Lahaina Obaban Teaches Her Granddaughters About Business and Life, and: How She Loves Music
- Lahaina Obaban Teaches Her Granddaughters About Business and Life, and: How She Loves Music
Lahaina Obaban Teaches Her Granddaughters About Business and Life
"Women don't drive" was what my husband said.So I told him, "Teach me to drive, or I'mleaving you." He relented, once he sawI meant exactly what I'd said. That's howObaban became the first woman cab driveron Maui. You see, I knew the hired cabbieswere cheating us, but I had to prove itto my husband. I was a quick learner, gotmy license and started taxiing. Withthe money I brought in just that first day,it wasn't hard to convince my husbandthat the drivers were pocketing the fares.I got each to confess, then fired them all.Men are that way. Don't reason, demonstrate. [End Page 12]
How She Loves Music
Such girlish ambitions. My grandmother,who loves music like a lost childhood,scales, with aid of a school boy's mnemonic,the lattice of a treble clef, and from itslooping vine plucks ripe quarter notes,like grapes grown bluesy with the songsof autumn rain. As a girl, she lived freeof money, when music lessons werereserved for girls from moneyed families. Now,pure melody of the unaccompanied righthand rings out the old, nursed remorses,cramped penuries since money is at lastenough for an ebony upright (second hand),real ivory keys stained the color of tea. [End Page 13]
Derek Otsuji lives and writes on the island of Oahu. His work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Crab Orchard Review, Poet Lore, Salamander, Sycamore Review, and Threepenny Review.
