KAPAI: In the changing world it's good to have our Pilot's House

The Manhattan skyline has got to be one of the modern wonders of the world for me and one that was changed forever five years ago.
I remember sitting in the back of a New York cab not long after the Manhattan skyline changed forever and not even the cabby could talk about the tragedy that took away their Twin Towers.
It was simply too painful for the cabby to korero about and these guys are tough ``mothers'', as I had found out first-hand on previous visits to a city that never sleeps.
It was still way too raw to talk about and most New Yorkers were struggling to come to terms with what these Muslim martyrs had done to their town. The haunting hole in the ground seem to command a shroud of silence, almost like it had a reverence of ``tapu'' placed upon it and I could feel the sadness and suffering of a city that supposedly never slept but had now been numbed into a nightmare where waking up was not an option.
When I stood on the viewing platform of the New Zealand Embassy with whanau who were working in Te Aporonui (The Big Apple), and looked across to where the Twin Towers once stood like a couple of giant Kauris watching over the little ngahere (bush) down on Central Park, it was as if a demonic dentist had ripped out two majestic molars from the mouth of Manhattan, leaving a giant hole that could never savour the taste of a tinsel town again.
I thought about that New York skyline a couple of days ago when I took a team of tamariki for a hikoi around Mauao. We were up behind the hot pool on the middle level of the motor camp when I stopped the 60 or so kids and their parents to point out one of the iconic landmarks of Mount Maunganui.
When I looked left to get a sighting of the quaint little cottage known as the Pilot's House my line of vision was distorted by dark shadows of developers' empty apartment blocks, and it gave me a snapshot into how quickly the skyline of Mount Maunganui has also been altered forever.
This little but proud bastion of yesteryear, that had guarded the guardian to Tauranga Moana, was now dwarfed by big blocks of concrete on both sides.
What would Captain TS Carmichael, the very first pilot for the Moana have thought today, to see 1197 huge ships a year nestle up to the dock of the bay? From where the Pilot's House used to stand on the banks of Mauao, Captain Carmichael would have had a front row seat to each and every sailing in and out of the harbour.
Thankfully the young whanau have an affinity for the old and the original, and have not been seduced by the developer's chequebook to bulldoze the beautiful little bach down.
Just like the Twin Towers of Manhattan, once a Mount landmark is gone it is gone forever and as Jill Parry so aptly said in her recent letter to the editor, Mauao is a very special two-million-year-old volcano, and is part of an ancient caldera that should not be overshadowed by a dark corridor of investors' dreams in the form of high-rises, that remain empty most nights of the year.
Thankfully, there are little bastions of light to take on the high-rise shadows in the form of beach baches, which are willing to stand up to these monetary monuments in the Mount, and the make-over the young whanau are giving their little green pilot's house will show the "big whale estate agents" what a determined dolphin can do with a lick of paint, a coat of kindness and a whole lotta love.
It was good to stand and salute the little green pilot's house with 60 kids and their koro because it was a lesson for us all to learn and enjoy.
There is joy to be found in nostalgia as there is in the rich history of the Hapu, the Iwi and the wider Moana of Tauranga, if we take the time to stop and look. And until we have our own Whare Taonga (Museum) to house our memorabilia, then these little monuments to yesteryear are more important than ever.
Kia ora to Wiremu and Marion Young for holding on to a house that holds memories for all Mounties and the wider Moana, and on a day where the world wonders what next _ while they remember the tragedy of the Twin Towers, we have our own little whare of hope down on Adams Avenue, flying a flag of freedom for the skyline of downtown Mount Maunganui.
Lest We Forget Pai marire