Taveuni copra producers remind me of the farmer who won a fortune on a television game show. When asked by the Emcee what he was going to do with the money, the farmer replied that he planned to continue farming until it was all gone. Perhaps that's why plantation owners seem such a hard-boiled bunch, when in truth every single one of them would give you the shirt off his back including Harold, who somehow had the tag Hard Boiled attached to him.
Harold,who was both amiable, and generous but at the same time devilishly tricky. Harold couldn't resist squeezing an extra penny out of a deal even though in the next instance he would lavish gifts upon the person he was trying to outdeal.
Running a plantation is a good life but it sure as heck ain't no way to make a living. Producing copra is hard yakker. Harold was of a mind that he had to cut corners whenever the opportunity presented itself. When almost nothing was to be gained, he did it for the sheer devilment of it. One day, however, he met his match.
Harold possessed one of the smaller plantations on the island. It was really too small to provide a decent living but now that he was widowed and his offspring had left the island, his humble property would have to do him until something better came along.
The property did contain one of the most desirable cottages on the island. It lay on a shelf at the bottom of a fairly steep slope festooned with coconut palms. Tucked away behind the cottage was a chicken run. Harold's front door faced the sea. His cottage was nicely cooled by sea breeezes.
One day, he received a summons to help out one of his neighbours, who was ailing and had to be shipped off to the hospital in Suva. Harold moved into the neighbour's house at Taveuni Estates, which was then known as Soqulu Plantation /songulu/ and ran the operation. It so happened that at about that time, an American entomologist came to Taveuni to delve into whatever was bothering the coconut palms. It could have been the Coconut Rhinoceros Beetle (Orcyctes rhinoceros). I can't remember now. Suffice it to say that there is always something bothering the cococnut palms and if the palms are healthy the copra market has gone all to heck.
