Bill Cook, Jimmy Clark
IT seemed like a great time to get out of the apartment for a few days, what with workmen underfoot and a bathroom which had been ripped asunder in preparation for a total makeover. That necessitated the removal of both tub and toilet. So I hopped a plane to the Big Island to visit with old friends Bill & Patti Cook. The line I kept hearing wherever I went over the weekend was, "A long way to come for a shower." There were variations on the line, but Big Isle folks being basically nice, I heard "shower" more than anything else. And curling up in bed in chilly Waimea with the rain coming down outside sent me firmly into the hands of Morpheus for the first time since the Arrival of the Workmen ... Big Isle no escape
from black cloudI DROVE my little rent-a-car straight to Cook's Discoveries, the made-in-Hawaii shop the Cooks operate in the old Spencer House, soon to be 150 years old. There I was met by my hosts and ex-Honolulan Dee Dickson with the somber news, "Pat Pitzer just died." I knew the editor of Spirit of Aloha magazine had been ill, but the last time I saw her she looked healthy enough. I had just read a story she wrote on the chef at the Four Seasons Maui called "Restoring the Spirit" on the plane flying over. The irony hit me that the last time I was on the Big Isle, the Cooks, Pitzer, Dickson and I dined together at Morningstar Manor, the bed and breakfast Dickson operates in Waimea ...
THE very next day Bill Cook greeted me with, "Did you know Sen. Richard Matsuura?" The minute anyone asks a question about someone that begins, "Did you know...?" you know that person has died ... Suddenly I began to wonder if the black cloud my friends in San Francisco swear follows me around could also be at work on the Big Isle. In S.F. I'm known as "Disaster Dave" because earthquake, fire, flood, shootouts, sinkholes or any kind of natural or man-made disaster seems to hit when I'm in town ...
IT was a short drive to Hawi to see old friend Dick Boyd, ex-owner of the late, lamented Boyd's bar in the old Alexander Young Hotel Building. Boyd's now retired, save for some occasional substitute teaching. He and wife Kehau were celebrating the fact that they'd just gotten a call from UH wahine basketball coach Vince Goo who told them Kehau's daughter Ki'i Spencer-Vasconcellos had won a full scholarship to play at UH ... We lunched at Bamboo, an old hotel turned whore house turned restaurant. The menu gives a history of the place and the food was wonderful. I asked our waitress if there was still hanky-panky going on upstairs and she deadpanned, "Not 'til after 2 a.m." She was kidding. I think ... Boyd's East
SITTING in the bar at Bree Gardens, watching the basketball playoffs on a monster screen and waiting for the Cooks to get out of a community meeting, I saw a familiar figure stroll in. It was Brett Uprichard of Honolulu Publishing, who he did a double take worthy of Groucho Marx. He said he thought he'd walked into Murphy's by mistake ... Former State Legislator Jimmy Clark walked into Cook's Discoveries with a saddle he'd just finished making, and wanted to put up for sale at the shop. He's become a master saddle maker and is thinking about teaching the art ...
NO sense being in the Kohala area without getting my first look at the newest resort there, the Four Seasons at Hualalai. It's a gem, a series of two-story buildings with private apartments upstairs and down. No hotel-like corridors and everyone you see on an outdoor pathway, guest or staffer, seems to greet you with a cheery "Good morning." Unbelievable, but the current owners tore down a highrise under construction and built a complex more suited to the environment, taking advantage of natural pools and creating new watery adventures. And you have to love the Jack Nicklaus designed golf course. Not only is there a vast expanse of green on which your ball can land, but after the ninth hole you're greeted with a container filled with complimentary cookies, individually wrapped. Yummy ... Resort for all seasons
Contact Dave by e-mail: donnelly@kestrok.com.