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Honolulu Lite Charles Memminger |
White House
loved our coffee,
how about mongooses?Now that Hawaii-grown coffee is officially being served in the White House, how long will it be before President Bush greets heads of state while wearing rubba sleepas and surf trunks and the first lady sports an arm-load of gold Hawaiian bracelets?
Gov. Linda Lingle, on a recent trip to Washington, D.C., convinced the White House to put Hawaii coffee on its party menu, pointing out that Hawaii is the only state in the country that grows coffee beans. (This apparently came as a surprise to VP Dick Cheney, who had been ordering "Juneau Roast" over the Internet. Had he read the small print on the label, he would have realized he has been brewing a beverage from roasted caribou instead of roasted coffee beans.)
Now that Lingle has broken the ice with the coffee thing, she should attempt to get the White House to begin using any number of Hawaii products. I'll bet Bush has never even tried a shave ice. Think of the free publicity Hawaii would get if he sat down to a meeting of his Cabinet and everyone was enjoying shave ices. What a message of inclusion that would be, a real rainbow shave ice coalition.
I'm sure the White House already puts out bowls of macadamia nuts at cocktail parties, along with the ears of corn on Melba toast from Iowa and baked potatoes on toothpicks from Idaho. A president can't play favorites when promoting products from all the states. But now that Lingle has the president's ear, we should try to get some of our lesser-known homegrown items used in and around the White House.
FOR INSTANCE, White House groundskeepers should use those square rice cracker cans nailed to sticks when scooping up leaves. As far as I know, Hawaii is the only state where people cut up large metal cans and nail them to pieces of wood and use them for picking up leaves, rubbish and the occasional doggie do.
For an environmentally friendly form of insect control, Bush should ask Lingle to bring him a box of geckos. Think how cool it would be to be sitting in the Oval Office and suddenly see a gecko dart from behind the painting of Abe Lincoln and dash behind the black velvet painting of "Dogs Playing Poker." (I took the Internet 360-degree virtual Oval Office tour, but the images weren't too clear. It's possible the Abe Lincoln painting is actually Elvis, but I know poker-playing dogs when I see them.)
Whenever television reporters do stand-ups on the White House lawn, you see squirrels running all over the place. Why the Secret Service allows wild rodents to roam around freely, I don't know, but if the White House is good enough for squirrels, then it's good enough for mongooses. I say we send them a passel.
I like the idea of Laura Bush getting into gold Hawaiian bracelets. Lingle could start her off with a "First Wahine" bracelet, and then George could order her a new one every holiday until she looks like a supermarket checkout lady without the hickeys. Soon everyone woman in the country and several guys from Maryland would be ordering gold bracelets from Hawaii.
Those are just a few Hawaii products we can get the White House to start using. E-mail me any other ideas quick before Lingle finishes packing for her next trip to Washington.
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Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com