Island Fever vs. Jungle Fever

Island Fever; A claustrophobic feeling of being trapped or landlocked on a small island.

Jungle Fever; A movie written and directed by Spike Lee

 
I moved from L.A. Ca. to Hauula, Oahu Hawaii in 1982. It wasn't something that I planned on doing, it just sort of happened. Growing up in inner-city L.A., we called it a concrete jungle. I enjoyed it though because if you had a car, you could drive as far and as long as you could afford the gas. It was only 78 cents a gallon back then. I had a car of course and would often cruise around with friends from either school or the hood and we’d often explore outside of L.A. making new friends in neighboring cities and counties. Most of my friends during my High School year were children of Asian and Pacific Island immigrants, namely Japanese, Chinese, Filipinos, Koreans, Hawaiians, and Samoans, being anywhere from 1st to 3rd generation in Southern California (SoCal). I did also have friends of other ethnic, racial or cultural backgrounds, but that’s a story for a later post. During the summer months I would regularly take a vacation trip to Hawaii. I would go alone and stay with the families of my Polynesian friends. Each vacation trip was never long enough. I would dread returning to SoCal, however, I would do so with much excitement, being able to brag about the island scene to my eagerly awaiting audiences. On one occasion before flying to Hawaii, I decided to leave my car with one of my friends from the neighborhood. He was pretty good at tinkering and fixing cars for a teenager. I asked him to work on a few things that the car needed attention on. During that time I had also been seeing a girl who lived in Orange County (OC). It was upon my return to L.A. that my friend’s younger brother informed me that while I was away, not only did his brother do nothing but rip and roar all over the place in my car, not attending to the needs that we had discussed, but in fact, he was also using my car to take out my girl. Well at least I thought she was, but I came to stand corrected. I wanted so much to just go back to Hawaii and be away from all these back-stabbers, but that wouldn’t happen for another year. When I finally did move to Hawaii did I ever get Island Fever? Nope! I’d probably be still living there today or maybe even Tahiti, New Zealand or Samoa, but my life has taken a different course since those days of my youth. Still yet, another story to post at another time.