t one time, the beauty of the town of Hilo, Hawaii, with its verdant hills full of sugar cane, wide expanse of ocean and rocky coastline, was lost on Dominick Peloso.
As a teenager growing up in the rural town, Dominick worked 60 acres of sugar cane fields for his uncle in the summer, earning a buck an hour and sleeping in his grandfather's rat-infested house. All he saw in that scenery was more back-breaking work.
"After the harvesting machine came by, a lot of the cane would be left in the mud," he says. "So we had to dig down with one hand, and with a machete in the other, chop it and throw it into the next row so the machine could get all the sugar cane."
But thinking back on those 12-hour days, the 53-year-old Menlo Park police commander and an ordained Catholic deacon says the experience set the foundation for his work today.
"It's an experience I wish most kids could have because you wouldn't necessarily take things for granted," he says. "You didn't have things like heat and homes, a clean bed and flush toilets."
Dominick, who says he wanted to be a priest since he was 12, had some relief from his job during the rest of the year as a student at St. Stephen's Seminary, a high school located in Kaneohe that prepares boys for the priesthood. But even then, his schedule was chock-full of activity from the moment the boys got up at 5:45 until they went to bed at 9:10. Still, those days were the best of his life, says Dominick.
"It was great to be up in the mountains at a beautiful spot like that," he says. "I was shy then, but I got to know lots of kids from all the different islands."
Dominick's experience on the mainland was in stark contrast to his days on the island. After graduating, Dominick left the familiarity of Hawaii and headed for St. Patrick's Seminary in Menlo Park. The move, he says, turned out to be a traumatic one.
"It sounds strange coming from me, but I felt very much like a fish out of water on the mainland with all these what we called 'haoles' or Caucasians," he says. "And there's a real different culture here as far as attitude and the way people look at life and what's important."
Everything, including the food, took getting used to, he says.
"We had lots of local food, which is heavily Asian and which I grew up on and thoroughly enjoyed," he says. "If you went on a picnic, you went and got sushi and a Coke. Here, you get a ham sandwich -- a ham sandwich! It felt weird."
It took at least four years to fully adjust and he says he stayed because he felt obligated toward his parents and family friends, many of whom were priests, to forge ahead.
But after dealing with a difficult time that included the death of his father and a struggle with his faith, Dominick left the seminary in the 1970s and took a job with the Menlo Park Police Department. Along the way, he married his next-door neighbor, Mary Ellen. They have three children and live in Menlo Park.
Dominick's faith eventually returned, and even though he could no longer be a Catholic priest, Dominick was ordained a deacon last June. Deacons assist priests by performing baptisms and marriages. They can not say Mass or hear confessions.
The two paths of his life often intersect, says Dominick, and in many ways the two are similar. He explains that both primarily are male-dominated societies, whose members wear uniforms. And while one deals with mortal and venial sins, the other deals with felonies and misdemeanors.
"Both are also professions that have great camaraderie," he says. "If a Catholic priest hears about the death of another priest in San Francisco, he is very likely to go to the funeral." The same occurs in law enforcement, he says.
Perhaps more importantly, he says, both careers have provided a full and happy life. As a police officer, Dominick has arrested many people -- some several times. But because, as he says, he always "played it straight," many of his former suspects have become friends.
And next month, Dominick will have the distinct pleasure of performing the ceremony at his son's wedding.
"I am looking forward to it, yeah," he says with a grin. "But not because I'm doing it, but because my son is getting married."
