Hawaii
THE terrorist attack in New York (and later on the Pentagon in Washington) was so vast that it seems television will never run out of stories and sidebars to report and let the nation get back to more or less normalcy. It'll never be completely normal, however, but you can bet the U.S. will rebound ... I recall exactly 10 years ago getting a call from localite Doug Lupton, who had just witnessed the devastation visited on Kauai by Hurricane Iniki, Sept. 11, 1991. His prediction at the time was that Kauai was so violently left bereft of its greenery and beauty by the hurricane that it would never be the same, a mere memory of what it used to be. Kauai came back, of course, and ironically, Lupton is now selling real estate there. So, too, will New York rebound. The city may never build another pair of twin towers like the World Trade Center, but it'll rebound. And woe to those who were responsible for the terrorism ... Islanders connected
to mainland tragedyEVERY TV in town was tuned to one of the networks devoting non-stop coverage to the devastation yesterday. I was lunching at Ferguson's downtown with a friend, and we agreed that we ought to pack up a planeload of Bob Kennys and send them overseas on a mission of revenge, once the ultimate culprit was identified. Kenny is about 70 now, and like "Rudy" on "Survivors," is a lifelong Marine and Special Forces unit member. As if by design, in walked Kenny. We told him of our plan and he got that look in his eye. "I'm packed and ready," he said. With that kind of resolve, no terrorist stands a chance against a nation with many such veterans ... It was also great to see the immediate positive response to a request to give blood to those who need it in New York and Washington. The lines were blocks long from Honolulu to Broadway ...
Close to home
SO many people have stories about the terrorism that hit close to home, including me. My former wife, Sheila Donnelly Theroux, was booked on the American Airlines Flight 11 out of Logan Airport in Boston Tuesday, the first to be crashed into the Trade Center, but had changed bookings at the last minute due to a non-related development in Cape Cod, where she was staying. She's now tentatively booked to return home tomorrow ... Not so lucky, apparently, was Heather Ho, 32-year-old daughter of Capitol Investment's Stuart Ho, who earlier in the year left Boulevard, the S.F. restaurant, to become sous chef at Windows of the World in the Trade Center. The last I heard, she was among the missing. Heather and my son were babies when Ho and I were neighbors/jogging partners in Manoa three decades ago ...
Birthday to remember
YESTERDAY was my birthday, one I won't have any trouble remembering where I was and what I was doing. To take my mind off the ongoing story, I lunched with Dr. David Eith at Hoku's, something of a tradition with an old friend. And I had a mind-clearing massage at Malama, sharing my birthday with that of the salon Mary Suiter opened on Sept. 12, 2000. It's only a year old, but such a success that Suiter opened another Malama next to Neiman Marcus in Ala Moana Center, is opening a Kailua store in December and is looking toward the West Coast for more. You can't keep America or Americans down for long ...
Dave Donnelly has been writing on happenings
in Hawaii for the Star-Bulletin since 1968.Contact Dave by e-mail: ddonnelly@starbulletin.com