My Kind of Town
The Bobo scoop
>> Queen's Medical Center
It turned out that Dave Donnelly worked from his home, so all Lily Ah Sun could do was leave a message with the Star-Bulletin Features Desk. She headed for her cousin Quinn's room with the phone on.
It also turned out that Donnelly was hurrying to finish a column and catch a plane to San Francisco for the annual barstool reunion with his old pal Tom Horton. The message he received from the Features Desk was vague -- "call about Clarence 'Bobo' Ah Sun" -- and he assumed old Bobo was back in town. That wasn't just an item, it was lead item. He returned the call immediately.
"So what's up with Bobo?"
"Thank you for getting back so quickly, Mr. Donnelly, but I was hoping you could tell me."
"I don't get it. You have the same last name. You're ohana." (Call it the Lilo & Stitch Effect.)
"It sounds crazy, I know, but I'd never heard the name until I was doing some family research at the State Library recently. His name appeared numerous times in the papers, and several of those were in your column."
"Bobo was quite a character. Always good fodder. But you don't know what he's doing now?"
"No, the last information I have was in your column, in 1981. You quoted a postcard he'd sent, the Mark Twain line about his demise being greatly exaggerated."
"Sure, I remember. It was a big deal for a while there when people thought Bobo'd disappeared."
"The papers called him a 'popular entertainer.' Was he a star?"
"No, more like a Zulu-wannabe. Bobo would fill in for Al Harrington and Nephi Hannemann when they were on vacation. I think he headlined his own show for a while at the Ocean Showroom. Or maybe he was just opening for somebody."
"Ocean Showroom?"
"At the Reef. Andy Bumatai, the Beamers, Loyal Garner, they all played there."
"And after that postcard from him what?"
"I can't exactly recall. I thought maybe you were calling to give me an item for the column -- he's back in town, something like that."
"That would answer a lot of questions, wouldn't it?" But Bobo wasn't likely to return. Ho'ola said Bobo had gone bye-bye. "Well, thank you for your time, Mr. Donnelly."
"And thank you for the item."
It wasn't a lead item. But it wasn't bad. He typed: "Just wondering -- whatever happened to entertainer Bobo Ah Sun? Even family members are in the dark ..." That Bobo, still good fodder after all these years. Somebody out there had to know where he was.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be emailed at dchapman@midweek.com