I was born in SanDiego, California in 1959. My first home was on 4416 Granger Street. Born on my Mom and Dad's birthday, I joined my brothers and sisters to become the 6th member of the clan.

In 1961 my father had an opportunity to be a sales representative for Formica Corporation in Hawaii. So my parents packed up the family and took the plunge into the deep blue seas of the Pacific, to start a new life in the 50th state.

We settled in a beautiful little neighborhood called Lanikai, which means "Heaven by the Sea" in Hawaiian - and it was! Our house was perched on the side of an extinct volcanic crater and overlooked a breathtaking view of the ocean and two little islands known as the Mokoluas - "twin islands".

Adapting well to our new environment, my sisters and brother and I were like mountain goats, climbing the steep terrain in our backyard to explore the many wonders it beheld. We learned how to make a log cabin out of Haole Koa tree limbs and from the long brown seed pods we discovered shiny brown seeds for making leis (necklaces). Paper bark trees had interesting bark which you could strip off easily and that we pretended was "meat". Mango trees were great for climbing because they had a very open limb structure with thick sturdy branches reaching up high, also excellent for building tree forts! We did have to watch out for centipedes and scorpions because they also en- joyed the backyard! In time we got chickens and a goat. The chickens were from science experiments at school (all hens - good egg layers) and the goat we got to eat the Haole Koa (it was basically a weed tree). Unfortunately, the goat (Nellie) prefered eating the soft Ti leaf bushes and my mother's screen garden ornamentals - must have been tastier! And of course, there was Spot, the 7th member of the clan, and lots and lots of cats (which ate the rats).

One summer we got together with some kids in the neighborhood to try our hand in operating a small cottage industry - producing and selling Lilikoi jelly. We grew the Lilikoi fruits (otherwise know as Passion Fruit) in our backyard. They are a pale yellow egg-shaped fruit with a thick non-edible skin, which sliced in half produces a syrupy pulp encasing tiny black crunchy seeds. the fruit is not particularly palatable to eat straight but the juice is tart and is excellent used in jellies, pies and juice mixes. So we kids set up an assembly line on the large kitchen table and chopped and strained, then my mother would boil the juice and make it into jelly. We designed fancy labels bearing our initials and my brother built a plywood cart to carry the jelly in, and we set off in the neighborhood to sell our new product.