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I go away for awhile and what do I come back to? A big fugly box store squatting on a corner like a haole women with a giant okole straddling a bar stool at Huggo's. And the thing is lit up at night. Look -- I know we are all taking drugs. But couldn't we just have put a pharmacy assistant in a drive-up kiosk, wearing nothing but a lavalava? As for the store being "local", it was bought up by CVS for heaven's sake and I couldn't even find a pineapple corer in the houseware's section. Look Long's -- if that is your name-- I don't want to daintily slice around the pineapple with a ginsu knife. I want to bore throught it, rip out neatly folded slices, and then drink a mai tai out of the gaping hole left behind, and over the still erect spindle within. I admit, you did have Hawaiian Sun Lilikoi and Passion Orange Guava, without dropping either the Guava, the Orange, or, Pele forbid, the Passion as happens so often these days.
Anyway, this monstrosity does not say "Pahoa". It says "Kona, East". Landscape the thing. It needs to be hidden. In the spirit of Fred Blas, I suggest that a vast group of highly motivated volunteers get together and make this happen.
I'll watch.
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Glen, your prose is channeling John Kennedy Toole today. As the inimitable Ignatius Reilly would say, the new Long's is "an offense against taste and decency." There, I've said it. Now we can speculate on how Fortuna's Wheel brought us to such an awful juncture . . . or junction, perhaps more appropriately, the road likely being a worse infliction than the store itself.
Guys,
What do you use when you have to pack/organize a huge amount of misc. stuff into a small space ?
pog
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...hmmm, my imagination?
James Weatherford, Ph.D.
15-1888 Hialoa
Hawaiian Paradise Park
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Hey Glen, Nice perspective. For those of us that saw it develop from a fully ripped lot to the full glory it is now...was kinda like watching an uncontrolled and undiciplined local kid growing up...
You notice, but don't want to get too involved...
It would be a useless waste of energy anyway.
One Thing I can always be sure of is that things will never go as expected.
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So, I'm not clear... would the store meet with your approval if it were hidden, but sold pineapple corers, or just hidden? Is it more authentically Hawaiian if it sells the pineapple corer? Is it less Hawaiian because it sells ginsu knives? And stays lit up at night? Is it more or less Hawaiian to offer retirees in Leilani a place to fill prescriptions that is closer than Keaau? I ask only because I am such a newbie haole, and don't know the proper way to go about being an authentic Hawaiian. (By the way, did Kamehameha invent the pineapple corer? Or was that Prince Kuhio?)
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Every time I see the new Longs, it looks like the ten dollar bill I am going to save because I don't have buy that much gas to drive to Hilo and back.
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Jerry,
Love the Confederacy of Dunces reference! Did you know his mom found a manuscript for a second book (actually written first) after O'Toole died? It has been published and is just as heart wrenchingly funny, I just can't remember the title right now.
Carol
edited to fix a typo
Carol
Every time you feel yourself getting pulled into other people's nonsense, repeat these words: Not my circus, not my monkeys.
Polish Proverb
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DaVinci: Just hide it, as they did the Wal-Mart in Lihue. It's hard to hide a Wal-Mart, but they managed. You need a helicopter to find it --and that's a good thing. They did it all through the magic of landscaping. And they put in the landscaping because the community demanded it. I am glad that it is more convenient for you but quite unhappy that this jarring architectural abomination was placed where it was with no consideration for aesthetics or the overall character of Pahoa.
Yes, a box is a good place to put a lot of things, but this box doesn't say progress to me -- it says that a community that sees a fair amount of tourism has absolutely no plan to maintain the character visitors come to enjoy in the first place.
Landscape it.
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quote:
Originally posted by DaVinci...Is it more or less Hawaiian to offer retirees in Leilani a place to fill prescriptions that is closer than Keaau?
Puna Pharmacy has been available for 2-3 (?) yrs now as well as Pahoa Pharmacy. (Just FYI - all but SB's insulin was cheaper still at PP than Long's! Thanks John!)
-Cat
