Tsai-ko Autobiography: Ralph
Name: (withheld)
Bonafide Tsai-ko
High School: Lanai
High 1961
Tsai-ko Lunch Size: Medium
Tsai-ko caricature: first row, 3rd from left
From the Warrior Beat blog October 7,
2007:
ST's Intro:
We always considered our blog
readers to be part of our family.
Ralph was one of the first to make his family part of our blog.
We've had so many voices of reason on this blog we could form a choir.
Ralph, like many others, always offers thoughtful opinions. We
appreciate his contributions.
Here's Ralph:
The Beginning
I was born and raised on the Island of Lanai, population about 2,000,
and I am part of the aging baby boomer generation.
As a youth growing up on a pineapple plantation time for us moved very
slowly. We made our own fun – fishing, swimming, camping, hiking,
hunting, horseback riding, and whatever we wanted to do to have fun.
Time to Grow Up
Upon graduation with 41 other classmates, I headed for the mainland
with many of my classmates to better ourselves for the challenges we
would face in the future. I left on my first trip to the mainland to
Manhattan, Kansas, home of Kansas State University. By air, everywhere
I looked made me realize that I lived on a very little rock in the
pacific. The aerial view surrounding Manhattan wasn’t impressive, it
was very flat, no mountains, forest or lakes. No wonder it is called
the “plains”.
The 60’s were a time of social consciousness and it gave me a wide-eyed
view of America. The Vietnam War loomed heavily on many of us who had
difficulty getting a draft deferment. Malcolm X was murdered. President
Kennedy was assassinated. Dr. M.L. King marched in the South. Many of
us from Hawaii were refused service at an ice cream parlor off campus.
We laughed about it, but the social environment otherwise was always
positive for us and I enjoyed life in Manhattan.
I made a solo trek from Manhattan to Arkansas while Little Rock was
consumed in a protest march and finally down to New Orleans. I made an
overnight stop in Ruston and along the way I found Louisiana to be a
very friendly state, difficult to imagine segregation but it existed.
My first exposure to athletics was at K-State, then a member of the Big
Eight. I attended all of the football and basketball games. K-State was
7-32 in FB. The marquee player I saw was by far, Gale Sayers at KU. Tex
Winter led KSU BB program.
One summer several of us went to Emporia State to socialize with the
Hawaiians there. Two future Hawaii HS coaches were playing ball there,
Itokazo (sp?)(Campbell) and Mitsui (Waianae). Also there was Basilio
“Bunga” Fuentes who recently won an award for his community service to
Hawaii youths. Bunga graduated from Farrington, any old timer remember
him.
Life in limbo
With a B.S. in Zoology and no chance of a draft deferment I attended
UH. It was social time for me without an academic goal waiting for the
draft. Our group spent a lot of time listening to Kui Lee at Queen
Surf, Zulu and his raunchy jokes, and Al Lopaka, my HS classmate. After
a year I got tired of waiting and I asked the draft board to go ahead
and draft me and they did. I reported with my bags packed to Fort
DeRussey to be processed for a trip to Fort Ord. A corpsman came up to
me and asked for my eyeglasses, came back later and told me I can get
out of the draft due to my eyesight if I wanted. I wasn’t heroic, I
said okay, went home, and a week later the board sent me my 4-F
deferment.
Back to School to get a real life
I spent 4 years in Chicago and I won my professional degree. It was
still in the 60’s and times were changing. Vietnam War and the
protests. My heroine, Bernadine Dohrn, a University of Chicago Law
graduate, was part of the Students for a Democratic Society and later
the Weather Underground. She made the FBI most wanted list. She was
never convicted for all of the allegations attributed to her and
received probation. She later spent a year in jail for not testifying
against the Black Panthers, or was it fellow Weathermen. She is now a
law professor at Northwestern University Law School.
Our school was located in an area of urban blight, tenement housing and
extreme poverty. What a wake up call. Gangs ruled our neighborhood –
the Black P Stone Nation and Disciples to the South, the Puerto Ricans
to the near Westside.
We spent a lot of time drinking beer, watched TV a lot, especially the
bears. We could seat in the bleachers at Wrigley field for a buck.
Back Home
The first UH team I got hooked with was Na Wahine. McLachlin and
Kaapuni were outstanding setters. Terry Malterre, the tallest, and
Cheryl Grimm was by far the shortest. Then the Tatsuno legacy began and
I became a Kini Popo booster. I did follow FB and watched the Tomey and
part of the Wagner years.
In ’92 when my daughter was 5 I stopped going to UH events. My time was
spent going to practices and games in soccer, fast pitch softball and
Tang Soo Doo. It was at Martial Arts tournaments that I first saw Kenny
Patton. It was through UH soccer that I first saw Princess Leila and
she definitely didn’t run like a girl. All of you Tsaikos have seen her
in jeans you should have seen her in her soccer shorts playing fullback.
I for one embraced the coming of JJ and the changes he made. When he
changed the logo and the colors, he reminded me of coach Synder at
K-State. K-State had gone to one bowl game in the 92 years prior to his
coaching debut. His first year, he changed the logo and color scheme.
KSU color is Royal Purple, one color. It was usually placed on white or
grey background. He made it royal purple on silver. In 17 seasons,
coach Synder’s teams went to 11 straight bowl games. JJ is on the same
track.
Now that my daughter has graduated from Mililani I can now catch up
with live sports. With this Tsaiko site and cattle calls I have been
able to catch up with the past and witness the passion for the
Warriors. Thank you.