HONOLULU — Since returning to his childhood home this month on vacation, President Barack Obama has spent a good part of most days cloistered with three people whose company puts him at ease. They’re not his wife and daughters, who came with him, but a trio of pals whose friendship dates back to Obama’s high school days in Hawaii.

The three men — Mike Ramos, Bobby Titcomb and Greg Orme — are among the few people still in Obama’s life who knew him long before he was famous. Although their paths have long since diverged, they’ve made it a point to gather for frequent reunions, in one of Obama’s most visible links to the days when his life was much simpler and his problems more mundane.

On this visit alone, Obama has spent more than 22 hours with the group on the lush golf courses that dot the island of Oahu. When it rained, Obama and his pals went bowling, instead.

And on Tuesday, in what’s become a yearly tradition, the men and their families gathered for a luau hosted by Titcomb. With rain drizzling over Oahu, Obama’s motorcade whisked Obama across the island to Titcomb’s beachside home in Waialua, about an hour outside of Honolulu on the North Shore.

Increasingly, the reunions have become the focal point of Obama’s family vacations in his second term, as his teenage daughters spend less and less time at their father’s side. Once content to join their parents for outings to the aquarium or to get shave ice, Sasha and Malia are now more independent. Since arriving more than a week ago, Obama has been out in public with one of his daughters only once, briefly, during a hike.