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Hawaii
THANK goodness life isn't always a metaphor. On my just concluded California trip, I left my borrowed trenchcoat at the security checkpoint, but since it was 103 degrees in Sonoma, I scarcely needed it, and got it from Lost and found
in San Francisco"Lost and Found" on my return. I was in Sonoma both to visit friends and to make calls to find digs in sold-out S.F. While there, I saw the new home of retired KHON-TV exec Jack Kellner and wife Tomeko, who live directly across the street from the old Sebastiani family estate and its lush gardens ... Right around the corner from the Kellners is Dave Ford, who oldtimers will recall as a late night movie host with Jim Humpert on Honolulu TV. He's now an advocate of marijuana use, would you believe, and even wrote a book on the subject, a copy of which he autographed for Jack Kellner. Not completely retired, the former Channel 2 exec now works part time in a winery tasting room, pouring samples for visitors ... I dined at an Irish pub called Murphy's in Sonoma -- some habits are hard to break ...
OH yes, the metaphor reference! I stayed for two nights at a bed and breakfast one block from the Bus Stop Bar at Union and Laguna in Cow Hollow. A blow up of my column with a highlighted item about Arnold "Kelly" Kalechewski, a regular there who played basketball for the UH Bows for about eight years in the '50s and '60s, unbeknownst to the NCAA. Kelly died a few weeks ago and now both he and the column, which was on the wall there for 25 years, have been buried. I was praying the same would not be true of this one and the Star-Bulletin while I was away ... On my return, still blissfully ignorant of the status of the paper, I found my car's battery had died. Luckily, both seem healthy today, which is more than can be said about prospects for the S.F. Examiner, sold by the Hearst Corp. to the owners of the S.F. Independent, the Fang family ...
Fangs a lot
LUCKILY, I had great accommodations at the home of an airline exec who was away for several weeks, and spent the rest of my visit with a great view of the Golden Gate bridge and the bay ... A S.F. Examiner writer friend told me the Chronicle was putting the entire Brand Ex staff on the payroll in late November, just as the Fangs take over. Does it really take two entire newspaper staffs to put out one paper, goes the thinking, or is this merely an interesting ploy to keep Examiner staffers from staying? Then came a call from a telemarketer offering free Chronicles delivered daily at home for two months for only the price of a Sunday paper. That offer, too, expires when the Fangs take over ...
Fellow travelers
WHILE dining at one of my favorite little local eateries, La Felce, the wife of the owner came up and said that the man in the corner would like to buy me a non-alcoholic beer. And there sat Waimea resident Bobby Hans with wife Pam, who had somehow found that little eatery off the beaten tourist path ... I ran into localite Ed Reinhart in the Buchanan Grill, where my old buddy Mike McCourt holds forth behind the bar. Since "Angela's Ashes," he's now known as "Frank McCourt's brother." And as ex-Advertiser columnist Tom Horton and I sat at Momo's, across from Pac Bell Park, he puffed on a Cuban cigar and mused, "Whenever I smoke one of these, I always ask why I ever smoke anything else." He's done well with his Stinson Beach Grill, witness his new Mercedes ... he final report on my trip to S.F. will be dealt with tomorrow ...
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: ddonnelly@starbulletin.com