From Aloha Hawaii
In 2007, the state froze its spending. The school in Hāna still had teams to send out.
Hāna is a town of about 1,500 people at the end of a 52-mile road from Kahului. About 620 curves. 59 bridges, 46 of them one lane wide.
The man up the road had been a lot of things before Hāna. A general's son from Brownsville, Texas. A Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. An Army captain who flew helicopters. A janitor at Columbia's studio in Nashville, sweeping floors.
Then the songs came. Me and Bobby McGee. Help Me Make It Through the Night. A Golden Globe for A Star Is Born. The Highwaymen, with Cash, Willie and Waylon.
In 1990, Kris Kristofferson moved his wife Lisa and their young children to the far end of that road. "It reminds me of where I grew up in Brownsville, Texas. It's like coming home."
At Hāna's school, they were parents like everybody else. "They are regular parents who helped out a lot," said Rick Paul, then the principal. Lisa drove the kids and chaperoned years of overnight trips. She taught mock trial for 15 years and took the tiny school all the way to the state competition.
In 2007, during that spending freeze, Lisa organized a concert at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center, and her husband played it. It raised $40,000 for Hāna's athletic department, Honolulu Civil Beat reported.
Then it got harder. In the belt tightening that followed, the state Department of Education cut its athletics budget by 30 percent, about $4 million, Hawaii News Now later reported. Two years after the first concert, another concert and a silent auction raised $27,000 more for Hāna athletics and other school expenses.
They gave in other ways too. "They bought the high school computers, wrote checks for fundraisers," Paul said.
Rich Young, the vice principal and former athletic director, described the rest. "Most of what they did was anonymous. Airline miles for sick kids and their families."
By then the words had been slipping for years. Doctors treated Kris for Alzheimer's. In February 2016, a blood test found Lyme disease instead, and much of the old Kris came back.
On February 24, 2017, Kristofferson walked onstage at the same Kahului theater for another benefit, this one for Na Keiki O Emalia, a grief support group for children. Its founder, Brooke Brown, told Lisa it sounded like they were not going home with any money. Lisa said that was right. They even gave the charity the CD sale money.
A sold-out crowd gave him a standing ovation as he walked on. Hāna made the four-hour round trip to be there: two former principals, the current principal, the vice principal, teachers, school bus drivers, a ranch hand, and the mechanic who keeps Lisa's cars running.
Kris Kristofferson died at home in Hāna on September 28, 2024, with his family around him. He was 88. That was two years ago today.
Kris and Lisa gave airline miles to Hāna's sick kids. Hāna kept him home for 34 years.
His ʻohana's statement ended with a rainbow. When you see one, they wrote, know he is smiling down at us all.
Hāna High and Elementary still teaches the town's children, pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, at the end of that same road.
The miles came with no name. The school still stands.
Today marks the three hundred and thirtieth birthday of the Frenchman François-Marie Arouet, better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire (1694-1778).
Born into a bourgeois family during the reign of Louis XIV, the “Sun King” (r. 1643-1715), Voltaire suffered tragedy at a young age when his mother died. Never close with his father or brother, Voltaire exhibited a rebellious attitude toward authority from his youth. His brilliant mind was fostered in the care of the Society of Jesus, who introduced him to the joys of literature and theater. Despite his later criticisms against the Church, Voltaire, throughout his life, fondly recalled his dedicated Jesuit teachers.
Although he spent time as a civil servant in the French embassy to the Hague, Voltaire’s main love was writing—an endeavor where he excelled in various genres, including poetry, which led to his appointment as the royal court poet for King Louis XV. Widely recognized as one of the greatest French writers, and even hyperbolically referred to by ...
