Spirit of Aloha | Features | May/June 2003

slippa culchah
By Sally-Jo Keala-o-Anuenue Bowman

Slippers are sooo us! They're the best expression of our Island lifestyle - casual, comfortable and definitely cool

In the beginning, Hawaiians went barefoot. Then, with Japanese immigrants, came an improvement: rubber slippers. Or, in local pronunciation, rubba slippas. They have the toe-wiggling, open-air benefit of bare feet and the protective effect of shoes.

Fashionwise, slippas say Laid-back. Casual. Easygoing. Cool, in more ways than one. Perfect for Hawai'i's climate.

Hawai'i's favorite footwear is as local as shave ice, as ubiquitous as shorts. In some circles, shorts, slippas and puka T-shirt are de rigueur.

Nearly every Island doorstep is a repository of slippas while the barefoot enter within. Some people don't even own shoes. When I was a kid, we each had one pair of shoes, which we wore on special occasions. If it rained while they were on my feet, I took them off and protected them under my skirt. Only years later did I find out that shoes aren't jewelry, but actually serve a function.

Today's Island kids are as trend-conscious as their North American counterparts. Some of them have jumped the fence and are wearing clunky athletic shoes. But more are going for the more fashionable variations of the slipper, the kind you get at places like the Slipper House-really nice slippers, with footbeds of suede, smooth leather or tatami over crepe soles, maybe in wedgie or platform styles. You can choose classy straps of leather, velvet or floral fabric, or skinny spaghetti straps festooned with artificial flowers.

The classic rubba slippa, though, is to those high-class slippers as Bud Light is to an IPA microbrew. If you're going to a lu'au Saturday night, then Slipper House is the place to shop. But if you're going to pick guavas on Saturday morning, the preferred provider is Longs Drug Store.

Slippas take people to the supermarket, to school, on interisland flights, even on Macy's escalator, which posts the injunction, "No Japanese Slippers." With the beer-budget variety, you can get them wet, sandy, glopped with red mud. Need a shoe shine?

Hose 'em off.

While you wait for them to dry, let's partake of another Island institution-"talking story."

Saved by the Slippa Pass

When I was a teen, we boarding students returned every September to Kamehameha Schools after a summer of foot freedom. On Day 1 of classes, we all wore the required shoes. On Day 2, most of us lined up after breakfast at the dispensary for blister treatment-and the coveted "slipper pass," which allowed us to wear slippers to class until the blisters healed. I always hoped my blisters would last until Thanksgiving.

Weapon of Choice

The slippa is one of Hawai'i's great social levelers. Another is the cockroach. Or, as it's called in the slippa world, cock-a-roach. In Hawai'i, circumstances often bring the two together.

Once, while visiting my Auntie Betty in Nu'uanu-a fastidious housekeeper with a University of Hawai'i degree in home economics-she wanted to show me something downstairs. She was in her mid-80s, had had both hips replaced, and walked gingerly, with a cane. On the stairs, she clung to the banister. But when she spied an enormous cockroach on the landing, she forgot it all. In one smooth, split second, she whipped a slipper off her left foot and whapped that sucker straight to cock-a-roach heaven.

Hiking Slippas

When I was on Kaho'olawe for the end of Makahiki one January, we made an overnight hike, an 11-mile up-and-over-the-top traverse of the length of the island from Hakioawa to Honokanai'a. One of the organizers advised me to bring a pair of athletic shoes for the trek.

"That would be best," she said. "Although," she added, "I'm going to hike in rubber slippers." And she did.

Driving Slippas

Some years ago, I was at my brother's home the evening of my niece's prom. Her grandmother fussed over her skirts. Her mother tried to stuff Kleenex down her bosom. All of us peered through the louvers when we heard her date's Volkswagen Bug chug into our lane. This was a guy she barely knew. He'd never been to the house before. He parked the vehicle behind the neighbor's mock orange hedge. A minute passed. Another minute. No date. Two more minutes. Had he fallen in the mock orange? Got the date jitters and split?

At last he appeared, lei over the black sleeve of his tux, shoes gleaming on his feet. We took a couple of pictures, and off the young ones went.

Later we learned the truth of his time-out in the hedge. He was putting on his shoes. Like many of us in Hawai'i, the only way he'd ever driven was barefoot-or with slippas.

Slippa S.O.S.

My grandma friend Nanette has a daughter who moved with her family last year to El Paso. Within weeks, Nanette received a desperate letter from the 10-year-old twins. They enclosed a ten-spot. "Please send us rubber slippers," they wrote. "We left ours outside the door and Mandy the dog ate them. Please get as many slippers as you can. This will cover shipping, too. Love, Cheyenne and Kaitlyn."

"I go to Longs," Nanette recalls. "Slippers are on sale for $1.19. I buy four pair, pink and green. I go to Walmart. They're only $1.09. I buy four of those. They're black." With tax, she's shot the 10 bucks.

"I shove them in a bubble pack with a note-'The shipping's on me.' I go mail the package. It costs me $14 to mail $10 worth of slippers."

When I last saw her at her home on Kaua'i, her own stash of back-door rubber slippers cascaded from a hanging mesh basket, out of harm's way.

Later, I saw my friend Lovey. When I mentioned my rubba slippa writing project, she sighed contentedly and said, "When you can take off your shoes and put on your slippas, that's when you know you're home."

Free-lance writer Sally-Jo Keala-o-Anuenue Bowman is the author of "Inventing Holidays Island Style," which ran in the November/December 2002 issue of SPIRIT OF ALOHA.

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