IS the aloha spirit dead? Personally, I don't think so. All you have to do is take a trip to the mainland, or even better, some other country, to remind yourself of how different Hawaii is. In search of that
elusive AlohaI remember driving around a picturesque little Oregon town, waving people through four-way stops and committing other random acts of kindness that we take for granted here. It just jammed up the works. "Stop being nice, it's just confusing everyone," my brother said, after my attempt to let someone go first through a four-way stop first caused gridlock.
But that is nothing compared to driving in other countries, where traffic lights, lines on roads and signs are considered by most drivers to be nothing more than hypothetical suggestions. I took a cab ride in Seoul that was so hair-raising it took 10 minutes for my knees to stop knocking after I was deposited in the Itaewon shopping district. And I probably would have remained affixed to a lightpole for the rest of the day except a cloud of pepper gas from one of the daily student riots wafted through and caused me to flee to the back of a shop selling counterfeit Gucci handbags. I'll take the smell of cheap leather over pepper gas any day.
You come back to Hawaii after a trip like that and the Aloha Spirit is palpable. It embraces you like 300-pound auntie on high school graduation day.
But after you've lived here for a while, you notice grades of Aloha Spirit. It is like the weather or the stock market. Today's Aloha Spirit Outlook: Partly apparent with scattered sightings in the morning on the leeward side and a growing accumulation of Aloha Spirit mauka in the afternoon.
And I have to admit, sometimes it seems that the Aloha Spirit has just up and left town. Everyone seems crabby and on edge. On those days, I feel like the Aloha Spirit has ducked underground, like the ground hog who comes out and tries to see his shadow. Maybe we need a little Aloha Spirit Mongoose who can skitter out of the field, then look up and down the highway to see if he can see one of those huge beer trucks. If he does, then we are in for three more weeks of Aloha.
Walt Woodall, a Hawaii Kai painting contractor, hasn't seen the Aloha Spirit Mongoose for awhile. He's a little down. He was born in Hawaii and is one of those guys convinced the Aloha Spirit has slipped away. In fact, he thinks he knows when it happened.
"When people started tucking in Aloha shirts," Walt told me. "That's when we lost the Aloha Spirit."
And I have to say, he may have something there. I've lived here most of my life and I remember when only a geek would tuck in an Aloha shirt. Aloha shirts were MADE to wear outside the belt line. Right? It was the essence of being laid back and the foundation of the entire "Ain't No Big Thing Philosophy." Then someone started tucking in Aloha shirts and it is so prevalent that wearing an Aloha shirt out now looks sloppy.
"Bankers started it," Walt alleges.
It's hard to disagree. Although I think it also was a plot by flat-stomached show-offs who just couldn't let some of us belly-endowed guys look good by wearing baggy shirts. Walt and I agreed we need to refine the concept of Aloha Friday, when people are supposed to wear Aloha attire to work. It should be Aloha With Shirts Not Tucked In Friday.
So, guys, next Friday, if you are going to wear an Aloha shirt, don't tuck it in. That includes bankers. If this works, Walt and I will try to capture the Aloha Spirit Mongoose and put him on display in Waikiki.
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
or send E-mail to charley@nomayo.com or
71224.113@compuserve.com.
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