Pity the kid who doesn’t have a river near home. There’s
something adventurous about going down to the river and playing with your
friends, getting wet, scraping your knees, netting mosquito fish, catching crayfish
… it’s an integral part of growing up. Here’s one of my stories from my
long-gone Hilo Days website:
The River
A stream – or as we called it, "The River" – ran
through the cane fields not too far from our house. You got to it either by
taking Wiliwili Street all the way to the end, then turning left on an access
road until you got to the stream. Or, you could walk to the end of Ekaha
Street, and reach the access road from the Kawasaka's property.
The stream was only about 15 feet wide, and just a couple of
feet deep. You walked across a four-foot wide wooden bridge to reach the other
side.
This little stream continued a long way. The only time it
was ever visible was when it crossed the street between Carvalho Park and Hilo
Memorial Hospital. It eventually joined up with the Wailuku River, which split
near the backside of Hilo High School, forming the residential area known as
Reed's Island, before coming back together near the hydro-electric plant behind
the main post office.
Wildlife flourished in and around the stream. Typical of
small Hawaiian streams, there were lots of crayfish that made their homes in
the steep muddy banks, "mosquito fish" (or "medaka"),
fantailed guppies, swordtails, red swordtails, snails, leopard frogs,
bullfrogs, mongooses, centipedes and every insect known to man. There might
even have been some dragonfly nymphs for all I know.
We usually played in the area by the bridge. The stream
widened at that point, and there were a few large semi-submerged rocks to stand
on. One rock in particular was flat, roughly round in shape with a diameter of
about three feet or so, and jutted out into the stream just under the bridge. We
stood there a lot.
At New Year's time, we used to bring our cherry bombs, Roman
candles and sparklers down to the stream. We'd just wreak havoc on those poor
aquatic denizens. I already told you about how we wrapped bread around the
cherry bombs and blew up the fish.
We'd also catch crayfish, tie a Duck Brand to its back, and
watch it try to reach the water before the firecracker blew. We'd light a Roman
candle, and once it got started, lay it on the bottom of the stream weighted
down with rocks, and watch the colorful incandescence pop to the surface. We'd
light the sparklers and toss them in stream, polluting the water and air with
the noxious fumes.
The crayfish were fun – but scary. They came in two flavors:
young green ones, and old red ones. The green crayfish were no threat, but
those crafty old red ones would head for your big toe straightaway while you
were standing in the water paying attention to something else. The crayfish would
then proceed to nip your toe with its big pinchers, hanging on for all its
worth.
Even when you caught a crayfish, it would take a defensive
posture with its pinchers in the air, wide open, ready to take off a piece of
your skin if you weren't careful. You could pick them up by grabbing their
back, but if you weren't careful, they'd snip your fingers.
If we had known at that time how tasty crayfish tails were,
the stream's population certainly would have been sorely depleted. But we were
from Hawaii, not Louisiana, so we didn't know crayfish tails from chicken lips.
Great fun, good times.
The featured displays change every now and then. The last time I checked it out, they had a small dinosaur exhibit that supplemented its much larger animated dino room. You can always tell right away what the new exhibits are; they have a large poster in front that clues you in. 
This time, they were showing a special exhibit about insects that feed on us. Literally. While we’re totally unaware, like when we’re sleeping. Y’know, bed bugs, lice, leeches … things like that. You have to step into a dark room where most of the exhibits are either video or posters, with some interactive stuff. 
The host is the comedian Carrot Top, who by now is a Las Vegas institution. The last time I went to a Las Vegas 51s baseball game, they gave me a Carrot Top bobble head doll dressed in the 51s’ uniform. I still have that stupid thing, by the way.
Because the room is so dark, it made it difficult to take pictures. With a flash, things didn’t look good. And without a flash, things REALLY didn’t look good. So I had to satisfy myself with some slow-shutter speed snaps.
