I was walking on the strip of sand in between the ocean and lagoon when a very little girl with golden skin, chubby legs, bare chest and  brown ringlets – the last as captivating as heck! – went past me in a scampering wobbly run, her age-appropriate version of doing a Usain Bolt.

Since she was so little and all alone, I felt compelled to stop and watch her just to make sure that she knew where she was going and that she was safe. Two gray-haired women behind me stopped as well, one of them exclaiming with delight, “Goodness! is that the cutest thing you’ve ever seen or what?”

We stood and followed the infant’s meandering progress, all of us a little concerned. Then, after about twenty seconds, a very fit looking island gal in a white bikini cantered past, saying over her shoulder, “She’s my daughter.”

To which the woman who had spoken earlier, declared, “She did know where she was going. She was running away from her mother.”

I burst out laughing. Both her utterances were so perfectly apt for this delightful little slice of sunshine on a Hawai’i beach.