Stepping through the doorway of Old Queen Street Stadium in Kaka‘ako is a bit like stepping through the wardrobe to Narnia, only if instead that closet led to an even bigger closet. The difference, though, is nonetheless transformative: It feels like every square inch of the shop’s dorm-sized space is used to showcase items dating back decades, ranging from high schools to the pros. Therein, all manner of memorabilia narrate different episodes in the story of island sports from the midcentury to now. 

Most prevalently stocked are shirts, jerseys, hats and jackets with the funkified greens, oranges and rainbow logos representing teams from the University of Hawai‘i. The crown jewel is a gamer from legendary baseball coach Les Murakami, namesake of UH baseball’s home field, though the UH-themed WWE-style championship belt — one of only seven in the wild — is a scene-stealer. A little extra digging into Old Queen Street Stadium’s wares will also reveal pieces from the other four university athletic programs: the classic blues and whites of Hawai‘i Pacific University and Chaminade University, the bold blacks and reds of UH Hilo, and some splashes of crimson and gold from the now-sportsless BYU Hawai‘i.

The idea for the shop started out as a labor of love during the early days of the pandemic in 2020. A trio of Kalihi boys, Kevin Faller and brothers Chester and Kevin Sebastian, organized monthly pop-up events at a restaurant on Queen Street for vintage collectors and enthusiasts to meet up and ostensibly buy, sell, and trade with one another. But the real reason people kept turning up was to swap memories, sharing old stories and hearing new ones for the first time…

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I’ve always been an animal lover. As a kid I cried with a mysterious intensity after my guinea pig Twinkie died, my first taste of grief and loss.

I write this now to the sound of my dachshund Thor barking in the next room at some phantom intruder, while my other dog Peanut — a derpy pandemic pup who wakes me up every morning by plopping a toy on my face — rests at my feet. Outside, my cat Boo is silently stalking a lizard. My wife and I refer to the three of them as the Goon Squad.

Animals of all sorts have enriched human lives since we organized into societies, as sources of food, beasts of burden, hunting partners and of course, as domestic companions. Konrad Lorenz, the Nobel Prize winning zoologist who spent his life studying animal behavior said that anyone who has spent time with animals and is unconvinced that they have feelings is psychologically deranged. 

I agree with him. Though the Goon Squad clearly possess a different type of emotional repertoire than I do, it is obvious that when I am in a room with them, I am not alone. As the field of ethology expands and develops, it has become clear that most animals experience an interior life much more sophisticated than we tend to think, from apes and orcas to pigs and crows. This includes animals we typically consider to be dumb, like cows and fish. 

And, yes, also chickens, those pesky descendants of dinosaurs running rampant across Hawaii, from mountainsides to shorelines and everywhere between…

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