When I first started training in Shotokan many years ago, it was conducted in an old wooden building next to the Otto Klum Gym. Located in the hot University of Hawaii quarry. I was surrounded by the newest batch of white belts. The group was all UH students, mostly males in their late teens/early twenties. Six months later, there were only a dozen left, and I think three of us made it to shodan out of our class. The training was really pretty grueling for us novices. I remember one particularly tough practice session when at least six beginners either fainted or had to be pulled out of line. Mostly, I think they were trying to test our perseverance and conditioning.

Many of you are familiar with the quarry. Back when I first started at UH in the late sixties, it contained the gym, some basic track/field facilities, various portables, and some old buildings like our old dojo. Most of the huge area was dusty, white and devoted to parking for thousands of students’ cars. The quarry was significant to me for just three reasons: karate, parking, and the place where my Air Force ROTC classes were conducted.

Knowing my interest in local history, my in-laws recently let me borrow a large, beautiful book devoted to the history of the Mo’ili’ili area. Not only well written and researched, it contains hundreds of photos spanning over a hundred years. My mother-in-law grew up in Mo’ili’ili and purchased the hardback to revisit old memories of her childhood. To my surprise, I came across several photos of my dad and his family, their home and cars, along with an aerial of Motosuke Nakamoto’s (my grandfather) five-acre farm, which was on leased land on the corner of University Ave and Dole St, beginning in the 1920’s. In other words, grandpa’s farm lay at the upper entrance to the same old quarry (still an active quarry, at the time) that I began my Shotokan training in, some four decades later. Furthermore, I was shocked to see a quotation about the quarry in the text, contributed by my dad. I was amused to see his name mentioned several times, twice as Melvin Nakamoto and once as Tsuneo Nakamoto. Dad described the constant noise from blasting of the hard rock, the thick white dust that blanketed everything in the area, and the fact that a neighbor was actually hit and killed by a rock flung far by one of the explosions. The many tons of rock dug from those grounds was to help with much construction throughout the island, especially for military projects during WWII. Operations at the quarry ceased after the war ended, and folks had to actually adjust to peace and quiet. The farm shut down in 1949 when the lease was ended to make room for more facilities at the rapidly expanding University. Ironically, I discovered that the Nakamoto farm was located right where the the UH Music Complex sits today. Exactly 25 years later (1974), THE AFROTC seniors met to plan our commissioning in the music building. It’s where our son Matt, attended his Baaclaurate from the College of Engineering, exactly 50 years later, in 1999. At the same time, our daughter Trisha, was spending much of her time at the complex, as a Music Ed major. I am so amazed that across the generations, each of us carried out our own unique, seemingly unconnected lives…and none of us ever knew the significance of that small piece of land to four generations of Nakamoto’s.