A new promotional campaign hitting the roads this holiday season sounds like the kind of thing thought up by a bunch of guys over a couple of beers. Primo beers, to be exact.

In what is either the most daring and entertaining or most foolhardy advertising campaign in recent memory, Primo is not only urging island residents to resurrect the tradition of leaving gifts of beer out for garbage men between now and New Year, it has decorated the sides of some garbage trucks with huge billboards featuring a six-pack of Primo. It is a deft stroke of anti-political correctness targeting simultaneously the forces against billboards in Hawaii and those mad mothers who don't like to see any connection between drinking and moving vehicles.

Primo isn't really targeting those groups. The company just thinks the rolling billboards are a good way to promote not only its beer but to revive a tradition that goes back to when Primo was the king of beers in Hawaii and leaving a six-pack on top of your garbage can this time of year was a swell way of thanking the rubbish picker-uppers.

“;You know you are going to get hammered,”; I told Franklin Clay, an account executive with Communications Pacific, the agency with the Primo account.

“;If we get a call or complaints, we'll definitely work with them,”; he said.

“;Franklin,”; I counseled, “;You can't work with them. Trust me.”;

  The unique holiday wrappings actually are on only four garbage trucks, two on the Big Island (PFI Rubbish) and two on Oahu (King's Disposal.) Both are private companies. I suspect that even the zany folks at Primo knew putting beer billboards on government garbage trucks was a non-starter. But while the advertising signs (Give Da Gift of Primo - A Great Hawaiian Tradition Is Back!) are only on the private trucks, Clay said Primo wants beer to be given as gifts to city-and-county garbage men as well, like in the old days.

“;Since 1897, Primo has been Hawaii's beer and it was the beer of choice for garbage men,”; he said.

The city-and-county rubbish department doesn't allow alcohol on their trucks, so the garbage trucks nowadays are followed by drivers in private vehicles who pick up the beer left as gifts. (It's also hard to pick up a six-pack of beer with those new automated claws on most garbage trucks today.)

I remember when I was in high school how much my dad looked forward to leaving Primo for “;da boys.”; You could look up the street on Rubbish Day and see six packs of beer perched on the top of just about every rubbish can, many with colored ribbons or bows. And each time da boys picked up their beer, the driver would toot his horn in thanks.

As traditions go, leaving beer for garbage men during the holidays is one of the most harmless. I mean, it's a lot more friendly than some traditions in other cultures like cannibalism or ritual scarification.

As for complaints, Primo hasn't gotten any yet. But if tradition holds, they will.