Readers weigh in with questions, comments and commendations

I get a lot of interesting email from readers every day. Ruth Beard told me she has lived here since 1962 and has a lot of memories, “but I have forgotten some of the names of places that no longer exist, and I was wondering if you or your readers could help.”

“In the 1970s there was a restaurant at 615 Piikoi St. for a short time and another on Amana Street in the round building, I believe. Both were full-service restaurants with liquor licenses.

“Also, there was a really unusual store at 42 N. Hotel St. about 10 years ago where the Downbeat Lounge is today. I cannot remember the name of that, either.”

Can your readers recall any of their names, she asked?

Q: A gym friend asked whether anyone can recall the name of the restaurant at the makai-Ewa corner of University Avenue and Dole Street in the 1970s that was known for tater tots.

“I think it was a pizza place,” she said. “It only occupied the corner space. The rest of the building was another eatery.”

Q: Liz Gillis Sutter was interested in finding out information about the MacDonald Hotel where Maryknoll School is today.

“My grandfather Jack Gillis’ mother was a McDonald, and I know it was the same family. They originally were horsemen that came from the Paso Robles/San Miguel Mission area in California.”

The Maryknoll website says, “The high school division continued to operate at Dole Street until 1948, when it was moved to the former MacDonald Hotel on Punahou Street.”

Do any of my readers know more?

Q: Kendrick Lee suggested I write a column on Hawaii drive-in restaurants. I have written about a few, but thought I’d ask my readers to share their favorite drive-in stories.

What made particular drive-ins special to you? What were your favorite meals there? Do you remember any of their car hops or staff?

I met Rayne Esera recently, and she told me that “Skippa” Diaz was her uncle. The new athletic field at Farrington High School is named for him.

Rayne told me her uncle, born Edward Thompson Diaz, was half Hawaiian and half Spanish. “He received his nickname before the age of 10 from a friend of the family who skippered boats. Edward would grow to be a ‘skippa’ of the land, a leader of men, who would do good work, he prophesized.”

Diaz was a defensive tackle for Farrington, class of 1962, and earned the nickname “The Bull of Kalihi.” He played at Oregon State and in the Canadian Football League.

Afterward he coached and taught at Washington Intermediate, Waialua, Kalani, Mililani and Farrington.

Two readers wanted to commend former mayors. Dierdre Lau wrote and told me she thinks former Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris deserves some long- delayed credit.

“We moved to Waikiki in 1965 and lived on the Ala Wai, then moved to La Pietra condos, where we have been since 1970,” Lau said.

“In that time, Harris finished up Frank Fasi’s Waikiki beautification project. After Fasi left, the sidewalk paving switched from red and ochre checker tiles (a la McDonald’s) to natural sandstone; the ugly square street lights changed to the current traditional ones.”

Plants and trees were added along Kuhio and Kalakaua avenues and burmed with grass.

“As the Diamond Head end of Waikiki Beach has developed and became a busy adjunct to Kapiolani Park, the area has truly benefited from Harris’ earlier endeavors. He seems to have departed on a bad note, but in retrospect he deserves our thanks.”

P.J. O’Reilley told me that Elmer Franklin Cravalho (1926-2016) was an American politician and teacher. A member of the Democratic Party, Cravalho served as mayor of Maui from 1969 to 1979 and the first speaker of the Hawaii House of Representatives following statehood.

“In September 1969 the Navy called a halt to the bombing of Kahoolawe because a bomb fell far off target into a Maui pasture owned by Cravalho. The mayor was a longtime campaigner for an end to the bombing, which he said was a public nuisance.”

Kahoolawe is a volcanic island 6 miles off Maui. I wrote a little about it last year in Rearview Mirror.

“To keep its weekly practice attacks from annoying the 39,000 residents of Maui, the Navy ordered its pilots to stay on the far side of Kahoolawe and sent them out only when the weather was favorable,” O’Reilley said.

“Still, Mauians complained that concussions jangled their nerves and jarred their homes to the point of cracking windows and foundations.

“Over one weekend a telephone repairman found a live 500-pound bomb in a pasture owned by Cravalho near Maalaea Village on Maui.”

“Without any doubt,” the mayor said, “this discovery emphasizes the point we have been making for a long time. The bombing practices do present a clear and continuing danger to the physical safety of the citizens of Maui.”

The Navy conceded that one of its planes strayed off course. The bombing suspension would last, the Navy said, until it found out just why the bomb fell in Cravalho’s pasture.

“The bomb was detonated,” O’Reilley said, “on a remote Maui beach by Army demolition experts, blasting a hole 30 feet wide and 15 feet deep.”

Many today don’t know the influence Cravalho had in protecting Kahoolawe, O’Reilley believes.

Until World War II, Angus McPhee of Ulupalakua Ranch on Maui had a lease on Kahoolawe.

Kaneohe resident John Gasidlo wrote to tell me his father-in-law, Yoshikio (now David) Shimei, now 97, knew McPhee. Shimei was a graduate of Lahainaluna school, class of 1939.

“They got along well in broken pidgin English,” Gasidlo said. “Mr. McPhee had only one arm, and my father had only one eye. Dad remembers that Mr. McPhee rode on a white horse all over the place.

“The ranch used to show black-and-white movies outside at night for free for the paniolos, but everyone else, including my father-in-law, could also watch for free.”

Former U.S. Attorney Michael A. Lilly said newsman Bob Jones and he were conversing about a tortoise.

“Many years ago, whenever I mentioned to my grandmother Una Walker that I was going to the Honolulu Zoo, she’d comment, ‘How is my Galapagos tortoise?’

“I always had the impression that she had adopted the turtle or contributed to it in some way. Long after she passed, I discovered what actually happened.

“Una was very close friends with Marjorie Merriweather Post, the wealthy owner of General Foods Inc. In the 1930s she and Post sailed to the Galapagos Islands in Post’s massive and luxurious 58-passenger sailing ship Sea Cloud.

“Returning to Hawaii, they brought with them a giant Galapagos tortoise which Una donated to the Honolulu Zoo. I mentioned the story to my cousin Caleb Burns, who called the zoo to see if it was still alive.”

“Yes,” Lilly was told, “it is still alive.” But they had no record of how it came to the zoo and were pleased to learn its origin. “We wondered for a long time how that tortoise got here.” Imagine, it has been there for over 80 years!

That brings up a question from this columnist: Queen Lili‘uokalani had a pet tortoise, as did her friend Mary Foster. Lilly’s tortoise makes three.

My question: Were there three tortoises, or was it just one or two?

Thank you, readers, for your questions, answers and stories.

Bob Sigall’s “The Companies We Keep 5” book contains stories from the last three years of Rearview Mirror. “The Companies We Keep 1 and 2” are also back in print. Email Sigall at Sigall@yahoo.com.