When David came to Maui, he stayed with me; he gave our club a great Hawaiian Calabash demo. As a thank you, I gave him a piece of Koa. In the end I mailed to him, it was green and heavy. When I went to Oahu and stayed there for two months, I went to David's house often. I was getting ready to go to Raleigh to do some demos. My son mailed me Boxwood and other dense woods to David's house, along with some of my tools to chase threads. We spent a few afternoons chasing threads, and David turned this Maui Koa calabash for me to see his process. He did the inside on a different day, again with me watching. I also turned a few calabashes with him looking over my shoulder. I have one made out of Cuban Mahogany. A few days ago, I got a FaceTime video call from Andy Cole, Tom Young, and Jo Chung, David's wife. They wanted to know if this was "the" calabash that David and I had worked on. When Andy lifted the Calabash up to the camera, I broke down in tears. All the good times we had together, the times he picked me up at the airport, the nights I spent at his house, the few times he came to visit me at Straub Clinic where was wife was waiting for her heart valve replacement, that and more, all came flooding on. I sure do miss him, miss the emails he used to send me correcting my grammar. When he corrected me the first time he was worried I was going to take it the wrong way, I told him we were friends, and I appreciated the help, English is my second language. Thank you, Jo, Andy, and Tom. A hui ho, till we meet again. Calabash is 12 inches wide. Might finish it, looks like he went up to 150 or 180 grit. It will be forever in my collection.
