One of the reasons I quit being a reporter at the Maui News in 1990 was because I came to realize that I would be spending my life writing the same stories over and over again, a reporter’s Groundhog Day.

This realization came to me when I was researching a story in the archive of The Maui News in 1935 and came across a story that was about the crappy quality of play at the county’s Waiehu Golf Course that was almost identical to the story I had written on the same subject a week previously in 1989.

In the 1980s, I had the West Maui beat, and a frequent story was about locals being shut out of the public beach parking, about the hotels — particularly the Hyatt Regency — occupying the beach with their lounge chairs and umbrellas or just the loss of public beach access in general. The chief advocate for the local folks was Wayne Nishiki.

So, imagine my sense of deja vu reading in The Maui News recently about Maui County Council taking action to defend locals’ right to access the beach and that protests were launched about hotels dominating Wailea beaches. The protest leader: Kai Nishiki.

Once a tourist, upon learning that I was a reporter for the local newspaper, asked in all earnestness: “They have news here?” I should have answered him, yes, it just keeps repeating itself.

On a positive note, I have not seen the reoccurring story about the crappy play at Waiehu Golf Course recently. I guess things must have improved.

Dave DeLeon

Haiku