Hawaii
Dave’s roots are
showing -- they’re green!AS S.F. three-dotter P.J. Corkery wrote in his Examiner column yesterday, going into Moose's eatery on Washington Square on Paddy's Day was like "having lunch with your gene pool." That's about the way I felt at Murphy's Monday, though I made my escape before things got wildly out of hand. Kanoa Leahey, like his legendary dad and granddad before him, was there -- he's half Irish, anyway. Though judging from the Stone Fox he left with, his Irish genes take precedence over the Portuguese ones ... The frivolity and quaffing of beverages came to a quiet point at 3 p.m. when President George W. Bush delivered his ultimatum to Saddam Hussein. At its conclusion, some young folks applauded, but those with a bit of experience with mortal combat, were strangely silent ...
MY favorite Irish performer, Lisa the Fiddler, who helped create the great sounds of the now disbanded Irish Hearts, played in the courtyard behind Ferguson's Pub in the Dillingham Transportation Building and set many a toe tapping ... Once again, Don Murphy and his huge Paddy's Day crew oversaw with walkie-talkies all the Irish doings in his saloon, out on Nuuanu and on Merchant Street and in the Bank of Hawaii parking lot which he rented for the occasion ... And Skip Naftel moved all the chairs and tables from O'Toole's in the bar area to make more room for those who chose to stand while they still could. You have to wonder just how many people called in sick to work yesterday, suffering from hangoveritis ...
Drumming up interest
THE Celtic Pipes & Drums had their one busiest weekend of the year, starting off with a bit of bagpipe music that must have been anything other than music to the ears of Michael W. Perry and Larry Price, at 8:25 a.m. on Saturday. They had non-stop appearances all through St. Pattys Day. Pipe Sergeant for the Celtic group is Tina Berger -- only in Hawaii ... It was nice to see the Friendly Sons managed to raise enough green (as in greenbacks) to put on its annual St. Patrick's Day Parade. The City has begun telling those who want parades they'll have to pay for them ...MORE than $72,000 was raised for the Aloha Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association "Moonlight & Magic" happening, a look back at the 1960s. Michelle Phillips, one of the original Mamas and the Papas group was on hand, as was singer Jesse Colin Young. Phillips was asked if she could help get another TV series to shoot in Hawaii and she said of course -- if she could star in it. OK by me! Young sang, "Darkness Darkness," a song he wrote in response to the Vietnam War. Eerily appropriate ...
Law and order
WHEN Jeff Law was a young, single, struggling assistant basketball coach at UH, he couldn't get his meager salary to stretch, so Ed Wary leapt in and gave him a job as a waiter. Now Law is coaching the UH-Hilo men's basketball team, and so when they were in Honolulu, where did the coach take the team to dinner? Why at Wary's Dixie Grill, of course, where he always goes when he's in Honolulu. And if you're wondering, yes he pays his way! ...
Dave Donnelly has been writing on happenings
in Hawaii for the Star-Bulletin since 1968.
The Week That Was recalls items from Dave's 30 years of columns.Contact Dave by e-mail: ddonnelly@starbulletin.com