My car stalled at an intersection in Hilo the other day, and my first instinct, frankly, was to roll it into a ditch and start walking, just to let everyone else pass by unencumbered.
After 16-plus years, you’d think I would have known by now that’s not the way the Big Island rolls.
Nearly everyone stopped to see if I needed a hand and was ready to be encumbered. One guy rushed out of his yard and offered me not just a jump for my car, but a spare battery if I needed one. A lady asked if I needed to use her phone, and the next guy offered me a lift and everything short of a beer.
Moving is stressful, so I would have taken it.
Of course, no one honked. Even those that didn’t seem to see my hazard lights blinking just sat there until they realized I wasn’t moving.
My car eventually started, but the bigger point is this: The warm and welcoming spirit – dare I say aloha – here is the second-greatest thing I will miss about our island.
The first?
That would be the sports community, for whom my appreciation is immeasurable.
Yes, this is my long and meandering way of saying goodbye.
I won’t bore you with the travails of the newspaper industry, but suffice to say certain downsizing has made my job feel like a soulless enterprise the past year or so. Unfortunately, I let it get best of me – and, more importantly, the sports section.
Some readers have let me know. Point taken.
Bittersweet, for sure, but for better or worse I’m cashing in my chips and taking a job at the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
I have to imagine I won’t be as busy there as at this job. I can’t imagine I’ll have nearly as much fun.
When I got here in 2005, I told someone at the office I was going to cover “Came-hame-ha.”
“Dude, you’re going to get beat up.”
No dirty lickens yet — though my local girl does like to threaten me.
I talked too fast when I started here, and I still talk too fast, but interacting with the sports community, be it the BIIF, UH-Hilo, youth sports, paddling, strongman or anything and everything in between, helped me come out of the my shell.
So, this is the end of an era. Or maybe it’s the end of an error? A little of both?
Longtime Tribune-Herald sports writer Kevin Jakahi also resigned a few weeks ago, and we wish him the best.
This would be the part of the story where I wouldn’t mind taking a few swipes at senior management on Oahu. It’s not that I’m too good for that, but I promised one of our readers – my mother – that I wouldn’t.
For all their help and hard work, I’d like to thank former Tribune-Herald sports editor Bill O’Rear, photographers Hollyn Johnson, Kelsey Walling and the late William Ing, as well as Joe Ferraro, JR De Groote and Rick Winters from West Hawaii Today past and Tom Linder of WHT present, and UH-Hilo sports information directors Russ Blunck, Billi Derleth and the late Kelly Leong. Kudos as well to freelancers Bart Wright, Tim Wright, Brad Ballesteros, Ralph Smith and Parish Kaleiwahea.
Most of all, a heartfelt thanks to anyone who has ever entered the arena on the Big Island. The thrill of covering athletic achievement here is one I will never forget.
Send me a shaka – or a stink-eye – at riomateo@yahoo.com
