A Shore Thing

Coming to Schofield was like visiting a part of America that no longer exists. From Here to Eternity was Jones's postwar analysis of life's basic pleasures and responsibilities. Some of those responsibilities, so obvious when Jones was a young soldier, such as doing an honest day's work and fighting for your country, have been debated and redefined many times since. As for the pleasures, they've hardly changed, and Hawaii still has plenty of them to offer.

Back on the road, I remembered something Jones had written about the two Hawaiis, the fake one for visitors, "this happy land . . . the tourists saw from the outside," and the real one inhabited by the people who live here. With the real Hawaii said to be rapidly disappearing, finding what's left of it, I was told, can be a challenge, particularly on Oahu. But the farther north I drove, the closer I seemed to come to the Hawaiian reality Jones had in mind, or, if not, something very different from Honolulu.

There were little villages in the hills, and people selling shrimp and pineapple along the road. I bought a $3 bag of pineapple chunks (plastic fork included) from a man operating out of the trunk of his car, under which several chickens had gathered for a siesta. "They're wild," he said. "And you should see them go crazy when there's a mongoose around." Chickens aren't the only ones. Oahu apparently has a big mongoose problem. The weasel-like creatures were imported years ago to help control the island's rat population. But rats are nocturnal and mongooses hunt by day, which means the two most likely have never met. It gets worse: The mongooses have been dining on some of Hawaii's rare birds.

The small beach towns along the coast appear to be populated entirely by surfers. There were surfers in gas stations, surfers in grocery stores, surfers everywhere; male surfers, female surfers, young surfers, middle-aged surfers and senior-citizen surfers; surfers of every race and shade of tan, living in sync with the rhythms of the ocean, which is what brought them here in the first place.

Waimea Bay fills a rugged cove at the foot of the mountains. Just up the road is a Catholic church, and as I pulled into the dirt parking lot next door, I noticed a sun-bleached statue of Christ wearing a lei, the ideal place to pray for surf. From the beach down below I got my first close-up look at the waves, which were so rough only a few surfers had the nerve to go out. The competition was several miles away at Sunset, but with so much "wind slop," as an off-duty lifeguard called it, there wouldn't be any "money surfing" today. When I told him it was my first trip to the North Shore, he gave me some safety tips.

"Never turn your back on the ocean," he warned, telling me about a man and woman who were walking along the beach recently when they were caught by a wave. The man was saved, but the woman was never heard from again.

What about sharks? I asked. "Sharks are like dogs," he said. "If you're not afraid, they won't bother you."

But sharks are just one hazard, and for surfers they're not very high on the list. The waves can be deadly. Pushed up by winds that sweep down from Alaska, they are not to be taken lightly. A surfer can easily be killed if he wipes out on a coral reef. The best surfers are as fearless as bullfighters, the lifeguard said. And this time of year when breakers can reach heights of 20 feet, they put their lives on the line every time they ride one.

The competition had been called off, but there were still a few participants gathered on the beach at Sunset. "This is the Mount Everest of surfing," said Rainos Hayes, coach of a team sponsored by Billabong, surfing's equivalent of L.L. Bean. Today, however, was a disappointment. "I'd give it . . . a two," declared Hayes.

Heads nodded.

"Rainos talks, people listen," said Guy Frazier, a surfboard designer who stopped by to hit the waves before going back to work. "I try to get in two or three hours every day . . . You surf?"

When I admitted I hadn't in some time, Frazier frowned. "I guess you don't live around here."