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Wednesday, February 22, 2012         

Lee Cataluna Premium

When the cancer came back again, Hawaii-born author Margaret Mitchell Dukore posted a challenge on Facebook: Tell me what I'm not going to miss when I'm gone.

For the past 20 years, no swimmer from Farrington High School has qualified for the state championships. Part of that time, there was no swim team at Farrington. Most of that time, the Farrington pool has been closed.

When funk music great Charlie Wilson of the Gap Band wrote the song "Disrespect" in 1985, as the story goes, it was directed at Prince, who had thrown him out of a concert when he tried to join Mr. Purple Rain onstage.

In this era of reinventing yourself and second careers, it shouldn't be remarkable that the top three contenders for Honolulu mayor aren't particularly mayoral.

The cars parked outside had California plates and Hawaii bumper stickers. Many came wearing sweaters over aloha shirts and carrying ukulele cases. It wasn't a memorial for ukulele master Bill Tapia. He told his closest friends he didn't want anything like that.

In the news of Bill Dahle's passing, it was strange to read the dates of when he first came to Kauai and when he retired from radio. It didn't seem possible that there was a beginning or end to his presence on the island.

The houses aren't much to look at. Most are at least 90 years old, held together by peeling paint, rusty nails and the magic that keeps old houses going when there are people inside who love every creaking board. To some eyes, those old homes stand for all that is good about small town life.

Every year since 1984, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources has come out with a calendar and every year it's a thing of beauty and scholarship. Just having a state project survive for 29 years is amazing enough, as the calendars have continued through changes in administration, economics, taste and technology.

Every Christmas for the last nine years, the card arrived in the mail. It started in 2002, when veteran Terry Feavel wrote to the newspaper on a mission to repay an old debt.

Some days, the boy would go bounding into the sunlight with the kids he thought of as his brothers. Other days, he would retreat to the attic in his foster home to sob over his mother's pictures and her few remaining dresses. It was just a year, but those days shaped his whole life.

When HPD released the video of Tom Berg's run-in with security officers at the APEC conference, it was like, Oh goody.

Every so often, if you have sharp eyes and good luck, you can find a little bit of Tutu's beloved anthurium set on a tucked-away shelf.

This time of year, when little kids come home from school with hand-print turkeys and construction paper Pilgrim and Indian costumes, calls to mind a gem of a story written by a Hawaii teacher nearly 100 years ago.

For the past year, Donalyn Dela Cruz has been in the most high-profile and possibly most challenging media relations job in the state, serving as press secretary for Neil Abercrombie, a governor struggling with low voter-approval ratings and a brutal economy.

Get caught speeding in a school zone and you face a higher penalty -- a fine of up to $250. A conviction for selling drugs near a school also carries a greater punishment than selling drugs on just any non-school street corner.

Though she had dreamed of this moment from childhood, when the big day came she wore a dress she bought from Ross and told everybody that that's where she got the outfit. While others would brag about what she's accomplished, Karen Kuioka Hironaga is more comfortable making jokes about the clearance rack.

If my mother had a dollar for every time some guy asked, "Hey lady, you selling your car?" she would have enough money to buy that old Chevy several times over and take her friends out to a really nice lunch.

It was September 1944, in the last year of the Second World War. Harayuki Tamamoto, who grew up north of Hilo, was 21 years old and recently inducted into the Army. He spent two weeks at the Helemano Army camp near Wahiawa before being transported by pineapple train car to Honolulu Harbor.

Somewhere along the way, quitting your job to spend more time with your family turned into code for "I got fired" or "I quit in a huff.

I currently live two miles away from a Trader Joe's. I currently live two miles away from a Trader Joe's. That's a six-minute drive, even in sandstorm traffic. As homesick as I am in California, friends think I have nothing to complain about. After all, I can pop over to Trader Joe's any old time I want to and buy ... what?

Daphne Vaina was having a great week. The 23-year-old recent University of Hawaii at Manoa grad had just gotten the news that she had been hired as a part-time teacher at Dole Middle School and was elated she'd be working at her alma mater.

Hawaii is marketed as the most romantic place on earth. Our entire economy is built on tourism. So why are the governor and the first spouse celebrating their anniversary in Paris?

Florence Delos Santos Marton had the largest Barbie Doll collection you could ever imagine — thousands of dolls. But that wasn't the most amazing thing about her.

It was still dark in Hawaii when the news came. We were jolted out of sleep into a new reality. Though the islands are among the farthest corners of America, far from the places attacked, our community changed on Sept. 11, 2001, and in many ways, has never been the same.

You know that one neighbor who always brings the newest, hippest, best pupu to the potluck? Last fall, our hip pupu neighbor busted out hot lava pork rinds and everyone at the party pretty much had their minds blown.

Pinkies aren't free. That's probably one of the main reasons there have been so many snakes turned in (or let go) on Oahu this year.

Kaloa Robinson made a sweet life for himself. After graduating from Damien, he went to Whittier and then got his master's at George Washington University.

The patients will often save their bandages, keeping the papery strips of adhesive like they held some sort of healing power or the kindness of someone who was cheering for their recovery.

Many towns have Facebook groups, online pages where nostalgia runs high as grownups check their murky childhood memories against those of their peers.

On Saturday mornings, Burt Fujii drives a delivery truck from Honolulu to Pearl City, out to Waipio, Mililani and Wahiawa, then to Haleiwa, back around to Ewa, up to Makakilo and around to Nanakuli. It's a route that takes him five hours to complete.



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