Tuesday

DUKE KAHANAMOKU




WORDS I LIKE TO REMEMBER


For many of us who grew up in Hawaii, it does us well to remember the words of Duke’s mother who use to tell her children “Go out as far as you want. Never be afraid in the water." 

Duke Kahanamoku was baptized in the ocean according to ancient custom. His father and uncle took him out in an outrigger canoe when he was a small boy and threw him into the surf. "It was swim or else," Duke later recalled. "That's the way the old Hawaiians did it." 


I also was inducted in the ocean in this manner by one of my Hawaiian Uncles when I was a young boy and the water has been second nature to me ever since.  Aloha Friday from the Hawaiian Crayon Artist!