Family Tree

At Hashimoto Farm, persimmons are a way of life, generation after generation.

 

Matt Thayer

 

Photography by Matthew Thayer

Puffs of powder-dry red soil erupt with each step as young John Hashimoto makes a beeline through a field dotted with 500 spindly persimmon trees. His trembling arms burn from the weight of five-gallon water buckets clenched in each hand.
   
Reaching a far corner of the farm where his father, Isami Hashimoto, kneels by a tree, working with sticks to prop it up straight, John picks a flat spot to set the buckets down. He is careful to not spill one drop of precious water, and then stoops quickly to grab the handles of a pair of empty pails. Isami Hashimoto takes note of his son’s heaving chest. “Help water these trees, then you go back for more,” he says.
   
Slowly, together, they pour water at the base of newly planted persimmons along Pulehuiki Road in Kula. The parched soil repels the life-giving liquid, at first, but as the ground moistens, it begins to drink the water in. The deliberate process gives John time to closely examine the trees that are causing him so much work. They seem so thin, the limbs so spare, it’s hard to imagine they will ever bear fruit.
   
Those sun-filled days on the bucket brigade were John Hashimoto’s earliest memories of the family’s five-acre farm. The trees planted in the early 1920s did indeed take root and grow. So much so, stout wooden frames now stand around each tree to help support the immense weight of the bright orange fruits as they ripen each fall.