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October 31, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Scariest Story I Know

It’s Halloween – I was asked to tell a spooky story. I first thought about stories about Night Marchers, but then realized I have an even spookier story than that.

Here’s the scariest story I know.

Not long ago, a family was sitting at the kitchen table – wondering why they weren’t able to make ends meet.

In fact, simply sitting there, they were getting deeper and deeper into debt.

Their household income was $77,700. However, that year they spent over $90,000 – they put about 30-cents of every dollar they spent on a credit card.

Because of their spending in the prior years, the family had accumulated about $450,000 in debt.

While that outstanding debt sounds like the amount of a mortgage, it’s not. Unlike a mortgage, they have no house or anything else to show for this debt – it is simply money they owe.

They scratch their heads and wonder why.

This seemingly fictional family is real – these numbers represent the context of the national deficit and the debt (in the context of if a median income family spent money like the federal government).

The US national debt has passed $36.93 trillion. (October 2, 2023)

We keep spending money we don’t have.

Administration after administration, I think it’s pretty clear, folks in the federal government don’t want budgets – they want unlimited spending and no accountability for the money they spend (contrary to the key reasons why budgets are prepared.)

That’s like a family that makes $77,700 a year – and is already up to their necks in debt – blowing over $90,000 a year. It does not make rational sense.

Deficits and debt cost money; it is called interest – paying this cost of borrowing does nothing in providing services and programs for the people today. In addition to the interest, you also need to repay the principal of the debt.

Likewise, to pay off the debt you have to use current dollars to pay back past expenditures – money spent paying interest and paying back past debt does nothing in providing services and programs for the people today.

We had been fortunate that interest rates had been low – their lowest ever … but, now interest rates are rising. More of our hard-earned tax dollars will go to paying higher interest on our growing deficits and debt.

Think about your household – I bet you find ways to cut spending to make ends meet. The folks in Washington, including the White House, don’t even try.

Some say, “we don’t have to worry about it short-term.”

In other words, if you have $7 but spend $9 (and continually borrow to make up the difference,) year after year, it’s OK – let future generations of Americans worry about it (the can is being kicked to your children and grandchildren).

Government should follow the example set by the American household:

live within your means (have a balanced budget)
we can’t continue to spend money we don’t have (stop deficit spending and borrowing to cover the difference)

Stop the Rhetoric – Balance the Budget – Reduce the Debt

You can’t spend money you don’t have. You can’t borrow your way out of debt.

For those that still don’t get it, I think I need to repeat this simple, basic thought:

You can’t spend money you don’t have. You can’t borrow your way out of debt.

This is the scariest story I know – and we are all caught in the middle of it, whether we like it or not.

As of August 5, 2025, the US Senate figure for the debt of the federal government is $36.93 trillion. This equates to:
• $108,551 for every person living in the US.
• $279,319 for every household in the US.
• About 82% more than the combined consumer debt of every household in the US.
• About 7.0 times annual federal revenues.
• About 123% of annual US economic output (GDP).

“The federal budget deficit totaled $1.3 trillion in the first nine months of fiscal year 2025, the Congressional Budget Office estimates. That amount is $65 billion more than the deficit recorded during the same period last fiscal year.” (Congressional Budget Office)

“Net interest has been exploding over the past few years, with payments rising from $223 billion in 2015 to $345 billion in 2020 before nearly tripling to $881 billion in 2024. In 2025, CBO projects net interest will total $952 billion, a near-record 3.2 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and interest will eclipse its record as a share of the economy in 2026.” (Committee for Responsible Federal Budget)

Every man, woman and child in the United States owes nearly $110,000 as his or her share of the national debt. Not every US citizen is a taxpayer; for taxpayers, you owe more than $323,000 (as his or her share of the national debt). (Highland County Press)

Scary, isn’t it? Happy Halloween.

