When I was planning my blog post topics for August, I considered writing about today being the 64^th anniversary of the statehood of Hawaii. I thought the 64^th anniversary was a ho-hum time to draw attention to it, so I planned to write about a different subject today.

Then the wildfires erupted on Maui. Fanned by hurricane-force winds, the fires became a raging inferno and in the blink of an eye, at least 1,100 human lives were lost (as 114 deaths have been documented and more then 1,000 people are still unaccounted for as I write this.) Thousands of homes and businesses were destroyed and thousands of people were left not only homeless but with nowhere to work.

A 200-year-old church sanctuary was destroyed, as well as the local public library – along with everything else in the town of Lahaina.

There is speculation that the fire was sparked by a tree connecting with a power line. However it started, it was fed by low level winds created by Hurricane Dora some 300 miles away and another weather system thousands of miles to the north. The converging wind circulations of the two weather systems created a recipe for disaster.

Should someone or a government agency have seen it coming and issued warnings? That’s not for me to say. This isn’t the time to place blame. The wounds are still too raw. I’m sure the situation is being carefully investigated. I hope the result will be improvements that will give residents and tourists in the future a better chance to evacuate.

Hawaiians should be celebrating the islands’ statehood today, but instead they are in mourning for the lives, beautiful landscape, jobs, history, and property lost in the wildfire.

It’s too early to tell the prognosis of the massive 150-year-old banyan tree on Front Street in Lahaina. I understand it was quite a local landmark.

Lahaina was the ancient capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii, which makes the total destruction of the town even more painful and significant.

I’m old enough that I remember when Hawaii became the 50^th state in the United States. We heard about it at home and we talked about it at school. It happened during the first week when I was in the first grade. It was a big deal.

Hawaii is 5,000 miles (or 8,000 kilometers) from North Carolina. I didn’t know anyone who had been there on vacation and couldn’t dream in 1959 that I would ever know anyone to do so. Even by the black-and-white photographs we saw, we could tell it was an exotic place of incredible beauty.

Hawaii still holds a mystique for me and probably most Americans in the other 49 states. I don’t expect to ever visit the state, but the photographs of the lush green of the land and azure Pacific Ocean waters on all sides bring the word “paradise” to mind.

A sizeable portion of paradise on Maui got burned beyond recognition just over a week ago. The landscape is changed forever. I’m sure people will rebuild most of the structures that were destroyed, but lives and artefacts cannot be replaced. The history of the place will only live in the hearts and minds of the people who knew the area before the sudden fire.

Since my last blog post

I finally finished formatting The Aunts in the Kitchen: Southern Family Recipes except for the introduction through the help of Atticus.io. It was beginning to look like it was only going to be an e-book, but technical difficulties caused by my ignorance were eventually ironed out. My sister and I hope to publish the cookbook on Amazon in paperback as well as for Kindle in November. I’ll let you know when it is available.

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a good book to hold your interest this week. I hope it inspires, educates, and entertains you.

Appreciate your friends and relatives, even if they disagree with you politically.

Remember the people of Ukraine and the Island of Maui in Hawaii.

Janet