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Keep Waikiki
beachboys in the sand

As much as I support free enterprise and a competitive marketplace, I've got to side with Clyde Aikau and his fellow Waikiki beachboys in their argument that beachboys at the most famous beach in the world should actually come from Hawaii.

I don't think tourists jet here from all parts of the mainland to be taught to surf by Todd the Poolboy from Omaha.

So a bill in the state Legislature requiring owners of Waikiki beach concessions to have at least 10 years' experience and be versed in the "Hawaiian beachboy experience" is not as unreasonable as some people are making it out to be.

Yes, it's protectionist. But some things need protecting, like pandas, beachboys and, should they exist, panda beachboys. (There are fewer than 100 panda beachboys in the wilds of China's eastern coast.)

IT behooves a state whose main tourist attraction is its culture and tradition to preserve that culture and tradition, as long as they don't involve things like cannibalism and Barry Manilow blasted over loudspeakers.

So the idea that the lucrative beachboy concession should simply be handed to the highest bidder, regardless of the bidder's ties to Hawaii, is ludicrous. Waikiki is a product and an image. Part of that image is that the beachboys (and beachgirls) are part of Hawaii's great surfing and canoeing history and culture.

It is more than renting beach mats, boogie boards and those dopey floating tricycles, although those bring in the big bucks. Waikiki is a grand stage play, going back to the days when Robert Louis Stevenson and Mark Twain twiddled their toes in the sand. And the actors on that stage are Hawaiians or at least locals with dark tans who can trace their Hawaii lineage further back than Flight 84 from Denver.

The Aikau family, owners of the C&K, Waikiki's official beachboy concession for the nearly three decades, is the perfect embodiment of what tourists deserve. Eddy Aikau, Clyde's brother, literally gave his life as part of Hawaii's surfing, canoeing and sailing culture. The phrase "Eddie Would Go" is known worldwide as a selfless and courageous articulation of the best part of island culture. As far as keeping real Hawaii beachboys on Waikiki beach, Eddie would stay. And we should keep it that way.