October 24, 2025 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

‘Hilo Walk of Fame’

It started on October 24, 1933 …

Filmmaker Cecil B DeMille was in Hilo filming scenes for ‘Four Frightened People.’ The Hilo Park Commission asked him and some of the actors from the film (Mary Boland, William Gargan, Herbert Marshall’s wife (Edna Best Marshall) and Leo Carillo) to plant trees to commemorate their visit. (Pahigian)

Shortly after (October 29, 1933,) George Herman ‘Babe’ Ruth added a tree; he was in town for an exhibition baseball game against the Waiākea Pirates. In an earlier game in Honolulu, “Babe Ruth hit the first ball pitched to him for a home run when the visiting major league players defeated the local Wanderers here yesterday, 5 to 1.” (UP, El Paso Herald, October 23, 1933)

He and the visiting All Stars weren’t as fortunate in Hilo. “One of the most entertaining games ever played in Hilo was a 1933 exhibition matchup between the Waiākea Pirates and an all-star team featuring Babe Ruth. Ruth dazzled the crowd with a pair of homers, including one that traveled 427 feet. The Pirates still prevailed, 7-6.” (Honolulu Star-Advertiser, March 15, 2013)

A little later, US President Franklin D Roosevelt (FDR) was visiting the islands and arrived in Hilo on July 25, 1934 he planted a tree, too. FDR traversed the Pacific aboard the USS Houston, debarked at both the ports of Hilo and Honolulu, and stayed in the Islands for several days (July 24-28, 1934) to tour both cultural landmarks and military areas.

The visit was a stopover on a cruise starting July 1, 1934 at Annapolis going on to Portland, with stops in the Bahamas, Haiti, Puerto Rico, St Thomas, St Croix, Columbia, Panama, Cocos Island and Clipperton Island.

“Commemorating King George V’s silver jubilee (grandfather of the present Queen Elizabeth II,) a banyan tree has been planted here near the tree planted last year to honor President Roosevelt’s visit here.” (AP, Evening Independent, July 8, 1935.)

Another notable planter was Amelia Earhart. “Over the Christmas holiday, Amelia Earhart and George Putnam, along with Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mantz, arrived in Honolulu on December 27 (1934,) having sailed on the Matson liner SS Lurline. … The group spent two weeks vacationing in Hawaiʻi.”

“Five days after planting the banyan tree, she hopped off from Honolulu in her Lockheed Vega to cross 2,408-miles of Pacific Ocean. Eighteen hours and sixteen minutes later, Amelia and her red Vega, ‘Old Bessie, the Fire Horse,’ made a perfect landing at Oakland Airport at 1:31 pm … the very first person, man or woman, to fly solo between Hawaii and the Mainland and the first civilian airplane to carry a two-way radio.” (Plymate)

The next year, on November 15, 1935, Attorney Gonzalo and Adela Manibog, prominent Hilo community leaders in the 1930s and 40s, were given the honor of planting a banyan tree commemorating the birth of a new nation, the Philippine Commonwealth (now a republic.)

President Franklin D Roosevelt signed into law the Tydings-McDuffie Act creating the semi-autonomous government of the Philippine Commonwealth, a US protectorate ceded by Spain after the Spanish American war in 1898. (Manibog)

David McHattie Forbes, botanist, ethnologist, sugar plantation manager and explorer on the island of Hawaiʻi planted a tree. He served as the first district forester of South Kohala in 1905, and twenty years later was appointed a judge in Waimea. He was the discoverer in 1905 of what became known as the Forbes Collection, the greatest collection of Polynesian artifacts ever found.

William Linn (Lincoln) Ellsworth, was an American explorer, engineer, and scientist who led the first trans-Arctic (1926) and trans-Antarctic (1935) air crossings – he added a tree to the growing number.

Later, “Louis (Satchmo) Armstrong planted a tree … in the ‘living memorial’ Banyan grove in Hilo, Hawaii. Reviving a custom dormant since 1952, the musician spaded earth around the roots of the Louis Armstrong tree. It stands a few feet from the Amelia Earhart tree, planted by the aviatrix who vanished on a Pacific flight in 1937.” (Park City Daily News, May 7, 1963)

The tree then-Senator Richard Nixon of California planted in 1952 was destroyed. His wife Pat returned to Hilo in 1972, the year of his presidential re-election, and planted two banyans, one replacing his senatorial specimen (the sign incorrectly notes 1962) and another in her own honor.

Initially, eight trees were planted in October 1933; there have been over 50-trees planted at what is now known as Banyan Drive on the Waiākea peninsula, traditionally known as Hilo-Hanakāhi.

