Everybody loves a good "how we met" story. Talking about their latest documentary, "Lahaina: Waves of Change," Myrna and Eddie Kamae reveal that the Maui town was an important stop on the road map of their 41-year marriage.

That's not their only collaboration. "Lahaina" is the ninth in their The Hawaiian Legacy Series of documentaries, in which the Kamaes chronicle a rapidly changing Hawai'i, full of bygone ambience and fading local color.

The film, which chronicles the end of the sugar era in Maui, also delves into Lahaina's history as a sacred Hawaiian place.

A CLOSER LOOK

The Kamaes dug a little deeper into their own past over a midmorning visit at Downtown, the Hawai'i State Art Museum's cafe. Myrna, the computer-savvy business half of the couple, nibbled on the edge of a sugar cookie while Eddie, still the charismatic singer of the legendary Sons of Hawai'i, sipped hot water as the tale unfurled.

Imagine it: Christmas Day, 1965.

Eddie Kamae, who'd spent his small-kid-time summers in Lahaina, had taken up residence in Waikiki with roomie and fellow Hawaiian music legend Raymond Kane.

The pair traveled to Maui to see Kamae's mother for the holiday, stopping in to play for her.

They went to a corner restaurant where "they were having a wild time," Eddie recalled, then later, a friend invited Kamae to a house party.

Now pan to Myrna — then Myrna Harmer — who had just arrived on Maui to help friends out at Pineapple Hill Restaurant where she was, as she puts it, "waitress, hostess, chief bottle washer." Before her shift, Myrna Kamae walked up to the house where the party was under way and these two fellows were making beautiful music.

It was the first time she would hear real Hawaiian music played by masterful musicians: Eddie Kamae on the 'ukulele; Kane on slack-key guitar.

"I didn't move for two and a half hours," she said with a sweet smile. "I think I fell in love with Hawaiian music first and Eddie after."

Off she went to work, where Eddie Kamae would show up later with his cousin.

After her shift ended, Myrna casually mentioned in the direction of the two fellas how she wanted to head to Lahaina town — knowing full well the cousin was married with kids.

"I was going on my trail bike, but I could go in a car," she recalled indicating.

Lucky for her, Eddie Kamae volunteered.

On the way out, Myrna grabbed a bottle of chianti.

No place was open. The pair stopped at another spot they knew — we won't go into details, because there's some question over whether the trespassing statute of limitations has run out — but suffice it to say, they drank wine and ate pilfered breadsticks and got to know each other.

He smiles broadly as he remembers kissing her that night.

It would be one of the first of many trips to Maui. Whenever anyone would ask why he was making so many trips to Maui, he'd smile and respond with one word: "Research."

Later, at their wedding, he caught a lot of teasing for his Maui "research."

FILMING HISTORY

Thirty-four years later, Eddie and Myrna Kamae returned to Maui to do a different kind of research. This time, Eddie focused his lens on the end of the Pioneer Mill, when the sugar plantation era truly came to a close on Maui.

He filmed the last harvest and went about interviewing people who remembered the Lahaina that existed between its early whaling-town days and today's hustle-and-bustle tourist center.

There were other stops before the documentary would be wrapped: This year, Eddie Kamae won a prestigious NEA National Heritage Fellowship Award, the highest honor given to a folk artist, and gave a concert in Washington, D.C.

The last time the Kamaes had gone to D.C. before this year was eons ago, for a July Fourth concert on the Mall — and they swore that would be the last.

"It was hot!" Eddie Kamae said. "I went through three shirts."

"It was like sweat squirted out of our pores," added Myrna Kamae. "I thought, 'I'm never going there again.' "

They changed their tune last month, upon returning from a near-perfect trip.

Kamae received his award and later performed with his newly reconstituted, five-person Sons of Hawai'i for three songs at the Kennedy Center. Three of Hawai'i's four-member congressional team came out to meet and fete him during the ceremony. The concert crowd of 2,000 sat enraptured and, Myrna Kamae said, the center's acoustics were "just fabulous."

"You look out at the audience, and see all these smiling faces," added Eddie Kamae. "And every act was that way. It was a wonderful time. ... The time went by so fast."

Now, he said, if the NEA comes asking again, he plans to say, "You can call me any time you want."

The "Lahaina" doc is set for a premiere on Maui, followed by a Sunset on the Beach event on O'ahu. Eddie Kamae and the Sons of Hawai'i will perform at both screenings, as part of the Hawaii International Film Festival.

It's a busy schedule for the pair, who show no signs of slowing, even as Eddie Kamae passes his 80th birthday. (Myrna Kamae will only admit to being "younger — I like to say I'm the same age, because then they say I look better.")

"We don't seem to have any choice," said Myrna Kamae.