Many towns have Facebook groups, online pages where nostalgia runs high as grownups check their murky childhood memories against those of their peers. The sites are popular with ex-pats who just can’t get home often enough (but who, for whatever reason, just can’t move back) and for middle-agers who never left but still barely recognize the old days paved over by years of change.
A page for Koloa, a southside Kauai town with deep roots in the plantation era and a looming pull into gentrification, has lit up in the past week.
The "I Love Koloa!" page is different from many hometown reminiscing sites, particularly the ones that are labeled "You know you grew up in …" in that it welcomes anyone who "lives, lived or just passed through" the town. Indeed, Koloa is one of those places that tourists don’t say they "visited," it’s a place they feel they know even after a few days.
"I am so excited and happy that we have a group of people that share a special bond," said Lisa Shigematsu Dela Cruz, a lifelong Koloa resident who started the Facebook group. "Koloa is a little town in Kauai that touches people’s lives. … Koloa stays with your soul."
Koloa is unique in the way that the sugar town past and the resort enclave future mix together in the tiny aisles of Sueoka store. Hip tourist boutiques occupy the old wooden storefronts, fruits like lilikoi and strawberry guava are grown in backyards and sold to the upscale Poipu restaurants, roosters crow from the t-bars of clotheslines and are depicted in $45 souvenir T-shirts.
It’s a small enough town that many people still walk to Big Save and the bank and the post office, but the folks who live in Kekaha think it’s the big city ever since that fancy traffic roundabout was installed near the new upscale development called Kukuiula. Koloa is crowded and small, cacophonous and quiet, old and new all at the same time.
Dela Cruz started the Facebook group a year ago, but it drew little activity. Last week, following the big annual Koloa Days events, she relaunched the group and the reaction was immediate. In just the first day, hundreds of members posted their tributes to the town:
"You guys remember Mr. Kunimura with the vegetable truck who went around the neighborhood selling veggies?"
"Remember ghost hunting in St Raphael’s cemetery?"
"I have many memories of scrounging up money to buy patele from Jakes snack wagon."
"Anyone remembered that pine tree on the right side going down Koloa after tree tunnel? All the stories like they couldn’t cut it down or it would bleed, the white lady is always by the tree? I actually believed all those stories!"
Several of the group members have suggested collecting the postings into a book. People have lots of pictures they’d like to share. Dela Cruz is still reacting to the initial rush and glad that she gave the page a second try.
"I was hoping that it would be a place where everyone from everywhere could come and share thier stories with one another. I am so happy it turned out the way I intended."
Lee Cataluna can be reached at lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.