At the time, Banyan Drive was a crushed coral drive through the trees. Forty trees were planted between 1934 and 1938, and five more trees were planted between 1941 and 1972. In 1991, a tree lost to a tsunami was replaced. (Hawaiʻi County)

Trees were typically planted by or for notable politicians, entertainers, religious leaders, authors, sports figures, business people, adventurers and local folks.

The trees now represent the ‘Stories of Incredible People,’ as described in a book by Ted Coombs of Kurtistown, Hawaiʻi.

October 20, 2025 by Peter T Young 3 Comments

Napa Meets Hawaiʻi

A notorious German, Georg Anton Schäffer, representing the Russian-American Company of Alaska, arrived in Hawaiʻi in 1815 to recover the cargo of a Russian trading ship wrecked at Waimea, Kauaʻi.

Landing on O‘ahu, Kamehameha I granted the Russian representatives permission to build a storehouse near Honolulu Harbor. But, instead (as directed by the Schäffer,) they began building a fort and raised the Russian flag.

When Kamehameha discovered the Russians were building a fort (rather than storehouses) and had raised the Russian flag, he sent several chiefs, along with John Young (his advisor,) to remove the Russians from Oʻahu by force, if necessary. The Russians (and Schäffer) sailed for Kauai and eventually built the Russian Fort Elizabeth.

In 1817, Schäffer made a claim of the whole island of Kauai in the name of the Emperor of Russia. He was ordered to leave the Island. He sailed to Honolulu in a leaking boat.

There, American Captain Isaiah Lewis, grateful for prior medical assistance from Schaffer the previous year (reportedly pulling his abscessed tooth,) gave Schaffer passage on the Panther to Canton (leaving on July 17, 1817,) then to St Petersburg. (Pierce)

Following this, Captain Lewis, a co-partner of the ship Arab with Bordman & Pope of Boston and William Dodge of Ipswich, Massachusetts, made a two-year voyage to acquire sandalwood in the Islands to sell in Canton, China.

Lewis married Sarah Pauline ‘Polly’ Holmes. One of their children was named John George Washington Lewis.

Polly’s parents were Oliver Holmes and Mahi, daughter of a high chief of Koʻolau. Holmes made his living managing his land holdings on Oʻahu and Molokai, providing provisions to visiting ships.

To supplement that, in 1809, he got involved with a distillery in Kewalo – this was the infancy of the short-lived rum distillation from the local sugar cane.

(Oliver Holmes was assistant to the Governor of Oʻahu and was appointed to arrange settlements of disputes (hoʻonoho e hoʻoponopono i na mea hihia.)) (LCA 8504 Testimony))

After Isaac Davis’ death (1810,) Holmes impressed visitors as the most important man on Oʻahu, next to the King. Holmes was addressed as Aliʻi Homo (Chief Holmes.) (Daws)

John Lewis married Amelia Kalena on December 31, 1865; they had a daughter, Harriet (Hattie) Kawaikapulani Likelike Lewis (born June 17, 1874, at Kōloa, Kauai.)

That leads to another of German descent, Beringer.

“The firm or house of Beringer Bros consists of Messrs Frederick and Jacob L Beringer. Of these Frederick Beringer, the elder of the two, is the manager and business man.” (It started in 1875.)

“It is his ample means that has enabled the firm to accomplish what it has in the way of erecting a splendid cellar, and in carrying out the many improvements which enable the house to produce its fine quality of wine.”

“It is to the personal experience in wine-making, etc, however, of Mr Jacob L Beringer, the younger member of the firm, that the practical details of the whole matter have been carried out.”

“The brothers were born in Mainz, Germany, the former in January, 1840, and the latter in May, 1845. Mr Frederick Beringer was sent to Paris when young to be educated, studying at the great St. Louis College.”

“After graduation he went into business in that city, remaining in all ten years in Paris. He then traveled extensively through Mexico and the United States, finally going to New York in 1862.” (Lewis Publishing Co, 1891)

There Frederick and Bertha Beringer had a son (May 28, 1870,) Fred L Beringer Jr. In 1884, they moved to California to join Jacob Beringer and built the Rhine House in St Helena, Napa Valley (now the centerpiece of the expansive Beringer Brothers winery.)

