Charles Litman, who identified himself as hapa, part caucasian, part Japanese shared a fascinating story regarding the kind of work he does.
"Repairs," he said, "let's just say that I repair and fix things, so they look brand new. I try not to change the integrity of the original, but to clean the dust off, so to say?""I understand," I replied. "Say no more."
"I was doing some repairs in an old church in downtown Honolulu," I could tell by his voice that he was trying to put everything together correctly in his mind so that what he said would be clearly understood. "It's located on one of those side streets around Wal-mart. It was simple. We had to tear up the old wooden floor because of termites. Then, concrete was going to be poured into its place. The second I walked into that old church, I got chicken skin, and I was overcome with this burdensome feeling, but we had work to do and mouths to feed. So, we began stripping the floor. Imagine our surprise when we saw that the dirt under the floor contained a massive hole dugout in a perfect square, six feet in depth! In the four corners of that perfectly dugout square were four standing skeletons, dressed in ancient regalia. Feathered capes and everything. I don't recall anyone else's reaction, but I fell to the floor horrified. I remember crying and apologizing, and then I got the hell out of there!"
"Whoa," I exhaled. Suddenly, I was covered with chicken skin, and the atmosphere around myself and Charles suddenly became very still and quiet. "Go on," I told him, "continue."
"There's nothing else to say," he shook his head. "I got the hell out of there, but I made sure I apologized to those Hawaiian remains, letting them know that I meant no disrespect! Was that a burial cave or something?"
I had to think about it for a second. Something suddenly came to me, and I had to vocalize it. "Whatever might have been there before was probably important enough or powerful enough to scare the missionaries or whoever. To prove the might of their western god, they built a church over that ancient burial. A fat lot of good that did, I remember that church from growing up, they were always beset with problems, now it makes sense,"
"I haven't told you everything," he began. "Two days after that happened, that church fell in on itself. It collapsed for no reason. Like, the foundation couldn't hold it up anymore, which is impo...." he stopped himself. "What am I saying? Of course, it's possible. I mean, look at what we found?"
We quieted ourselves enough to finish up our lunch and then pay the bill. Before Charles got up to leave, he asked me for a blessing. He didn't want to return to his apartment on the off chance that something would follow him back. He reassured him that he was fine, but I gave him his blessing just the same. I know what you're asking yourself, and I'm asking myself the very same thing. How many more churches around Hawai'i have ancient Hawaiian burials beneath its foundation?
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