CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Evan Weber stood hopeful for SpongeBob's return yesterday in Lanikai.
Missing SpongeBob’s
neighbors pay tributeA 9-foot-tall pineapple awaits
the beloved character if he
returns to his home in Lanikai
Dr. Carlos Weber says Lanikai SpongeBob may not be coming back, even to his new pineapple home.
"We've been trying to stay positive, but at the same time, he's been gone almost a week," said Weber, who had built a 6-foot sculpture of the cartoon character SpongeBob Square- Pants in the front yard of his home but lost him to a thief or thieves last week.
"The longer he's gone, the less likely he will appear."
But Weber and SpongeBob fans aren't giving up yet.
Yesterday, Weber, a surgeon at Kaiser Medical Center, with the help of friend Mikey Hamm, finished a 9-foot-tall pineapple in his yard where Lanikai SpongeBob had stood since Oct. 30. (In the cartoon, SpongeBob SquarePants lives in a pineapple under the sea.)
And a banner that reads "S.B., phone home" hangs from a nearby coconut tree.
"We're just going to keep SpongeBob's home ready for him to come home," Weber said. "If we don't hear anything after a while, the neighborhood will be the poorer for not having SpongeBob around."
Early yesterday, neighbors brought flowers and tiny SpongeBob figures to pay tribute during an impromptu memorial service. "We had sponge cake from Safeway ... no Krabby Patties," Weber said.
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Hope is waning for Lanikai SpongeBob, a 6-foot lawn sculpture and neighborhood fixture that disappeared about a week ago. But Evan Weber, Simone Weber, Odie the dog, Carlos Weber, Jeanette Greenlee and Tekla Weber awaited SpongeBob's return yesterday under a sign.
Based on at least two reports, Lanikai SpongeBob was last seen at a trash bin at Kailua Intermediate the day after he disappeared. But by the time Weber arrived to check it out, the bin had been emptied.
The worst-case scenario is that Lanikai SpongeBob was taken to the HPOWER plant and incinerated, Weber said. HPOWER officials could not be reached for comment yesterday.
A man took a picture of SpongeBob on top of some heavy equipment about 1 1/2 hours before Weber reported the statue missing Tuesday. But he has yet to call Weber back.
No one had ever complained about SpongeBob or asked the Webers to take him down or indicated he wasn't welcome, Weber said.
A man who called himself Mike e-mailed a photo to the Star-Bulletin of what appeared to be Lanikai SpongeBob in someone's garage. The photo turned out to be a hoax.
Weber saw the e-mail and confirmed it was a fake.
Mike, who lives in Florida and owns a race boat that has a motor his friends call SpongeBob, later confirmed the e-mailed photo was a paste-up.
He said it was done as a joke and that his friends thought it would be "cute" to send it to the newspaper.
"I personally feel bad that someone would wish to deprive the neighborhood of a replica of a beloved character. People can be so insensitive," Mike wrote, apologizing. "Good luck and best wishes on the return of Bob."
He said the story of SpongeBob's plight has garnered attention, circulating in Texas, Tennessee and Oklahoma.
