Dogist?

"Did You Say Dogist?"

I try to take my dogs for a decently arduous walk each evening around sunset when I am not shooting a wedding or an event at a resort. Which means we have been taking many a sunset walk the last couple of years. Times have been quite lean for sunset photography and me of late. 

The other evening I took Duke and his shadow, uh Shadow for a hike to an empty subdivision located directly mauka (uphill to you mainlanders) of where I live. It is a rather steep climb up a paved road containing some 20 or so one and two acre lots graded and waiting for well to do Californians to come and build their Hawaiian Kona coffee farmettes. I have watched over the last three or so years as the developer continued to survey, grub, grade and create a very nice upscale subdivision of empty lots with underground utilities in place just waiting for those well to do's to snatch them up and build their dream second-homes in Kona, Hawaii.

As I have watched the progress of this endeavor during my dog walks each afternoon after the workers had gone home for the day, I surmised that who ever was funding this project must have had the whole thing paid for in advance and that there was no benefit to shutting down the work as every other development was doing in the toilet flush of the current economy. No,  he must have already paid to get this thing finished and he couldn't afford not to get it done. That's what I figured anyhow, you have a  lot of time for idle thought when you march a couple of dogs up a hill each day for an hour. 

Tonight as the earth beneath me rolled the static sun towards the western Pacific sea surface an Ford F-150 work truck came downhill and scrunched to an abrupt stop some ten yards below where I and the dogs were standing staring westward. I knew it was a work truck because it had a generator and various shovels and tools in the rear bed and of course there was the logo and name of the construction company on the doors.

You can tell much about a mans intentions by the way he walks towards you. And I discerned that the man who climbed out of the truck slamming the door behind him was not about to tell me that he had just found a big bag of hundred dollar bills and was wondering if I wanted have half of them.

He was a construction boss, not a shovel bender or a nail pounder, you could tell by his demeanor. He wore steel toe boots, Levis and a neon green t-shirt with his companies logo on the front. Ten steps later we were a two feet apart looking at each other.

"I don't like people walking their dogs up here." He spouted with vigor staring straight at me.

"Really?" I said

"Yeah, really!" He spat back.

"Why?" I asked "Are you a dogist? You're prejudiced against dogs that it?"

"Dogist?...what?...no dammit!...I hate people letting their dogs come up here and shitting all over the place!"

"Oh!...dog shit, Ok I got ya...then we have no problem, were cool." I happily laughed "My dogs don't shit" I told him. "Yeah, I got them fixed, they don't shit anymore." I told him pleasantly.

He looked at me for a second, pursed is lips in preparation to refuting what I had said and slowly looked down at the ground, he bent down and picked up a softball size piece of jagged A'A lava rock and upon straightening up stood and looked looked at it menacingly.

Now, prior to his arrival I had pulled my new smart phone from my pocket and was planning on taking a sunset photo and sending it to my sister Susan who at the moment would be enduring the June gloom of Laguna Beach. And as such I still had the phone in my hand as we began our interchange.

I managed to misfire off two shots of the mutts before I had the camera in what I thought was the right position to catch the shot of this fellow lunging at me with a sharp rock aimed at my head.

I believe that what I was thinking was if this guy drops me with that rock I would be able to snap a shot of the attack and leave it beside my body for the CSI Kona team to find and avenge my death:

Kimo Kealoha and Jack Cabacungan make up the first and second halves of the CSI Kona team.  George Ishimoto is the third half but he's on vacation in Vegas with his family. Kimo and Jack stand and stare at my body in the glow of the head lights of their Hawaii County issued Turbo Mustang police car. They call in the crime and look around for something to do till the ambulance arrives. Jack ostensibly looks through my pockets for any ID or any loose cash he can find. Kimo picks up my new smart phone and tries to see if he can find any fun games he can play till the meat wagon arrives.

"Eh! Try look" Kimo says to Jack as he stares at the screen of my new smart phone, "Got one pitcha of one haole buggha holding one rock same kind as da one stuck in da maki haole's head!"

"Shoots brah! I betchyu dat buggha da same one done puka'd dis haole!" says Jake to Kimo.

At this point I drift back to reality and see that my friend with the rock has let out a snort and a giggle.

"Did you call me a dogist?" he asked, and before I can answer he throws the rock down the hill and snorts an funny laugh.

"OK, you and your shitless dogs are cool" He turns to walk away towards his truck and chuckles over his shoulder: "Been a shitty day all way round..." and climbs into the truck and heads makai (Towards the sea to you mainlanders).

As I watch him drive away I feel Shadow pull at the end of his leash and look over to see he is squatting and pitching a stinky growler just beside the road.

You always hear them say that timing is everything, and in this instance it is certainly a true. 

Sometimes a dog walk is just that and others it is so much more. The guy who accosted me owns the twenty something million dollar parcels that have been sitting unsold for two years and probably will be well into the future. Me, Duke and Shadow looked like a good punching back after a frustrating day. I tracked him down the next day and told him I had recently taken some good aerial photos of his subdivision and would sell them to him at a discount to help him market the land. 

It should be interesting to see his reaction when he see's me in person again holding a disc of aerial photos instead of a couple of leashes. 

Laters...Brian