Aloha All,

It's funny how people remember certain events much different than one another. Even if it happened only 25 years or so ago, it still seems like yesterday to me. Maybe it seems like yesterday to Zane too. But he's got it all wrong somehow.

I did not deliberately feed him dog treats when he was a small kid. We lived right next door to each other in Kailua. Zane and his brother, Kainoa, were always at our house visiting with my son and doing what kids their age did. Zane was always hungry and would enthusiastically consume anything and everything put in front of him.. I wondered if his parents ever fed him.

One day he came into the house and walked over to the kitchen counter, grabbing something and asking, "Uncle, I can have some of these?" "These" were dog treats that looked exactly like those little snack pretzel rolls that are stuffed with cheese, and called "Combos." I was busy with something else and not paying much attention. I thought that Zane intended to take them back to his house to give to their family dog so I told him, "Sure, take them."

The next time I looked up I noticed Zane had opened the package and was wolfing down dog treat after dog treat, barely bothering to chew them before he swallowed them. Much like my dog does. Astonished, I told him, "Zane, you know those are dog treats right?" He dropped the package to the floor and with a very upset look on his face ran out of the house..

Not one minute later and my brother, Zane's dad, was over and yelling at me, "Now you've gone too far!" I'm like, "What do you mean?" I had already forgotten about the dog treats. My brother then went off on a tirade using a foreign tongue. A language I had not been exposed to prior to visiting French Polynesia. It was in Tahiti that I first encountered a Frenchman, upset with a food server. His tone, inflection, and hand gestures were exactly like those of my brother's on that day in Kailua, nearly 25 years ago.

Joe talks French! Joe talks French real goo!

Everyone take care and stay well. All our love.

mark zane rob