Thirty years later ...
IT was back on Dec. 16, 1968, that a small story appeared in the Star-Bulletin which was headlined, "Our new columnist." It read, in its entirety, "The Star-Bulletin today introduces a new columnist who - until now - has been better known to Honolulu as an actor, producer, radio-TV personality and part-time contributor to this newspaper. Dave Donnelly is going to write Monday-through-Friday on the events of Hawaii as seen from his particular point of view." And so it has been for the past 30 years. The photo of a clean-shaven youngster reprinted here appeared with the story, and the first of who knows how many thousands of columns ran the same day. (Until his dying day earlier this year, Sam Sanford used to ask just what I meant when I described him in that first column as a "lounge lizard.") The particular point of view may have changed somewhat over the past 30 years (and whose hasn't?) but it's still out there and, one hopes, still being read. My friend Herb Caen wrote his column in San Francisco for more than 50 years, and while that record will go unchallenged, let's hope there's a few more out there ...
Kazoo (Gesundheit) it
AT the early morning Aloha United Way meeting yesterday, Wally Amos, the cookie man, showed up wearing a kazoo on a string around his neck. He is to the kazoo what Kenny G. is to a saxophone, and plays it whenever he has a chance. As the meeting was drawing to a close, someone mentioned there were 7 minutes left and they should take advantage of it. So Amos played "Jingle Bells" while some of the town's movers and shakers and top military men in the Pacific joined in singing, helping everyone get into the holiday spirit of giving ...attorney general Margery Bronster was filling her car with gasoline yesterday at K&Y Chevron when I pulled in for a safety check. Manager Frank Young, who'd agreed to do the check earlier, was bending her ear about gasoline prices and I berated him for cajoling without a license. Bronster just shrugged it off, saying "When I go to the supermarket I get hit with supermarket issues." The upshot was that it comes with the territory ...
SPORTSCASTER Jack Weirs on KHNL ought to know better than to say of new UH football coach June Jones, "Offense is his for-tay." It's a trap so common, pronouncing the mono-syllabic "forte," with two syllables, as if it were the Italian musical term "forte," meaning loud, which does have two syllables. Sorry, but it's still a major pet peeve, though it's been sorely challenged of late by the overuse of the track and field expression "raising the bar." ...
HERE'S a "Catch 22" that's welcomed. Local companies are poised to "catch" what's heading their way - and it's not the flu. Successful returns on HMSA investments have allowed them to reduce December dues by half, resulting in $22 million being dropped into the local economy. And well worth catching! ...
Net worth
YOU may remember actor Richard Anderson as Oscar Goldman, boss of "The Six Million Dollar Man" on TV. Anderson, who's an avid tennis buff, was practicing some of his strokes at the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel when pro Jay Paulson commented on his "six million dollar backhand." Anderson deadpanned, "There's been a rewrite. It's now the "six billion dollar backhand." He was referring to a new film slated for release in the year 2000 which, due to inflation, one supposes, is being called "The Six Billion Dollar Man." ...
See also: Still Dotty After All These Years
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.