SO I'm playing golf with Motown legend Martha Reeves Sunday and after about 16 holes I finally get up the nerve to ask her the question that's been on my mind. Tee-offs and trivia,
all in a day’s play"Martha," I say, casually swinging my driver, "What the hell is a Vandella?"
It's a cheeky question. I mean, this is Martha Reeves, who can get the entire country humming "Heat Wave" at the drop of a half-note. She had Robin Williams and most of Saigon bopping to "Nowhere To Run" in the movie "Good Morning, Vietnam."
Was the question out of line? I looked at it this way: Booker T. had his MGs, Gladys Knight had her Pips and Martha had her Vandellas. I have no clue what a Pip, an MG or a Vandella is. But this was my chance to find out.
Martha laughs.
"Honey, I'll tell ya the story of the Vandellas," she says, tossing her Titlest golf ball up and down. "See, I used to love Della Reese. I wanted to get her name in my group. And I had lived on Van Dyke Street in Detroit. So I put 'em together and came up with Vandellas."
I thought about it. I felt vaguely that I had lost some ground on the question. Hmmm. Well, I had to admit, it sounded better than "Martha and the Dyke-Reeses." I let the matter drop.
Martha hit her drive, a sort of fierce, low burner that we in Hawaii call a "Mongoose Mauler."
Martha just started playing golf a few months ago and her enthusiasm is a bit longer than her drives. But this was her first trip to Hawaii and she was determined to hit the links.
She was here to take part in the $2 Million Party, a huge rock 'n' roll oldies concert put on by promoter Tom Moffatt and radio station KGMZ 107.9. That was Saturday night. And here she was at the Mid Pacific Country Club at 8:30 Sunday morning, ready to spank some Spaldings. In my book, that's way cool.
Local car dealer Trey VeDova arranged the tee time. Rounding out our foursome was Sid Fernandez. El Sid. The former New York Mets pitcher who owns a World Series ring. I suppose you could come up with a more peculiar foursome, but you'd have to work at it.
Stumped on my Vandella question, I turn to Sid.
Tell me, Sid, when everyone is spitting tobacco juice like fire hydrants, what does the floor of the dugout look like? I mean, do you need stilts?
He's busy watching Martha knock the ball 175 yards. It takes her about five hits.
"She's getting the hang of it," I say.
Sid tells me about the time he swallowed a big wad of chewing tobacco and threw up. He then hits his ball a mile. In baseball parlance, it's what you call "high and outside." In golf, it's out-of-bounds. He hits another, which lands somewhere beyond my visual range, perhaps on Lanikai Beach.
We pop a couple more beers. Martha is having a blast, hitting the ball, looking at the ducks hanging out on the fairway and taking in the scenery. The sky is blue. Mount Olomana looms majestic and green in the background.
And I'm thinking, I'm never going to forget this round of golf.
===
The Great Honolulu Lite Real Poi Dog Contest was the second weird thing I did last weekend. Local comedian Bo Irvine and I ran 15 dogs through a series of challenges to test their poi-ness at the Hawaiian Humane Society event.
The winners were Blizzard, a Welsh Corgi-mix, owned by twin sisters Nicole and Michelle Toguchi; Cricket, a Fox Terrier-mix, owned by Liana Collins; and Nalu, a German Shepherd/yellow lab owned by Deanna Lee. Congrats to all dogs and their humans.