“Quality, not quantity,” is the motto of the Beringer Bros., and they are living up to it as shown by the fact that they received a silver medal at the Paris Exposition of 1889 for their wines, a gold medal at the State Fair at Sacramento, and also a medal at the Mechanics’ Fair in San Francisco, in fact wherever they have exhibited they have carried the honors. (Lewis Publishing Co, 1891)

Then, on June 1, 1905, Hattie Lewis married Fred L Beringer, in Honolulu. Basic reports in the local paper note Fred served in the Treasury Department of US Customs.

Fred_Beringer-(with_lei)-next_to_Harriet_Lewis_Beringer

October 16, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Public Access on Beaches and Shorelines

State law states that the right of access to Hawaii’s shorelines includes the right of transit along the shorelines. (HRS §115-4)

The right of transit along the shoreline exists below (seaward of) the private property line (generally referred to as the “upper reaches of the wash of waves, usually evidenced by the edge of vegetation or by the debris left by the wash of waves.”) (HRS §115-5)

However, in areas of cliffs or areas where the nature of the topography is such that there is no reasonably safe transit for the public along the shoreline below the private property lines, the counties by condemnation may establish along the makai boundaries of the property lines public transit corridors (not less than six feet wide.) (HRS §115-5)

Generally, the Counties have the primary authority and duty to develop and maintain public access to and along the shorelines. (HRS Secs 46-6.5, 115-5 & 115-7)

The State’s primary role in the shoreline area is to preserve and protect coastal resources within the conservation district and support public access along and below the shoreline. (HRS Chap. 205A)

When the shoreline erodes, lateral access is not lost; instead, the State’s acquires title to the newly eroded lands. (Application of Sanborn, 57 Haw. 585, 562 P.2d 771 (1997)) In other words, the public continues to have access along the shoreline to the upper reaches of the wash of the waves.

There is a specific situation related to ownership of beach areas; it is a special circumstance in Waikiki that dates back to 1928.

Waikiki is a ‘built’ beach. Over the last 100-years it has been built primarily in two ways, (1) construction of walls and groins in the nearshore waters and (2) beach nourishment/replenishment (adding sand to the beach.)

Between 1913-1919, the majority of Waikiki had seawalls; they were placed to protect roadways and new buildings. The beach was lost fronting Kūhiō and Queen’s Beach.

In 1927, the Territorial Legislature authorized Act 273 allowing the Board of Harbor Commissioners to rebuild the eroded beach at Waikiki.

In 1928, the Territory of Hawaiʻi entered into a “Waikiki Beach Reclamation” agreement with several of the beachfront property owners.

Effectively, the agreement authorized the Territory to build a beach from the existing high water mark fronting the shoreline from the Ala Wai to the Elks Club.

The new beach was “deemed to be natural accretion attached to the abutting property, and title thereto shall immediately vest in the owner or owners of the property abutting thereon”.

In exchange, the property owners agreed not to build anything “within seventy-five (75) feet of mean highwater mark of said beach” and “at no time prevent such beach in front of their respective premises from being kept open for the use of the public as a bathing beach and for passing over”.

As part of the 1928 Beach Agreement, eleven groins composed of hollow tongue and concrete blocks were built along Waikiki Beach with the intent of capturing sand. (SOEST)

A lot of the sand to build the beach was brought in to Waikiki Beach, via ship and barge, from Manhattan Beach, California in the 1920s and 1930s.

As the Manhattan Beach community was developing, it found that excess sand in the beach dunes and it was getting in the way of development there. At the same time, folks in Hawai‘i were in need for sand to cover the rock and coral beach at Waikiki.

Kuhn Bros. Construction Co supplied the sand; they would haul the sand up from Manhattan Beach, load it onto railroad cars, have it transported to the harbor in San Pedro and shipped by barge or ship to Hawai‘i. (Dalton)

Since 1929, about 616,500 cubic yards of sand have been used to enlarge and replenish Waikiki Beach between Fort DeRussy and Kuhio Beach, but every year more erodes away. Little new sand has been added since the 1970s. (DLNR)

When I was at DLNR, we initiated a demonstration project to move nearshore sand back on to the beach. In 2006, DLNR spent $500,000 to siphon 10,000 cubic yards of offshore sand – this was the largest replenishment effort of Waikiki’s beaches in more than 30 years.

