Eddie Aikau - Life

Life

Born in Kahului, Maui, Aikau was the third child of Solomon and Henrietta Aikau. Aikau first learned how to surf at Kahului Harbor on its shorebreak. He moved to Oʻahu with his family in 1959, and at the age of 16 left school and started working at the Dole pineapple cannery; The paycheck allowed Aikau to buy his first surfboard. In 1968, he became the first lifeguard hired by the City & County of Honolulu to work on the North Shore. The City & County of Honolulu gave Aikau the task of covering all of the beaches between Sunset and Haleiwa. Not one life was lost while he served as lifeguard of Waimea Bay, as he braved waves that often reached 30 feet (9.1 m) high or more. In 1971, Aikau was named Lifeguard of the Year.

Read more about this topic:  Eddie Aikau

Famous quotes containing the word life:

    Both Eliot and Pound condense; their best verse is weighted—Pound’s, with sensual experience primarily, and Eliot’s with beliefs. Where the mind’s life is concerned the senses produce images, and beliefs produce dramatic cries. The condensation is important.
    R.P. Blackmur (1904–1965)

    It is not growing like a tree
    In bulk, doth make man better be,
    Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
    To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
    A lily of a day
    Is fairer far in May
    Although it fall and die that night;
    It was the plant and flower of light.
    In small proportions we just beauties see,
    And in short measures life may perfect be.
    Ben Jonson (1572–1637)

    Art is not a treasure in the past or an importation from another land, but part of the present life of all living and creating peoples.
    Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)