Honolulu Lite
I have to admit, I got a little teary eyed seeing Hok Get, the castaway canine, in her little red lei when she arrived in Honolulu after her rescue from the abandoned Indonesian tanker. Hok Get columnist all teary eyed
I didn't get misty because the little tyke, the Tanker Terrier, the Pacific Pooch, was so darned cute, even though she was. I got choked up because I was already missing this story. Columnists live for tales like this, of a Marvelous Marine Mutt who survives against all odds and shows that there still is a bit of humanity left in this weary world. I had not begun to deplete my arsenal of animal clichés, my painfully playful piles of alliteration and delightful doggie double-entendres. This story had legs. The Hawaii Humane Society refused to play dead, to just sit and let poor Hok Get roll over into the sea. Critics barked and growled at the amount of kibble spent to fetch the hapless hound.
See? I was loaded for bear, or Forgea, anyway. Forgea is what everyone thought the dog's name was for most of the time she was lost at sea. People in bars argued about how to pronounce her name: For-JEE-ah? For-jah? For-gee-ay?
As it turned out, the dog's name was Hok Get, which made all the bickering over Forgea seems pretty silly. Hok Get is a much better name from a newspaper point of view. Headline writers can go to town: Hok Get Rescued! Hok Get Disney Contract! Hok Get Thrown Into Quarantine!
The dog looked confused when members of the world media shouted "Hok Get!" at her when she landed last week. You've got to figure she's been hearing "Hok Get" in a Chinese accent her whole life, and all of a sudden a bunch of English speakers are mangling her name. As people shouted her name, she tilted her head and looked over her shoulder, like Robert De Niro in "Taxi Driver." ("You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me?")
Now Hok Get is safe and the story will disappear, leaving me with my half-finished "Song of a Sea Dog." It was to be sung to the tune of the theme song from "Gilligan's Island":
Just sit right back and you'll hear a tail,
A tail of a fateful trip,
About a doggie left alone,
On a burned-out, drifting ship.
Her master was a sailing man,
His crew was all top shelf,
But when the poo-poo hit the fan,
It was every man for himself.
Every man for himself.
Poor Hok Get was left behind,
To live on rats and tears,
But she knew one day she'd survive and then sue the hell out of everyone who left her on that stinking boat, you bastards!Well, it still needs some work. But now with Hok Get rescued, it will never get done. And that's too bad because that feisty little dickens deserved her own song.
I've got to stop. I'm tearing up again. Hok Get, I'm gonna miss you, girl. And your sizzling sea saga.
Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com