View From d'Isle

 
State Flag of Hawaii

All God's Creatures
by Jean d'Isle

  awaii sees itself as an environmentally sensitive place, vulnerable to invasion by a variety of harmful interlopers, from fruit flies to brown tree snakes. Those of you who have vacationed in the islands will recall a rather lengthy agriculture form which enumerates forbidden flora and fauna you must swear you are not harboring on your person or in your baggage, under threat of fines and jail. I suspect the authorities in the past were not all that effective in defending the islands from such unwelcome visitors.

As evidence I offer the following: Picture a creature eight inches long, half an inch wide, with the speed and moves of an NFL running back, and a great big fork on its hind end whose contact feels like you just stuck your finger in a lamp socket—the Hawaiian centipede; scientific name, humongous forkbutt. My first encounter with this creature came shortly after arriving in the islands. In the comfort of my living room, with recently read pages of the "Honolulu Advertiser" scattered about me, I heard the rapid movement of many tiny feet moving in my direction across the sea of newspaper. My response would have been different had I not naively considered it just another of God's uglier creatures; but I attempted to pick it up and evict it with just a paper towel for insulation. Lamp socket time! That forked appendage whipped around the edge of that paper towel in a blur, with devastating and immediate results. I'm not sure where that critter landed; I was too busy watching my hand swell to a size to rival Popeye's forearms.

I was to find out later that the forkbutt is a relatively common sight in Hawaii, both inside and outside the house. In sharing my experience, I found that forkbutt encounters are not that unusual. One person told of the time he awoke to a sharp jolt in his nether regions and found a forkbutt had apparently taken offense at being denied this warm sanctuary alongside of what t he critter might have mistaken for a distant cousin. Though my friend was willing to share a description of the aftermath of this encounter, I had already dredged up visions of some graphic elephantiasis photos I came across in my youth and wasn't anxious to revisit that recollection in any detail.

You gotta wonder what God was thinking when He put those suckers together. You atheists may want to keep the forkbutt in mind the next time you find yourself in a theological debate.

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Jean d'Isle is a retired naval officer living in Hawaii. During his military career he served in a number of overseas assignments, including Germany, England, Spain, Viet Nam and Puerto Rico. Following his retirement, he was an adjunct faculty member of Hawaii Pacific University and is currently under contract with the U.S. Navy at the submarine base in Pearl Harbor.

Jean's column, View From d'Isle, is a regular feature of VegSource On-Line Magazine.