The Plane Flight

While flying to the Mainland in early 1988 I was standing in the rear of the plain. At that time the airlines allowed passengers to smoke in the rear of the plain. While having a smoke I was in conversation with multiple people enjoying the same past time. 

Keeping in mind none of us had a clue who each other were, a few stories began to pop up. 

There were the standard stories of their experiences on Waikiki Beach and various other parts of the islands that I had hear time and again after living in the islands for about 5 years at that point. However one story caught my ear with an alarming familiarity. 

As young gentlemen began to spin his yarn, I leaned in and listened closely. He began his story talking about working on a rather large property over on the Big Island and how some very nerving occurrences began to unfold while he was working there.

He explained how he and a few other workers had been hired to clear some land of debris. One of the tasks was to level and remove an old house from its foundation. While running a tractor, one of the workers felt the ground shake furiously under the tractor. About that time the tractor quit running and the operator hopped down from the driver seat and left the property permanently. Later on they had several Mechanics attempt to start the tractor with no success. Once it was pulled off the site the engine started right up the job was finished by hand. 

At this point I was fascinated at the detail he was sharing about this situation. Then he told me what convinced him he had had enough of Hawaii. 

He and his fellow workers where spending the nights on this property since there were no inexpensive provisions in Hawi or Kapa’au at the time. One evening while sleeping on cots one of his fellow workers complained of hearing screaming or chanting near his cot.  No one else heard a thing. At that point he began to complain of something holding him down as he attempted to get off the cot. His fellow works looked on at his as if he were completely out of his mind. In an effort to play along they went to his rescue and attempted to lift him out of his bed but something was in fact preventing them from lifting his body out of the cot. They continued their attempts for a few more moments until for no reason at all; they were able to spring him from his cot with little to no effort. 

The crew was pretty shook up at this point. The young man who experienced this enigma literally ran from the property that evening and never returned. Days later he called from Oahu requesting his check be mailed to him and that he did not plan to return to the Big Island.  

I explained how fascinating his story was and how no one was going to just through that story together. He assured me it was no fairytale and that in fact it really happened that way he explained it. As we took our last drag and put out our cigarettes I asked him where all this took place. He calmly explained I would have never heard of this place. It was tucked away deep in a place called North Kohala and that few new of its location. He called it Greenbank. At that point I told him who I was. Our conversation ended abruptly.