It worked; then, a larger project was implemented. Early in 2012, a larger-scale replenishment project pumped sand from 2,000 feet off Waikiki to fill in the shrinking beach. Later, other replenishment projects occurred.

The 2006 demonstration project and the subsequent replenishment activity were really recycling projects, because the sand now settled offshore was brought in years ago to fill out the beach.

October 14, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Adventures of a University Lecturer

Hiram Bingham III was born in Honolulu, on November 19, 1875, to Hiram Bingham II, an early Protestant missionary to the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi.

He was the grandson of Hiram Bingham I, who in 1820 was the leader of the Pioneer Company of missionaries to Hawaiʻi.

He attended Punahou School and ultimately earned degrees from Yale University, University of California-Berkeley and Harvard University.

In 1900 at the age of 25, Hiram III married Alfreda Mitchell, heiress of the Tiffany and Co fortune through her maternal grandfather Charles L Tiffany. With this financial stability he was able to focus on his future explorations.

He taught history and politics at Harvard and then was a lecturer and subsequently professor in South American history at Yale University.

In 1908, he served as delegate to the First Pan American Scientific Congress at Santiago, Chile. On his way home via Peru, a local prefect convinced him to visit the pre-Columbian city of Choquequirao.

Hiram III was not a trained archaeologist, but was thrilled by the prospect of unexplored cities. He returned to the Andes with the Yale Peruvian Expedition of 1911.

“The first day out from Cuzco saw us in Urubamba, the capital of a province, a modern town charmingly located a few miles below Yucay, which was famous for being the most highly prized winter resort of the Cuzco Incas.”

“Its ancient fortress, perched on a rocky eminence that commands a magnificent view up and down the valley, is still one of the most attractive ancient monuments in America.”

Continuing on down the valley over a newly constructed government trail, we found ourselves in a wonderful cañon. So lofty are the peaks on either side that although the trail was frequently shadowed by dense tropical jungle, many of the mountains were capped with snow, and some of them had glaciers. There is no valley in South America that has such varied beauties and so many charms.” (Bingham; National Geographic)

“We camped a few rods away from the owner’s grass-thatched hut, and it was not long before he came to visit us and to inquire our business. He turned out to be an Indian rather better than the average, but overfond of ‘fire-water.’”

“His occupation consisted in selling grass and pasturage to passing travelers and in occasionally providing them with ardent spirits. He said that on top of the magnificent precipices nearby there were some ruins at a place called Machu Picchu”.

“He offered to show me the ruins, which he had once visited, if I would pay him well for his services. His idea of proper payment was 50 cents for his day’s labor. This did not seem unreasonable, although it was two and one-half times his usual day’s wage.” (Bingham; National Geographic)

On July 24, 1911, Hiram Bingham III rediscovered the ‘Lost City’ of Machu Picchu (which had been largely forgotten by everybody except the small number of people living in the immediate valley.)

“(W)e found ourselves in the midst of a tropical forest, beneath the shade of whose trees we could make out a maze of ancient walls, the ruins of buildings made of blocks of granite, some of which were beautifully fitted together in the most refined style of Inca architecture.”

“A few rods farther along we came to a little open space, on which were two splendid temples or palaces. The superior character of the stone work, the presence of these splendid edifices, and of what appeared to be an unusually large number of finely constructed stone dwellings, led me to believe that Machu Picchu might prove to be the largest and most important ruin discovered in South America since the days of the Spanish conquest.” (Bingham; National Geographic)

His book “Lost City of the Incas” became a bestseller upon its publication in 1948; he also wrote “Across South America” (an account of his journey from Buenos Aires to Lima, with notes on Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Peru.)

After his return to the United States, he attained the rank of Captain in the Connecticut National Guard.

He eventually became an aviator and organized the United States Schools of Military Aeronautics to provide ground school training for aviation cadets, as well as commanded an aviator school in France.

Hiram III was elected governor of Connecticut in 1924; he was also a US Senator.

‘Lost City of the Incas’ and Hiram III have been noted as a source of inspiration for the story and ‘Indiana Jones’ character.

Hiram Bingham I (reportedly a basis for James Michener’s Abner Hale character in ‘Hawaii’) is my great-great-great grandfather and Hiram III is my great-great uncle.