Sometimes Kelly Kanakoa looked with admiration at Papa Nui, forty-nine years old and still giving the wahines what he called "Papa Nui's surfboard cure for misery."
One afternoon he asked the Papa about his surprising energy, and the dean of beachboys explained: "A man got energy for do four t'ings. Eat, work, surf, or make love. But at one time got stuff for only two. For me, surfin' and makin' love."
"You ever get tired?" Kelly asked.
"SURFIN"? No. I gonna die on an incomin' wave. Wahines? Tell you da trufe, Kelly, sometime for about ten minutes after Moana Loa sail, I don' nevah wanna see da kine wahine no mo', but nex' day wen anudder ship blow anudder whistle, man, I'm strip for action."
excerpt bastardised from James A. Michener's Hawaii 1959
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