West Mauian carved his own niche, despite hardships
by Rob Parsons
 |
 |
 |
The
business card he handed me many years ago read, "West Maui Big Kahuna,"
fitting for the tall, athletic Colorado native who moved to Maui in
1988, following an older brother who lived in Lahaina. I met Christopher
Harstad during my previous incarnation as owner/operator of Grand Wazoo
Piano Moving, and he often helped provide muscle for deliveries. Chris
would always arrive by bicycle, always shirtless. In fact, Chris never
owned a car, and with good reason.
Soon after arriving on Maui,
Harstad had his first epileptic seizure. Initially, he experienced them
once or twice a month. But despite medication, their frequency increased
to two or three times weekly. His illness made it challenging for him
to hold steady employment and provide for himself. Yet he lived with
great passion—for educating others about his disease, for advocating
bike lane safety and for beach and ocean sports.
Chris Harstad
died earlier this month after suffering another seizure. In an emotional
memorial service two weeks ago, family and friends waded into the shore
break at D.T. Fleming's beach—his favorite bodysurfing spot—to spread
his ashes.
"Chris really connected with Maui, really loved it
there," said brother Mike, who built custom homes on the Valley Isle
before moving to Washington state. Chris was the seventh of nine kids,
and Mike said he got into a bit of trouble before moving to Maui. "He
was sort of the black sheep," said Mike.
Chris was unflinchingly
garrulous and outspoken. Rolling a piano through the Ritz-Carlton's
hallways in Kapalua, it seemed as though he knew almost everyone
employed there.
Over time, he worked at Leilani's and Pineapple
Hill restaurants, Drexel Brothers Construction and helped stage events
with Ehman Productions, Showpower and ESPN. Chris worked as a production
assistant on Xterra, the Mercedes Championship at Kapalua, Kaanapali
Classic, Skins Games at Wailea and the Sony Open on Oahu, and was also
involved in TV and feature film projects.
His best friend, Blythe
Douglas, met Harstad 20 years ago, playing Frisbee on Kaanapali's
Dig-Me Beach. They often bodysurfed and enjoyed freestyle beach Frisbee
together, and Douglas reached out to help Chris with medical
appointments or other obligations so he wouldn't have to depend on the
MEO bus schedule.
"Harstad was famous for quoting, 'If you don't
have your health, you don't have anything,'" said Douglas. "He was
grateful for just the simplest things in life. We are grateful to have
had him in our life. He was family to us."
It often took Harsted
days to recover after a grand mal seizure. Some years back, I saw Chris
for the first time in several months. He had suffered a seizure while
cooking at home, and his entire forearm was scarred from second-degree
burns.
In late 2004, I lent my Ford F-250 truck, "Big Blue," to a
friend for a weekend move. In a lapse in judgment with dramatic
consequences, he asked Harstad to drive my truck while he drove his own.
Watching
a Sunday morning football game on TV, I was interrupted by a frantic
phone call. Rushing to the scene in my wife's car, I arrived at North
Kihei Road to find police, ambulance, my friend sitting at the roadside
with his head buried in his hands and my truck crumpled into a beachside
kiawe tree. Harstad had slipped into a seizure while driving,
rear-ended a few cars, crossed the center-line and drifted off the road.
While the truck was totaled, amazingly Harstad escaped with minor
injuries.
His bicycle was his preferred mode of transportation,
and he rode daily. He was adamant about protecting bicyclists by
ensuring that cars didn't encroach in designated bike lanes, sometimes
yelling at those who did. "I told him he was a Bike Nazi, you know, like
the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld," his brother Mike told me. "He just laughed
at me."
Bicycling on the curving road near Honolua Bay a few
years back, a vehicle swerved into Harstad's bike lane and nearly hit
him. He hollered at the driver, who stopped, got out and came at him
with a machete. With traffic stopped, Harstad managed to put the
attacker in a headlock, at which point the driver's girlfriend came out
and started kicking him. Matters were settled in court some months
later.
Mike came back to Hawaii in July 2005, when Chris
underwent complicated brain surgery in Honolulu to try to control what
prescription drugs could not. Symptoms may be controlled by medication
for many with epilepsy, wrote Claudine San Nicholas in a Maui News
feature about Harstad's operation. But Chris fell into a smaller
percentage, roughly one-third, whose maladies were not abated. Thus,
Chris was willing to undergo a lobectomy, or temporal lobe resection,
after extensive testing to locate the area of the brain responsible for
his seizures.
The Maui News article was accompanied by a photo of
Harstad, broadly smiling, with his dark hair shorn in a buzz cut and 40
metal staples in a large upside-down U-shaped incision above his left
ear. Harstad was optimistic about a better life following the
surgery—but it was not to be.
Two years ago, Chris finally
received a full Social Security disability judgment for his illness. He
also found help through Section 8 housing, and the Food Stamps program.
He applied for and received a medical marijuana card to help moderate
strong side effects from his anti-seizure medicine, but could not
maintain the cost.
Chris called me periodically over the past
year, imploring me to write a story helping to educate police and first
responders about medical alert bracelets. Apparently, he had a
post-seizure event where he left his home one night disoriented and
unclothed, and was tasered by police, who must have thought him to be on
drugs and dangerous.
Chris was deeply upset by this event. He
didn't want to condemn the Maui Police Department for what happened,
only to shine a light on the special needs of those who wear medical ID
bracelets.
"He wanted to make sure the police were aware of this
issue," said brother Mike. "He designed a poster with a peace sign on
it, and he wanted it posted in the MPD locker room." He wanted badly for
his side of the story to be told, added Douglas, and to emphasize that
taser guns should not be abused.
I told Douglas I felt a bit
guilty I hadn't always returned Chris's messages, or found time to bring
his story into print—until now. "I think we've all felt that way at
some point," Douglas replied. "Lately [his wife] Clarissa and I asked
ourselves, 'did we do enough?'"
As we gather with our 'ohana for
Thanksgiving, we can be grateful for many things, including good health.
And as waves thunder from the first big ocean swell of the season, you
can bet that riding on one of them is the spirit of the West Maui Big
Kahuna, Christopher Harstad.