Hawaiian life sparkles for Orrington native After 9 years, it’s still exotic

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ORRINGTON – Despite the palm trees and sunshine all around her, Orrington native Lori Garcia hasn’t forgotten about Maine.

“I really miss going to the lake, any lake,” Garcia said in a recent phone interview from her home in Honolulu, Hawaii. “There’s something tranquil about a lake and you just don’t have it here.”

Lakes, Nissen hot dog rolls, roads that extend more than the 112-mile circumference of the island and the seaweed smell of the ocean near Trenton are just a few of the things she yearns for from the Pine Tree State.

Not that Garcia, the volunteer services coordinator at the Iolani Palace Museum in downtown Honolulu, is complaining.

The 1976 Brewer High graduate, known back then as Lori Eckert, has lived a migratory life, thanks to her and husband Mel’s career in the U.S. Army. The Garcias have lived in Georgia, Panama, Italy, Maine and then in Hawaii for nine years so far.

“It’s really funny, because of all the different cultures … Hawaii I think was the hardest to get used to,” Garcia said.

Funny, because her Chinese-Hawaiian-Portuguese husband is a native of the 50th state.

And funny, because although the small island group has been a U.S. protectorate, territory or state for 111 years, it still retains an exotic quality that is quite different from anything Garcia experienced on the mainland.

She describes Hawaii with a mixture of affection and bemusement.

To Garcia, her adopted state of Hawaii is the place where her daughter recently donned a long white dress to sing a tribute to her school’s founder – in the mausoleum where the founder is buried.

It’s where the McDonald’s restaurants serve simin, a noodle soup with onion and “mystery meat,” alongside the usual burgers and fries.

And it’s a small island that is tightly bounded by the sea and its cultural traditions, yet awash in ethnic diversity.

Garcia’s job in the Iolani Palace Museum – the only residence of royalty in the United States – has brought her in close contact with a wide variety of people.

“The palace is run by volunteers as far as the guardians, greeters and docents,” Garcia said. “I’ve met so many people. It’s been fun.”

The palace was built by ruling Hawaiian monarch King Kalakaua in 1882. After his death in 1891, his sister Queen Liliukalani took over, but she ruled for only two years before the overthrow of the monarchy by the United States.

After more than a century of other uses, the palace has been painstakingly restored to its original condition.

“It’s very sacred to a lot of the Hawaiian people,” Garcia said.

She was surprised to learn of historical ties between Maine and Hawaii.

One early governor of the Hawaii Territory was Wallace Farrington of Orono. He became editor of the Honolulu Evening Bulletin at age 27, and was governor between 1921 and 1929. During Farrington’s tenure, the U.S. Congress passed an act aimed at returning native Hawaiians to the land.

“He brought values to Hawaii that were so New England,” Garcia said.

Among the volunteers Garcia works with are the Ali’i, descendants of Hawaii’s traditional monarch class who are sometimes still called princesses and princes. Another docent, Gloria Huber, hails from Mexico, Maine.

“She still has an accent though it’s 40 years she’s been living here,” Garcia said, laughing.

Garcia describes the Iolani Palace as the cultural center of Hawaii, a state in which the concepts of family, tradition and ancestors still reign supreme.

“Here, one of the big things of course is respecting your ancestors. I always laugh because we live near a big cemetery. There’s always a picnic there,” she said.

Garcia had that day attended the celebration for Princess Pauahi, the founder of Kamehameha School, where her 17-year-old daughter. Ali, is a senior.

“The seniors go up to the mausoleum dressed all in white, and it’s just awesome,” she said. “They sing and they place roses on the tomb.”

Garcia said that the haunting Hawaiian music gave her goosebumps – or, as they say there, “chicken skin.”

Though she enjoys living in a place with strong traditions of music, hula dance, food, luaus and family, there are elements that still feel foreign to Garcia.

The New Englander in her sometimes chafes at the Polynesian tradition of family and community interdependence.

“I’m really proud of the independence that Mainers have,” she said. “It’s hard living and you have to take care of yourself … In that big ice storm seven years ago, my Aunt Beulah wouldn’t leave her house. She wanted to keep the fires going. And she’s in her 80s.”

Garcia was preparing for the holidays, Hawaiian-style. Driving around on New Year’s Eve takes nerves of steel and quick reflexes, she said.

“It’s a night with a lot of fireworks,” Garcia said. “It’s hard to drive because it’s so smoky in the neighborhoods. It’s so loud, you’d think you were in a war zone. Boom, boom, boom everywhere.”

She anticipated that her two sons, Sam, 21, and Ben, 19, would spend their Christmas vacation enjoying their new surfboards.

The surf was up – way up – on the North Shore of Oahu, Garcia said. Her sons had piled into a car that day with four friends to gaze at the 30-foot waves crashing on the shore.

Quite a change from Maine’s tranquil lakes, but Garcia appreciates the difference.

“It’s a good life,” she said. “I was thinking of that yesterday – we’re so lucky. It’s really been very good for us here.”