Mr. VanHoeven was a teacher at Kelloggsville High School. He was one of those teachers who didn’t mind lingering with introverted kids who thought up questions instead of making friends. I was doubly interested in him because my brother Mike told me he was far and away the smartest teacher in the school, so when I found out at the beginning of my sophomore year that Mr. V would be teaching my physics class, I was very happy. As soon as I could, I started hanging around a few minutes at a time before running the gauntlet nerds put up with in the lunch room.
I engaged him on a literal potpourri of totally unrelated topics until we came to reading material. In an animated gush, I described what an avid reader I was. I had read all of the “Dark Shadows” vampire/werewolf series, Lord of the Rings, numerous space operas I can’t seem to remember, and The King of Argent, in which some guy undergoes transformation to a silicon-based body to work on a planet, he finds out to be extremely rich in minerals. When daughter of The Corporation’s owner comes to the planet, she is changed too; she is still blue while he has progressed to a golden color. She is shocked to find that there are dragon-like creatures and …and…and…ah, something or other interesting, right?
When I finished, he smiled and asked me if I’d read James Michener’s “Hawaii.” Nope, I had never heard of the author. James Clavel’s “Shogun”? Charles Dickens? Washington Irving? No idea. Ernest Hemmingway, perhaps? Nada. Fitzgerald? How about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? Not. He was nice about it, but I couldn’t shake the idea I was missing something; it bothered me for months. That year I bought a copy of Michener’s “Hawaii.”
All interest in rockets, laser pistols, and ambiguous reptilian aliens with evil on their minds evaporated in the soft mists wafting down from mountains lush with forest in which a large percentage of plants are natural mutations, so that they are indigenous to Hawaii alone. I was incredulous at the notion that vegetation on Hawaii could have gotten its start from random seeds stuck to floating logs. I was transported by the stories of ancient Polynesians and the intrepid explorers who paddled outriggers well over two thousand miles from their home in Bora-Bora to the new “fire islands.” The coming of Europeans meant blessings and curses, as true-hearted missionaries mixed with enterprising hypocrites, shipping masters, and waves of ethnic “guest workers” from Japan, China, and the Philippines. I was outraged at the dispossession of the native land-owners and latent racism when Hawaii was brought into the Union. I was more changed by the experience of reading this single book than most of the balance of my reading put together, and that one was only the beginning.
Funny how you, Candace, Ted and I all said that was our favorite book. Thanks for reading it to us.
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