The E-True Hollywood Story Behind Haysoos the Honu, SHELLSHOCKED! MY LIFE ON THE HALF SHELL...

I've had quite a few people ask me about how Haysoos came to be and why on earth would someone who's not even remotely in the publishing world (and has no children) write a children's book. Those are all good questions. Pretty much the answer to all those questions is: by accident. Of course many would say, nothing happens by accident and I would agree but I'll let you read the story and you can decide on your own. Some time in December 2007, I was shopping for a toy to contribute to the Marine Corps Toys For Tots drive organized by the Hawaii motorcyclists. The idea is that about 3000 riders from around O'ahu ride around the island and at the end, each contribute a toy to the USMC drive. That year, I randomly shopped at a Ward's Center kids shop and found some cute stuffies picking a turtle because, you know, it's Hawaii and giraffes don't exactly say "Hawaii" not that some child on the other end would know the difference. But I was going to make my $14.95 count at least in my own mind. Good thing too, because I don't think Haysoos the Monkey has the same ring to it. Fast forward a few days to the morning of the ride and I'm heading over the Pali Highway from Kailua to Honolulu on the tail of a rainy night. One of the neat things about Hawaii is that you get all kinds of rain (a la Forest Gump - think Big Ol' FAT Rain!). This rain had left major debris in the road and by the time I made it over the other side of the mountain, my motorcycle was making a thumping noise. After a brief search, I realized that not only was there major plant debris in the road, but lots more. A 6" construction nail was embedded in my rear tire. I sat stunned that the tire hadn't exploded causing a major catastrophe at 60 mph and I miraculously survived what could have been something very ugly. Meanwhile, my little gift to the USMC sat in my bag, un-donated. After tow complete and safe back at home, the little stuffed turtle sat on my counter, looking a bit contemplative (he does have a little sewn in smile but you have to really look for it) and we began joking that he was my own personal Jesus. Thinking that might be too much, he was nick-named Jesus but with the Mexican flair. And so "Haysoos" was born... Haysoos began joining us on our romps around the island and mysteriously showing up in pictures. After a year of slowly working his way into our lives, it was make-or-break time. I left for a year long deployment to the middle east in March of 2009 and it was decided that Haysoos needed to come along. At this point, I needed any kind of reminder of Hawaii in order to maintain my sanity. What I didn't realize was that Haysoos had other plans. He was becoming a force all of his own. He joined me at Ft. Jackson, SC for training and somehow managed to work his way into pictures there, joined to in Kuwait where he worked his way into more pictures and when I made it back to Hawaii for R&R in October of 2009, Haysoos once again joined me for the journey, becoming my own personal Flat Stanley. It's lost to history where the idea of a Face Book page originated. But somewhere after Hawaii, we had enough pictures to start a Face Book page just for the stuffed turtle. And then not long after, I started receiving requests from family to please send Haysoos because they wanted to take pictures with him over the holidays. Just like that Haysoos became the world traveler and the rest is history. Sea turtles are migraters by nature so it does make sense. The intricacies of his personality have been discovered along the way with the help of friends and family. By far, the most interesting is Haysoos' penchant for Elvis. He's been wearing that Elvis jumpsuit for so long, it's worn off the gold lamay. Time to get a new one! In any case, it would be incorrect to assume that Haysoos and I have the exact same tastes - of note, he loves sea weed salad and I prefer steak but we still coexist nicely... To date Haysoos has traveled *unaccompanied* to: Atlanta (twice), USS EISENHOWER, Afghanistan, Seattle, St. Louis, Missouri, Michigan, Rhose Island and I think Alaska. He's jumped from a C130 and flown in both a Black Hawk and F18 Hornet. On trips with me he's been to Kuwait, Arizona, Utah, California (numerous), Colorado (twice), North Carolina (numerous), Michigan (numerous), Ohio, Hawaii (many!), and Alaska (numerous). Where ever he goes, it seems adults more than kids seem to come out of their shells :) It's very refreshing. So....the book. Where did THAT come from? Again, lost to history but I think it was a random goofy question from a friend along the lines of "when is Haysoos going to write his autobiography?" The running joke was that he'd write a tell-all about his rowdy days and it would come out something like, "Haysoos the Honu - Shell Shocked: My Life on the Half Shell" but we know our little guy is all about clean organic living and spreading the Aloha. When I shared an idea of a book with the friend to whom the book is dedicated, Madam Butterfly, she responded in a manner that could only be described as "enthusiastic". She called me back later that day and left a voice mail that I wish I still had today which was a primary driving force for generating the much needed motivation for actually researching book publishing. For those of you who know nothing of the publishing industry, know that it's freaking daunting. I'll leave it at that. The original idea was one I still may do so won't divulge but when I sat down to actually write (and we still have the original hand-written manuscript for posterity), the words that can only be scribed as channeled - totally and completely different from what I had intended. It flowed in one sitting and even after many editings, the story was essentially untouched (including all my big words). For lack of a better way to convey how this particular idea came to fruition, Haysoos is his own man but the story is mine so the existing book is a great aggregation of us both. I am grateful to have such a great character through whom I can express my message. The last challenge lay in finding a publisher. Once again, if you are unfamiliar with the world of publishing and were to start researching websites in order to submit a manuscript, you might give up and quit after just a few searches. Which I did many times. The publisher with whom I went (www.mascotbooks.com) fell into my lap through a friend and is a self-publisher so essentially I paid to put my message out there. When you buy a book, you buy it from me through a warehouse. It makes the marketing a huge challenge because we're a marketing team of exactly two - Me and Haysoos but the payback of getting out our message is well worth the sizeable financial investment. So far, the best compliment I've received has been from my cousin. I sent her a copy knowing that it would be a good read - she's dealing with cancer and chemo, no doubt a tough road to go down and if you're not good with your "shell" in this scenario it's going to be even tougher as you watch your shell change with the chemo. She wrote me a very short yet succint email saying essentially this is a great children's book but adults need to read this. What great words; how can we teach our kids that they are fine as they are if we aren't as adults. So that's the unabridged version. We like to joke that Haysoos is a man of the world but really he's just my alter ego - the one that wants to savor every minute as special, enjoy each day like it's the last and always know that no matter where you are, home (in this case Hawaii) will be there for us when we are ready to go back. We hope you make exceptions to the 41 year old woman who carries around a stuffed turtle because I've seen enough people to know that inside each one of us is a similar character even if you don't wear it one your sleeve like we do. We hope you enjoy the story of Haysoos Aloha and Happy Sunday, Kristin, Haysoos and the Big Lebowski