Richard said something the other day about how people used to live—they knew their neighbors; they often planted ‘ulu trees so they always had delicious breadfruit; they shared their mangos with someone who, in return, shared some of their fish.

He wrote about plumbing a house so the wastewater runs into the vegetable garden, and that made me think about the Kona Coffee Living History Farm. From their website:

D. Uchida Farm – A 5.5 acre historic coffee farm first homesteaded in 1900

The Kona Coffee Living History Farm brings the coffee pioneer’s story to life by depicting the daily lives of early Japanese immigrants during the period of 1920-1945. Visitors are guided through the coffee and macadamia orchards, the many historic structures, and are greeted by costumed interpreters along the way.

It’s fascinating to walk through this family’s restored coffee farm—and especially, for me, its farmhouse, maintained as though it’s the early part of the 1900s, complete with costumed interpreters working in the house.

One thing I noticed when I toured the farmhouse was the “filter” (an old tobacco filter) at the kitchen sink. It let the water flow, but not food bits—and the water flowed out a pipe and right into the garden just outside the kitchen.

How smart is that? Our grandparents, and their grandparents, knew what they were doing. Yet many of us have gotten so far away from that these days.

Macario and I live on the Hamakua Coast land where my family has lived for several generations. It’s still rural here, but as opposed to when my great-grandmother lived here, Hilo-town is now just an easy 15 or 20-minute drive away.

Back in my great-grandmother’s day, even though she lived here in this very same place, town was far away. Once a month she would get dressed up and ride the train to Hilo, where she would get the family’s supplies for the entire month. Her daughters would beg to be allowed to go along, because it was a big exciting day to go to town.

I think about that when I occasionally find myself having to zip into town more than once in a single day, and I feel sheepish and wasteful. Our lifestyles are so different now.

I know a lot about what went on in this house in 1939. That’s when my great-grandmother left here bound for Columbia University in New York, where she earned a master’s degree. While she was gone that year, her 28-year-old daughter (my grandmother), who had a 7-year-old son at the time (my dad), sent her long, interesting letters about what was going on.

My great-grandmother apparently brought those letters back home with her, because I found them tucked away in this house one winter day 50-some years later, when my then-elderly grandmother—formerly the 28-year-old—was still around. It was wonderful to read them aloud together in front of the fireplace, a few each night. It took us several days to get through them all, because we’d stop as she remembered what she’d written about so long before and filled in details.

From those 1939 letters about life here at this place I learned that they used to have chickens and that my grandmother sold eggs in town at Kwong See Wo store. That my grandmother made mango chutney when she had a lot of mangoes (but I already knew that). And that my grandfather poked holes in a Crisco can to water the strawberries once when it was particularly dry.

They grew kalo (taro) then. They planted ‘ulu trees, which we still eat from, and ate ‘ulu as well as ho‘i‘o, tomatoes, oranges, tangerines, mangos, bananas and vegetables from their garden.

In one letter my grandmother wrote about friends coming over—they all rolled up their pants and went up the stream to catch ‘opae. Sometimes my grandparents would go stay with family and friends at the beach house for an extended, relaxing time of play. They would fish for their meals.

It was interesting to read how often good friends came by to visit. They’d show up with coolers full of fish and Chinese food and their backseat full of fruit from their trees. It was a long journey out here to the country, so they’d stay for four days or maybe a week. Everybody pitched in to cook, etc., while they were here and it was a party the entire time. Pictures show that they played music and some danced hula. Always in those photos there is good food everywhere and kids are playing together and everyone is smiling.

I think about those letters and that lifestyle. Though I realize that my grandmother was writing about the fun times, and not the day-to-day stuff, it still seems like life was a little bit simpler then, and pretty nice. They planted and grew food, and ate well. They had friends over a lot—dear friends that my grandmother remained close to for her entire life—and lots of times they made their own music. It’s a lifestyle I admire.

We grow some of our food these days, and we too have good friends, though we don’t get together as often as they did. We should.

One year we had family and friends here for Thanksgiving dinner, and later in the evening my brother said it reminded him of one of my grandmother’s parties back when we were kids. “Every room I walk into,” he said, “there are little groups of people talking and laughing.” He even pointed to two little boys who were playing a little rambunctiously and said, “That would have been [our cousin] David and me, getting into trouble.”

I liked that. I also like the occasional reminder that we need to have good food around us, some of it we grew outside, and have our friends over more often, and remember to live our lives well while we’re here.