Padre - Tom Miller invites you to a Coffee Talk, Speakeasies, Schmoozes, Tea Times, Afterhours and other gatherings.
https://teams.live.com/meet/93792382189049?p=DiBHsYfuECPgDrG7vO
2026 Coffee Talk with the ADD Irregulars
Thursday, January 1, 2026
6:00 AM - 8:00 AM (CST)
Occurs every day starting 1/1 until 12/31/2027
Coffee Talk - Daily beginning at 6:00 AM Central Time Zone - USA
White Pilled Wednesday - A break from the heaviness of news and current events to focus upon things more personal & positive for the first hour of Coffee Talk.
Afternoon Chats - Most Tuesday, Friday & Sundays 2:00 PM Central
Other chats as posted in the community.
Good morning, digital neighbors! Happy Friday, my fellow pilgrims across Locals & Substack! The forecast for next week looks downright chilly, with lows in the 40s and highs in the 60s. It will make for some wonderful mornings and make that hot coffee even more enjoyable. We shall see what it does for the long-awaited autumn colors.
One cannot rush the turning of the seasons, and the trees let go of their leaves without any drama at all. Not a bad example for those of us who cling to what we can't keep and fret over what we can't control. I often wonder how much time I have wasted on things I can't affect in the least, except to express frustration and aggravation. It is difficult at times to find the balance when you venture forth on the internet.
I want to be aware, not obsessed. I want to be informed, not consumed. I can strive for self-possession or surrender to groupthink and herd feeling. It can be challenging, because the sense of belonging and the desire for connection are real. Most ...
XIII
The Proud Minister
One day there came into the Garden a man in torn clothes badly bruised and cut, who said to the Lover, “In the name of the Beloved I demand your help.”
So the Lover and the Disciple let him in and dressed his wounds and prepared the best of the vegetables from the Garden for him to eat. When his wounds had been dressed and he had eaten and rested the Lover asked him how he had fallen into this plight, to which the man replied, “I was Minister of the Beloved in a city near this place, where I preached His gospel and expounded His doctrine to the people. I pointed out to them how their sins had made them wholly hateful to the Beloved and how therefore they were utterly beyond the range of His love and He would condemn them to eternal torments, whereon some fell into despair and wept bitterly but many were angry. One day the magistrates called me before them and begged me to leave the city and preach elsewhere for they said I had made many people so angry and desperate that they feared there might be a riot and they might not be able to protect me but that I might suffer some injury. I, however, very zealous for the Beloved and believing that the magistrates only feared that their own sins might be proclaimed, preached the more vehemently, denounced the magistrates and made it abundantly clear that the whole wicked city was foredoomed to eternal punishment by the just provision of the Beloved. Whereon a mob, stirred up no doubt by the corrupt and venal magistrates, fell upon me with sticks and stones, nearly killing me and driving me out of the city in the state in which I came to you.”
“My friend,” said the Lover, “this was not a good deed of yours, for besides denying the unfathomable compassion of the Beloved, you have by your obstinacy caused these people to commit a grievous sin, and this cannot be pleasing to the Beloved, that through you who profess to be His minister the people should become worse. Surely you remember that He Himself said, ‘If they persecute you in one city flee to another.’”
Therefore the man was very angry, and cursing the Lover, said, “I see that I have had a very false report of you and I do not believe that you are a servant of the Beloved at all. When I came to you so injured for the Beloved’s sake you set before me only herbs and fruits although the garden is full of birds which you could have killed to make me a worthy meal. I shall proclaim everywhere that you are no true servant of the Beloved but a mere falterer who dares not suffer in the cause of the Beloved. Be sure that you are foreordained to eternal torments who suffer nothing here.”
For the man was so blinded by his own pride that he could not perceive the scars on the hands and feet and the brows of the Lover nor how the cloth beneath the armpits of his tunic was dyed with a red dye. So he went out of the Garden cursing and shouting.
But the Lover looked sad and said, “A man like this does much harm to the cause of the Beloved, for by thus speaking falsely about the Beloved he may bring men to fear Him but none to love Him, and by love alone can any man approach the Beloved.”
