Page 2 - Hawaii Island MidWeek - July 6, 2022

2 HAWAI‘I ISLAND MIDWEEK JULY 6, 2022
Just Listen
“The world is giving you answers each day. Learn to listen.”
THole-ier Than Thou
here are so many great lines about the game of
We live in a noisy world.
Human noise reaches into every corner of our islands, and our lives are filled with our own contributions: talking, driving, computers, playing the radio, machines of all sorts. The “noise” isn’t just physical. Even silent activities add to the cacophony of life, as we push out emails, texts, ads, chats, blogs and all.
the soundscape insulate us. But when we learn to not hear the noise around us, we also turn inward and learn not to hear those around us.
golf. It’s a four-letter word. It’s “flog” spelled
The students I work with are joyous participants in our world’s cacophony, and their ears are so full, they can barely take in what others are saying, and yet they crave being heard. In our discussions, the bit they hear — clearly, every time, without fail — is not what I say than whether I listen.
and something everyone can do, even though learning to lis- ten well takes practice. Amidst all the noise, we can choose to gift time each day just to listen — to the world, to others, to ourselves.
Dr. Ruth O. Bingham, a mu- sicologist by trade, has retired from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa; she continues to serve as music critic for the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
Chasing The Light is pro- duced by Lynne Johnson and Robin Stephens Rohr.
backward. Paul Harvey allegedly said, “Golf is a game in which you yell fore, shoot six and write down five.” The list of great golf lines and anecdotes goes on and on.
According to the author, the act of listening is free and something everyone can do, and learning to listen well takes practice.
And then there’s the hole-in-one. For weekend hack- ers, it’s golf’s holy grail, something to talk or brag about. So meet Daniel Young. He runs Young’s Fish Market, but nowadays he might be better known as that guy who’s made six holes-in-one over the past year. Six! Most people never make one, and he’s done it six times in 12 months! Oh, and two aces were on par 4s at O‘ahu Country Club (No. 10 and No. 17).
Most of the time, we ignore the noise surrounding us, but in moments of stillness, when we let our ears relax and our listening expand, we begin to hear the layers we have tried to shut out. Even as I sit in the “silence” of my office, I hear doors slamming, people talking, keyboards clicking,
air conditioners blowing, traf- fic rumbling past outside, air- planes overhead and construc- tion two buildings over.
And, to be honest, don’t we all crave that? We want — need — to be heard, and the currency of our lives is time, so taking time to listen is a power- ful gift, as precious to ourselves as to others.
Ask him to what he attributes these amazing feats, and he’ll tell you “mostly luck.” True dat. Like most golfers, Daniel picks his weapon of choice, takes into account the wind, slope and his hole history, and elegantly strikes the ball, hoping that it lands on the green. As a one-handicap golfer, often his ball does land there, and every couple of months this past year, his tee shot has ended up in the hole. The odds of a low handicap golfer scoring a hole- in-one is estimated at 5,000 to 1 — it’s 12,500 to 1 for an average hacker. If you play 25 rounds annually for 40 years, you apparently have a 20% chance of acing a hole.
Our instinct is to protect our- selves, and it’s hard to remain open amid noise. To avoid be- ing overwhelmed, we carry our listening in close and focus on our own little bubbles, letting
Fortunately, listening is free
– Carla Vendrell
with
Dr. Ruth O. Bing-
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But back to Daniel. Tougher than a hole-in-one (it seems) was simply keeping the family business going during COVID. Catering, which represented 30% of Young’s business, became “basically nonexistent.” Even today, Daniel estimates that 20% of scheduled catering jobs get canceled due to last-minute COVID problems. But much like on the golf course, he focus- es and perseveres. He took over this third-generation family business eight years ago when his beloved pro- prietor father, Alan, passed away unexpectedly in Japan while on a rare vacation.
Daniel and dad took up golf while Daniel was at Kailua High School. He’s simply a recreational play- er, at work by 6 a.m. daily, who plays maybe three rounds weekly. Odds of getting six holes-in-one in one year? I looked it up, tried an abacus and even spoke with the National Hole In One Registry; ap- parently such stats don’t exist. But this amazing feat shouldn’t go unnoticed or unmentioned. Daniel will be the “fore”-man “fore”-ver.
Think about it ...
john@thinkaboutithawaii.com