Poets, Niihau, and Creepy Crawlies

Dear W,
Thank you very much for that lovely Christmas card - and especially the note.

There are a few things more I meant to ask you about yourself: Any pets? Like sports? Which ones do you participate in? What about music? Any special person or group? Do you know or like Hawaiian music? Do you have a stereo? I'll just bet reading is one of your all-time favorite things to do?! Poetry? (One of America's greates poets Robert Frost lived in New Hampshire during two periods of his life - in Derry and Franconia. Four times he won the Pulitzer Prize for the best book of poetry of the year. And the most lyric poet America has ever had, my wonderful Emily Dickenson, lived and died unknown not too far from you in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her favorite companions were "The bee, the breeze, and the butterfly of the Dickenson Meadow". Don't forget, this Victorian life she led was in the mid-nineteenth century.

To go back to your last note. Sometimes I don't answer your questions right away. I want to be as near 100% accurate as I can. So I keep checking. About our population. I have broken it down by Islands, and have depended on our 1980 Census. (You might want to jot these figures down on each Island's folder). So in round numbers:
Oahu 762,000
Hawaii 92,000
Niihau 226
Maui 62,000
Lanai 2,000
Kaui 38,000
Molokai 6,000
(Honolulu's 365,000 is included in Oahu's 762,000)

I found out a few things about Niihau (knee-ee-how) that I never knew before, and are, to me, fascinating: Niihau is the smallest of the Hawaiian Islands - 18 miles long, 6 miles wide (47,212 acres). There are 226 people there, of whom, 172 are registered to vote. It is called the "Forbidden Island", for no visitors or guests are allowed. Can you imagine - there are none of these things on Niihau: gas, electricity, telephones, indoor plumbing, post office, doctor, dentist, private school. There is one public school with 43 students enrolled in grades kindergarten through eighth. All the residents speak Hawaiian. When Hurricane Iwa struck the Islands last month, Niihau was hit first = and probably hardest. But none of the Federal or Local officials - including the Governor - was allowed to go there. The word went out: "We don't want any help. We'll take care of our own." So. Frustrated, the officials hired planes and helocoptors to fly over the Island and take pictures which were grim. Most houses were destroyed or badly damaged. (To go back to the population. You can see it all adds up to about 962,000 people. We shall soon achieve one million people - and we don't look forward to it!)

W, I want to change my assertion a little as when I told you that I couldn't bear creepy-crawlies. Later I thought of all the programs I sit enthralled with about these very same insects. In fact, I just watched an hour's program on Spiders! So I think what I should have said is that I accept them all intellectually, but not socially. I appreciate learning all about them, but I don't want them alive in my life. Can you accept this? Do you get these marvelous programs on the Educational Channel: "Nova", "Nature", "Odyssey" etc? (I wish I had had a teacher who took me to a lecture on herpetology. Maybe I wouldn't be so silly and squeamish).

In our Sunday newspaper, there is included a "magazine" called "Parade". In it is "Howard Huge". Do you get this? Three of my favorites are "Garfield", "Snoopy" and "Howard Huge".

Love,
E.R.G.