Honolulu Lite
ON the mainland, people like to compare Florida to Hawaii. Florida is just like Hawaii, only closer, they say. Florida’s got
nothing on HawaiiWrongo. If anything, Florida is a dysfunctional version of Hawaii. It's hotter, buggier, stormier and it's the last place in the country you'd want to spend your summers.
Last summer the entire state was on fire. While everyone in Florida whines about the state's voting machine problems, they should be doing something to make the state less combustible.
This summer in Florida, the sharks are revolting. Not revolting in the "gag me" sense, but revolting in the Che Guevara-down-with-the-man sense. Sharks have turned parts of the Florida coast into a land-food buffet. During one recent surfing contest, sharks nibbled at three separate surfers who handled the attacks in typical laid-back surfer style. ("Dude, where's my foot?")
Hundreds of sharks have been seen congregating off shore. Oceanographers aren't sure why. It could be they are mating. It could be they are feeding. Or it could be they heard that Dream Team defense attorney Johnnie Cochran was coming to town to sue on behalf of the shark attack victims and they just wanted to welcome Johnnie, you know, one shark to another.
Cochran is probably going to sue the hotel where the victim was staying because, well, the hotel has more money than the beach concessionaire who rented the future entrée the air mat. And suing the shark is out, because, as we noted, professional courtesy.
THE FAMILY of the victim, who was not badly injured, was upset that lifeguards did not jump in the water while the man was being chewed upon. Here they confused the Lifeguard Service with the U.S. Secret Service. Despite plenty of "Baywatch" evidence to the contrary, lifeguards are not expected to take a bullet, or a shark bite, for anyone. There's a difference between pulling a drowning victim out of a rip current and prying him out of the mouth of a shark: One is dangerous, one is just stupid.
Despite the large number of shark attacks in Florida, no one has been killed. That's another example of how Florida and Hawaii are different: The sharks here don't nibble. The difference between a Florida shark and Hawaii shark is the difference between a Chihuahua and a Rottweiler. A shark bites you in Hawaii and you know you've been properly bitten by a professional.
In Florida, a shark managed to bite a kid's arm off, which was horrible. But then a passer-by dove into the water and wrestled the arm from the shark. The arm was reattached and the kid is doing fine now.
That could never happen in Hawaii. A shark that had a severed limb yanked from his mouth here would be a laughingstock. He'd be drummed out of the Shark Guild.
In Hawaii the sharks are called Tigers and Hammerheads. In Florida they are called Nurse sharks. Enough said about Florida being just like Hawaii.
Alo-Ha! Friday compiles odd bits of news from Hawaii
and the world to get your weekend off to an entertaining start.
Charles Memminger also writes Honolulu Lite Mondays,
Wednesdays and Sundays. Send ideas to him at the
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-210,
Honolulu 96813, phone 235-6490 or e-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com.
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