked. It was rock solid and had the most amazing feedback. I had a dot matrix printer. I have been a computer geek for a solid twenty-three years.

3) I owned a motorcycle — After my dad passed away, I invited my buddy to visit me in Hawaii. At that point I had a 1980 Mercedes 300D and a 1974 Triumph TR-6. The 300D died on me. Since Mark was a guest, I needed two rides, so I gave him the triumph to use and I picked up a used a 1982 Yamaha XS 1100 for a couple-hundred bucks. The brakes didn’t really work, but who needs brakes. The bike was fast! A 1.1 liter engine on a standard bike. That was one hell of an awesome deathtrap.

4) An artistic side — My dad was a fine artist and a photographer. While you were learning sports scores and how to hit a ball, I was learning perspective, proportions, foreshortening, physiology, musculature, gravity, the human body, drawing, sketching, shading, highlighting; and, of course, I had been shooting professionally since 1986 and got my first stock photography contract when I was 21, with Pacific Stock, and then later with Corbis (nee The Stock Market). I posses well over 100,000 slides, both mine and my late father, Bob Abraham, and amazing shooter.

5) PADI Divemaster — I have been SCUBA diving since I was 15. It was something that my dad and I loved to do. I progressed through Open Water, Advanced Open Water, Rescue Diver, and then to Divemaster. I started taking the road to PADI Dive Instructor. I haven’t been diving or shooting for years. In fact, I used to shoot with a Nikonos V and have some very amazing underwater photos, including what I call the Jesus Turtle. Since SCUBA takes so much gear, I spent a lot of my days freediving. According to Wikipedia, “Free-diving is an aquatic sport, considered an extreme sport, in which divers attempt to reach great depths unassisted by breathing apparatus.” I was pretty good at it. In Hawaii, you have to carry a dive float. I would kick out to my diving site off of Waikiki and, for shits and giggles, dive down 100 feet with a breath of air (and massive freediving fins) to freak out the divers and piss off the Divemaster and Dive Instructors I worked with.

If you want to know more about where I went to high school, Saint Louis School, then you can learn a lot more on Wikipedia

Saint Louis School on 3142 Waialae Avenue in the hillsides of Honolulu, Hawai’i is a historic Roman Catholic college preparatory school for boys founded in 1846 to serve the needs of early Hawai’i Catholics in the former Kingdom of Hawai’i. It is currently affiliated with the Society of Mary, a religious order of brothers and priests called Marianists. Its most famous graduate is the late Governor of Hawai’i John A. Burns, credited with securing statehood and developing the modern State of Hawai’i.Establishment
Saint Louis School was originally located in Windward O’ahu as the College of Ahuimanu, founded by the Fathers of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary in 1846. In 1881, it moved to downtown Honolulu, adjacent to Washington Place, the home of Lili’uokalani, who would become Queen of Hawai’i in 1891. When it moved to downtown Honolulu, the school was called the College of Saint Louis, named after the patron saint of Louis Maigret, Bishop of Honolulu.

Marianists assumed control of the school and determined a need for the expansion of facilities to meet the needs of the burgeoning Hawai’i Catholic population. In the 1920s, the Marianists purchased land in Kalaepohaku, a hillside division of Honolulu’s Kaimuki community. Kalaepohaku opened in September 1928 as Saint Louis School where it continues to serve Hawai’i Catholic and non-Catholic boys today.

Development
In 1949, Saint Louis School dropped lower grade levels one at a time and eventually became exclusively a high school serving grades 9, 10, 11 and 12. In 1980, grades 7 and 8 were reinstated. In 1990, grade 6 was reinstated and it joined grades 7 and 8 to become a separate middle school within Saint Louis School. Most recently, grade 5 was reinstated and added to the middle school. Like most institutions of academia, Saint Louis School adopted a formal Mission Statement, Purpose Statement and Philosophy Statement.

Mission
The Mission of Saint Louis School is to educate and challenge students of various religious, ethnic and economic backgrounds that they may achieve a quality education and become gentlemen in character, reaching individual potential through the Catholic Marianist tradition of spiritual, academic, physical and emotional maturity.

Purpose
The outstanding characteristics one finds at Saint Louis School is the excellent quality of education for all of its students, with a varied curriculum designed to fill a wide range of educational and personal needs. Our principal concern is instilling truths and values that are carried over into students’ lives that go beyond Saint Louis. We strive to teach and to develop a sense of family, the “Saint Louis Family” – faculty, students, parents, administrators – working together to build an awareness of individual dignity and spiritual worth.

Philosophy
Our curriculum is firmly rooted in the Catholic faith, welcoming and respecting other beliefs. We seek to meet the varied needs, talents and abilities of our students through academic programs of critical thinking and experienced learning designed for general, advanced and college preparatory students.

Academics
Saint Louis School is fully accredited by the Western Catholic Education Association (WCEA) and the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC). It offers three distinct curricula that students and parents can choose from.

- An accelerated college preparatory program for students planning to attend very selective colleges or universities.

- A college preparatory program.

- A general program for students planning to attend trade or business schools, two-year community colleges, or enter the military or work force.

Athletics
Saint Louis School plays competitively in the Interscholastic League of Honolulu (ILH) and the Hawai’i High School Athletic Association (HHSAA). Sometimes it fields members in the Pac-5, an alliance of Honolulu-area private academies.

Lacking professional sports teams in the state has made Hawai’i high school teams extremely popular. Several generations of Hawai’i residents have become avid fans of Saint Louis School athletics, especially its football team. It has often been hailed by the Honolulu Advertiser and Honolulu Star-Bulletin newspapers as Hawaii’s Team as it has played in prestigious invitational tournaments throughout the world. Whoever assumes the position of head football coach has over the years become celebrity in the state.

Saint Louis School also fields teams in air riflery, bowling, cross country, kayaking, tennis, water polo and volleyball in the fall. In winter it competes in canoe paddling, basketball, soccer, swimming and diving, riflery, tennis and wrestling. In spring it competes in baseball, golf, judo, tennis and track.

Notable Students
James Aiona, Lt. Governor of Hawai’i
John A. Burns, Governor of Hawai’i
Samuel Wilder King, Governor of Hawai’i
Benny Agbayani, professional baseball player
Dominic Raiola, professional football player

See also
Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu
Chaminade University of Honolulu
William Joseph Chaminade