town mouse rides a bus

Prajna likes to kid me calling me a city boy. I suppose she can say that seeing as how she grew up in Kula, Maui which is always referred to as Upcountry Maui. She lived in the Keokea area at about four thousand feet above sea level. There are pastures, green rolling hills, cool weather and even occasional fog. Almost anything is a city compared to that. But I didn’t grow up in a city.
Lahaina was a resort town. When I moved there in 1975 I was eight years old and there was only one traffic light. There were ten on that side of the island when I left it in 1988.
One summer in 1984 my dad took me to Oahu for the weekend. I had been in big cities a lot before but never on my own until he dropped me off at the Bishop Museum. He gave me instructions on how to catch the city bus (called TheBus) to Ala Moana shopping center. When I was done at the museum I walked out and asked driver of the first bus I saw if he went to Ala Moana and he chuckled no. It was a tour bus. When I turned away I may have looked alarmed or he may have saw the Maui Youth Theatre writing on the back of my shirt but he called me back and drove me to the shopping center.
My shirt worked for me a few hours later when my friends Luana and Kalani spotted me. We were both surprised to see each other. One could say it’s a small world but really it’s a small state where at least back in 1984 no one was that much of a city folk.