Once upon a time, when you were very young, a near-sighted man wished to own the entire world. His name was Bill Gates. If you do not recognize his name, it means he has gone the way of other near-sighted men who wished to own the world before him. Nevertheless, not long before you were born, this man, who already owned much of the world, was married right here on Lana`i. Because he was obsessed with privacy, he rented every hotel room on the island so no one but his personal guests could witness the ceremony, which was held on a wide green lawn beside a tall cliff above the sea, on the edge of a golf course designed by the great Jack Nicklaus. The cliff was so tall no one could view the wedding from a boat. To prevent being observed from the sky, the near-sighted man rented every helicopter in the State of Hawai`i with the range to reach this island. When reporters from all over the world arrived on commercial flights, they were detained at the airport by security men, who explained that Lana`i was “a private island” and they were trespassers. The grand wedding was performed without a hitch. As the near-sighted man and his fiancée exchanged vows, former pineapple workers, called pension men, squatted on Old Man's Bench in Dole Park and told each other stories, while their wives and children and grandchildren fluffed pillows, cleaned bathrooms, and trimmed hedges at the new resorts.
        These are the people, the pension men and their families, I have come to this island to interview. Not the Oprahs, Dennis Rodmans, and Heather Locklears one occasionally spots hiding behind dark sunglasses on Hulopo`e Beach. The voices of the pension men are as lilting and musical as the voices of white, white world of Fargo: How you doin' there, Margie? . . . Pretty darn good, Norm . . . Well, yah!
        You won't remember them, but the working class voices we hear on this island each day are even more musical: You know dat kine puka-head guy, Cliff? Drive dat Toyota-kine fo-wheelah? Yestahday, up by dat curve Ko`ele, he go so fast, give skinny way for pass. Run me off da road like one chicken!
        Each day begins at 6:30 a.m. on the tiny patio in front of the Blue Ginger Café, where I am usually the only one hungry or brave enough to order the loco moco breakfast: two fried eggs piled atop a hamburger patty sprawled on a bed of white rice, the whole thing covered with thick brown gravy. I'm sitting at a small table with four of the early morning regulars: Wally Tamashiro, who owns Richard's Market on the down-camp side of the park; Ken Sabin, the Lana`i High School volleyball coach; Masashi “Mustache” Tusumura, a pension man; and Pat Reilly, a high school counselor. Wally, Ken, and Mustache speak the old plantation-style pidgin, once the main music of the islands, which these days often sounds corn-doggy to their kids. Pat sounds more like me, although I mostly just listen. This morning we're talking about the recent controversy that has divided the island.
        “Da high school students,” Wally Tamashiro informs me, “dey went vote for change da name of da mascot from Pinelads to Ka-ulu-la`au Warriors because no more pineapple Lana`i.”
        Ken Sabin shakes his head. “Da students today, dey forget who dey are, where dey come from.” Ken is a former Pinelad himself.
        “Dey forget dere parents, dere grandparents,” Mustache Tusumura adds in a sadder voice. Mustache is barely five feet tall. He has no facial hair, but in every other sense, he's authentic. He shakes his head with a conviction earned from half a century in the pineapple fields. “Forget dere family, dere heritage.”

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