I only received three C's in high school -- the only three unacceptable grades I ever had to show Dad ("You should never get a C. That's inexcusable. I expect only A's and B's from you, Craig"). I earned two during summer school. I only went to summer school twice. Does that tell you something about summer school and me?

The first one was in typing, during my pre-ninth-grade summer. The second was in sophomore band, and the third was in physics, during my pre-senior summer.

Someone had convinced me that I should take typing, and that summer school was the best time. But I was 14, in the prime of my hormones, and it was hard to punch keys monotonously on a beautiful summer day while all my friends were out there having fun.

Actually, it was tolerable for the first couple of weeks or so. We made a lot of typographical errors in the early goings, some of which were actually hilarious. For example, one common error was when we had to type "Tom had a fur." Whoever wrote up that exercise must have grown up in Hawaii. Everyone typed "Tom had a fut" at least once -- a natural mistake since the "R" is right next to the "T" on the keyboard. Now, a mainlander would never understand the humor. They called them "farts." Only in Hawaii.

There's something fairly kinky about learning how to type. The first letters you learn are the home keys ("ASDF" for the left hand, and "JKL;" for the right). So every word in the first exercise had the letter "A" in it. We were typing SAD, FAD, ADS. Then we ran out of real words, so we were typing FAJ, LAJ, LAF, JAK, DAF, and anything else you could make up. We couldn't write any sentences because everyone knows you need a period to end it with and we hadn't learned how to type periods yet.

Then, they add the "RTYU," because you can reach them easily with the index finger. Then, you learn the "VBNM" because they're the next-easiest to hit. That's when we started typing "Tom had a fur," and the resultant hilarious typo.

In a way, it's like learning how to talk all over again. First you start out with an alphabet of sorts, then the words you learn get longer and longer until all of a sudden you're spewing out whole sentences with correct punctuation and all that. Simply amazing.

Our teacher was different. Not at first glance. You had to look at his hands. You see, his right index finger was missing. Cut it off somehow. (I was willing to bet that he once had been a wood shop teacher; I'll tell you about our ninth-grade wood shop teacher later.)

Now, just how do you demonstrate how to reach one row up with your right index finger to hit the letter "Y" when you don't have a right index finger? "Trust me, it can be done," I still remember him saying, as he steadfastly refused to perform individual demonstrations for the inquisitive.

I guess I typed okay. It was those damned numbers on the top row that slowed me down. Today, we all have computer keyboards with a 10-key pad on the right side, so it's hard to appreciate the difficulty we had typing the numbers in the top row without looking at the keys.

So anyway, to make a long story short, I fell behinder and behinder until I just barely missed making a B. If only summer school had been a week shorter . . .

At last, no Japanese school. This was the first year after my "graduation" from Japanese school. It seemed a little strange not to be headed to the Hilo Hongwanji when the school bell rang at the end of the day.

But, life goes on . . . and it sure felt good not to be tied to that damned Japanese school any more.

Ninth grade was kind of neat. We ruled the school, just as the seniors ruled the high school across the street. And unlike my eighth-grade year, this year turned out to be an eventful one -- I got eyeglasses, Hawaii became a state, I became president of a YMCA club that almost folded before it got started, and I was the only one in the Christmas parade who didn't have a band uniform.

That was the year that we put rubber cocks in the biology class aquarium, dissected frogs and popped their lungs, and learned how to make pieces of wood look like slightly flawed works of art.

I remember one quite embarrassing moment. And thank God, for once, it was not me who was motified. We had just finished biology class and were on our way to the next, when one of the girls walking in front of us had the shock of her life. Her crinoline slip slipped, dropping down her legs and onto the ground. Her face flushed with shame, she bent over, picked it up and asked out loud, in a futile effort to cover up, who had dropped her slip. Harvey Tajiri, that rascal, pointed out to her and everyone around that the slip was hers, and that she shouldn't lie about it.

Everybody laughed . . . except the girl . . . and me. I always remember how it feels to be the center of attention when things aren't going just right. Remember, I was different.

One day, while Dad and I were returning home, Dad spied a serviceman trying to hitch a ride on Waianuenue Avenue. Always big-hearted, and apparently with a soft spot for soldiers that was left-over from his World War II days, Dad stopped and asked him where he was going. Apparently, the soldier had missed the bus back to Kilauea Military Camp and needed a ride to Pohakuloa.

"I'll take you there. It's on our way," Dad said.

You have to realize that Pohakuloa is far up the Saddle Road, I guess it was about an hour's drive from Hilo. It wasn't "on the way." In fact, it was more like our house was on the way if you were going to Pohakuloa. It was definitely not on the way. But, Dad wanted to do this, and the three of us had a pretty nice chat on the way to KMC. Dad definitely felt good about what he was doing, and I was pretty proud of his generosity.

Mom, however, had a different point of view when we finally got home. She was upset that Dad had picked up a hitchhiker (and I suspect she was more upset that Dad hadn't told her we were going on that long ride). It was a little tense there for a while.

I was on Dad's side, for after all, I had been there. I told Dad I thought he did the right thing. Dad appreciated that.

All through eighth grade, and especially during the preceding summer, my eyesight was getting worse. Nobody knew it except me. Every year, we would take those eye-screening tests, the ones with the big E at the top, progressively getting smaller until you could hardly read the ones on the bottom. If the E pointed to the right, you'd point to the right. If the E pointed upward, you'd point upward, and so forth and so on until you couldn't make out which way the E was pointing.

