Kauai Hitchhikers Exploring the US

By Pineapple Sam

Tourists and honeymooners flock to Hawaii by the thousands each year. Pineapple Sam wants to travel in the other direction and find out for himself what adventures lie beyond the coast of his paradise home in Hawaii. Following his dreams, he heads for the U.S. mainland. Sam makes countless friends along the way of his eye-opening, cross-country journey, but he also learns many hard lessons.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pineapple Sam
• Release date: Dec 9, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301519750

Pineapple Sam

Pineapple Sam is the character that embodies the life and stories of Sam Tabalno, who grew up on the shores of the Hawaiian Islands and later ventured outward in the world to embark on many fascinating adventures. Pineapple Sam loved to “talk story” as they say on the islands and decided to write his stories. Now many of his friends, family, and readers like you, can share in his adventures.

Book preview

The Life and Adventures of Pineapple Sam

Kauai Hitchhikers Exploring the US

by Pineapple Sam

Copyright © 2012 Pineapple Sam

Smashwords Edition

License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedication

Dedicated to my faithful listeners and readers, without them, my stories are nothing but jumbled letters put together with no meaning. Thank you for giving me a purpose to continue telling my stories with passion and enjoyment. If you don’t read or listen, please pass it on so that another may discover entertainment in the adventures of Pineapple Sam.

Disclaimer

The following memoirs are constructed from what I (and others with whom I conferred) can remember of the times depicted. While each and every event may not be true in every detail, the events described contain a larger truth that I call emotional truth. These are the ways the memories presented themselves to me and grew in my mind as I concentrated on the gifts of the past. I look forward to hearing from others who may remember things differently. We can learn from each other.

Table of Contents

Introduction

San Francisco or Bust

Selling The Berkeley Barb

Cross-Country Hitchhiking

Upstate New York Blues

Giant Rats and Boston

About the Author

Kauai Hitchhikers Exploring the US

Introduction

I am known as Pineapple Sam. Having adventures in life was easy. Writing is difficult, but I promised myself that I would leave stories behind so people can enjoy them and so that my loved ones can have some idea of Pineapple Sam’s life. My adolescent and teenage years were exciting times in my life, but things got just as interesting in my adult life. Many people tell me they enjoy hearing my stories so I am glad to share chapters of my life’s journey as long as I can. I am sure your own life was just as exciting or perhaps your future years will be just as colorful.

In the pages that follow, I will give you a brief glimpse of events that occurred. Perhaps you’ll recognize some of these events or themes from your own growing-up years. If you are just beginning your personal journey, facing teenage dilemmas, or heading into adult life, think of this as a roadmap to some of the things you might see and hear and learn along the way. In spite of the fiction genre tag, these stories are based on actual events, and we can all learn a thing or two from looking back at one another’s past. Go figa, as we say in the Islands.

And now, enough of the rambling. It’s time to read on!

Kauai Hitchhikers Exploring the US

San Francisco or Bust

Mando dropped his books and found a soft spot under the giant banyan tree, just inside the Kauai High School campus.

So what’s up, S’mael? When you plan to leave? he asked.

I’m still trying to figa out what I’m gonna do with my bike when I leave. I was lying down on the cool grass, staring up into the majestic banyan as the noon sunlight intermittently slipped through its graceful branches.

Aren’t you going to sell it to the crazy Filipino guy in Kekaha?

Yeah, I think I’ll have to, because my fadda don’t want me to leave it around the house if I not dere. It saddened me to have to sell my beautiful, shiny chrome Triumph 650cc motorcycle, but I knew I would need the money when I got to the U.S. mainland.

As if on cue, Randy arrived on the scene. You can give the bike to me, he said, flopping down between Mando and me, smiling as usual.

Mando stared at him as if he was ready to throw a quick sucker-punch. Yeah, right. Your uncle would kick your *ss if you came home with a motorcycle, Randy.

Mando was right, of course, since Randy’s guardians only allowed his absences from home and work if he was going to school or catching fish to bring home.

During our lunch breaks, we often talked about our plans to explore the U.S. mainland. I was seriously bored during my last year of high school. Sitting in a baking classroom, staring out the window, just made it even more difficult to concentrate on what the teacher was saying. All I could think about was riding my motorcycle, the beach, bikini-clad girls, and partying—and not particularly in that order.

Even though I actually enjoyed my math class and had no problem with the massive calculations we were asked to do, the math textbooks were, by far, the most boring books in the world to read. The bulky tomes were published in perfect English, not Pidgin, and they had no pictures. To make matters worse, Mr. Kubota was a pointer-wielding samurai, the teacher from hell. I think he hated me as much as I disliked him.

My English class was okay, but I was getting more and more confused as to why we had to break sentences down into diagrams, like flow charts, separating the subjects, predicates, prepositions, conjunctions, and all that other grammar stuff. Pidgin English and the Filipino Ilocano dialect seemed enough for my birdbrain at that time. I once told my dad that we were studying prepositions, conjunctions, and predicates, and he got angry and thought I was saying horrible things to him.

The person I was in high school wasn’t exactly the person I wanted to be. I wasn’t dumb, but I was far from being one of those nerdy teacher’s pets. I yearned to be more like Fonzie, from Happy Days. He seemed to have it all together. He was cool, knew just enough about everything, was respected by the other guys, and was adored and fawned over by the girls. Oh, to be such a ladies’ man!

One day, while sitting in the back of the classroom, daydreaming about girls and sex as usual, I developed a raging hard-on.

"Okay, class, we