Guido spangler
for the agesDON'T race to get there, but comes a time in our lives when we meet, say, a pretty girl and her opening comment is, "I think you know my mother." Call it a verbal stab in the heart or a shot of sobering reality. It happened in spades to Guido Salmaggi the other day. Guido, the former Vice Consul of Italy here and one-time head of auditoriums for the City, returned recently from Florida where he's been residing of late and he's been making the rounds of places to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner," the major passion in his life these days. The other day Salmaggi, who's in his 80s but doesn't look it, was stopped in the supermarket by a woman who is herself a senior citizen. She asked if he were Guido, and naturally he smiled and said he was. She stunned him with, "My grandmother remembers you so well singing during the war years..." The rest faded off. Says Guido, "Maybe I'm older than I think!" ...
Level it or raise it?
I MET a gent named Tom Williams in San Francisco who is dedicated to getting more blacks into the coaching ranks. He calls his firm Level Playing Field Inc. Now "level playing field" I've long considered to be one of the two most overused sports cliches, however noble the intent. The runner-up, incidentally, is "raising the bar." Cliches are everywhere you look. Just this week we had Bruce Morton on CNN and a spokesman for the S.F. Redevelopment Commission quoted in the Chronicle using "level playing field." Then our own Paul Arnett wrote about how lowering the number of football scholarships "raised the academic bar to record NCAA heights." David Letterman checked in Tuesday by saying CBS "60 Minutes" "raised the bar, set the standard," for TV journalism. This reconfigurative language is lowering my tolerance and raising my ire.AND my least favorite word in journalism, "arguably," gets taken to task by Steve Brill in the current issue of Brill's Content: "A wonderful word. It lets you off the hook. It lets you report rumor or surmise without concern for evidence. It is laziness personified." ...
THE 26th annual backgammon championships at the Pacific Club and Harry Tanoue became a three-time winner. The 1989 and '92 champ beat second-place finisher Paul Lyons, who won in 1996. Ending up third was Kevin Aoki, son of Benihana founder Rocky Aoki, also a backgammon fiend ...
REPUBLICAN candidate for governor Linda Lingle dropped by the fund-raiser for GOP lieutenant governor candidate Stan Koki, but didn't stay to see the show, missing the likes of Kelly Boy Delima, Jesse Rivera, Kawika Kahiapo plus Loyal Garner and Leon & Malia ... Henry Kapono and KGMB teamed to produce a video highlight of the singer's career called "Henry Kapono: Home in the Islands." It's in record and video stores ...
Toy Story
WHILE Charlie Memminger contents himself in writing his Star-Bulletin column thrice a week, his daughter, Sarah, is already going national at the age of 10. She's one of 100 kids picked nationwide to be a product tester for Zillions magazine. Zillions is a kids' version of Consumer Reports, the magazine that researches, tests and rates products. Each year, Zillions picks 100 kids to test and rate toys, food, sports equipment, etc., for kids. Testers were chosen based on their idea for a magazine spokes-character. Sarah submitted "Good Buy Gopher," who "digs up information on toys" and rates them "Good Buy" or "Good Bye." Good girl. Good going. ...
Dave Donnelly has been writing on happenings
in Hawaii for the Star-Bulletin since 1968.
His columns run Monday through Friday.Contact Dave by e-mail: donnelly@kestrok.com.