When we took the test in the eighth grade, I memorized the positions and faked it on the test. Of course, I had problems all year. So when it came time to test in the ninth grade, I cinched up my belt and finally admitted that I needed glasses. And in the process, surprised everyone when I gave up on the third row.

Two things I remember about the eyeglass-fitting process: First, the eyedrops the doctor used dilated my pupils and the lights bothered my eyes all day.

And second, when I put on my glasses for the first time, everything seemed to sparkl! Reds were redder, blues were bluer, and everything seemed so crisp and bright. It was as though the world had turned on the lights just for me. What a jerk I was not to have taken advantage of modern eye-care.

Of course, everyone thought I immediately looked studious (remember, they already thought I was smart). I had expected an onslaught of "Four Eyes" jokes; they never came. What a jerk.

Wood shop class was an experience. Our teacher was an older guy with big, brawny, hairy arms, who might well have been a lumberjack in his days. Somehow the name Mr. Wood sticks in my mind, but that would be too good to be true. And I also seem to remember that Mr. Wood (I'll call him that anyway) had a finger missing. But of course, that also would be too good to be true. Whatever his name, and whatever his digital condition, he was an enjoyable man teaching an enjoyable class.

We started the class with a little trepidation. When we were eighth-graders, we heard that one of the ninth-graders had cut his finger off while using the joint planer. Apparently, he was using his hands to guide the wood through the planer, instead of using a push stick as he was supposed to.

The story was that Mr. Wood had found the finger in the sawdust, rinsed it off, and sent it along with the kid to the hospital. The ninth-grader was famous after that, what with a large bandage around his hand -- a sort of "red badge of courage." But all I could think of was that little teary-eyed kid I remember seeing in the hospital emergency room many years before who had cut his finger off (red flesh, yellow bone . . . you remember).

But thank God, none of us suffered anything worse than splinters that school year.

We started off by making a broom holder that our moms could mount in the closet. We progressed to a woven-slat fruit basket that our moms could use to display wax fruits on the dining room table. And finally, we each chose our "big finale project" to be submitted for our final grade. Some of us made tables, some made cribbage boards.

I made a koa lamp. A neat lamp, actually. Beautiful dark koa base and stand that fit perfectly no matter where it sat. Mr. Wood made sure the finish was perfect. Every time I thought I had sanded it smooth enough, he'd take his pencil, mark it up, and tell me to sand it until the pencil marks were gone. I used to get angry, but in looking back, if it weren't for Mr. Wood, my lamp would have been ordinary . . . run of the mill. I learned something that year. I learned that if anything is worth doing, it's worth doing well. No, make that "worth doing flawlessly."

Mom was so proud of the lamp. She kept it alongside the couch for years, and years, and years, and years. Eventually, the lamp was stolen, along with a whole bunch of other stuff, when our Reed's Island home was entered and burglarized while Mom was away for a few weeks in 1991. The nerve of these people.

Knowing Mom, the theft probably broke her heart. I can tell you that it didn't do me any good; I was proud of that lamp too. I hope whoever eventually ended up with the lamp took care of it. It's got a lot of me in it -- a lot of me.

Hawaii finally became a state in 1959. On March 11, when the statehood bill finally cleared both houses in Washington, we all assembled in the auditorium for a little celebration and a surprising announcement that school was closed for the rest of the day. This happened in the morning, and although it was great for all of us, I always wondered about the cafeteria staff, which probably was preparing for the day's lunch service. Oh well, they probably just shoved everything into the refrigerators and took it out the next school day.

After a lunch of hamburger, fries and a milk shake (only 50¢), we meandered around downtown Hilo for an hour or so. Then, Les Hoshide and I jumped into his family Buick and went for a little joy ride. Les let me drive for a while, and I had my first scary experience.

Remember now, this was March 1959, and I didn't get my driver's permit until much later in the year when I turned 15 in October. We're talking dangerous stuff here. Sure enough, due to my experience, we got the shock of our lives when I turned left onto Kanoelehua Street. I accelerated a little too hard a little too soon, and put the car into a sideways skid.

I don't know how I got the car under control, but I pulled over as soon as I could and let Les take the wheel back. 'Nuff driving for me for a lo-o-ong time.

We ended up at the Boy's Club, where we shot pool for the rest of the afternoon. In retrospect, we should have appreciated the significance of that bonus holiday a little more, and done something a little more historic.

Speaking about being historic, some friends and I formed a YMCA club that year, and called ourselves the "Comets." Although some of us had no idea of the name's history, we soon learned a little more than we wanted to when we assembled at the YMCA for our first meeting of the year.

The old Comets, it seemed, had been made up of about half the guys in the new club. These same guys that had elected me their president. Now, the old "Comets" had an awfully bad reputation as it turned out. And the YMCA executive director let us know that in no uncertain terms.

Essentially, he told us to "Shape up or ship out," "We don't need crud like you around if you're going to make trouble," and "I'm going to keep my eye on you guys." We nodded attentively, promised to be good, then when he left the meeting, shrugged our shoulders and went on with our business. Nobody, it seemed, cared much about what he had said. We just did our own thing.

I'd like to say that our club turned out to be one of the best in the YMCA's history, that we won all sorts of awards, and that we set the standard for all subsequent clubs.