Fireworks finale bodes well for next year, maybe

As grand finales go, it wasn’t quite the big bang many anticipated — or feared.

The new year was greeted on Oahu as usual — with aerials blossoming in the sky, homemade bombs rattling walls, firecracker bandoliers crackling in driveways and smoke everywhere. But with a fireworks ban going into effect for 2012, that one last binge of excess never happened.

The celebration came and it went. Thankfully, it was relatively uneventful, with no major damage reported to persons or property.

That could be seen as a sign that we’re ready for a new, more responsible custom. Or it could be that folks decided to stash their good stuff for next year.

Honolulu landmarks lost

Honolulu keeps shedding layers of history, the way living creatures shed a skin. It’s a slow process.

KGMB has long since moved its signal from that Kapiolani Boulevard tower, and Foremost Dairies Hawaii shut down operations at the Dillingham Boulevard plant six years ago. Yet only now is the tower being dismantled, piece by piece, and only over the holidays was the old dairy, known primarily by the statue of the cow out front, demolished.

It’s unlikely another tower like that will ever go up in the middle of town because the land required for a TV antenna system is so pricey. And since nearly all of Oahu’s milk comes from off-island cows, Holsteins — in the flesh or plaster-cast — will be a rare sight on Oahu from now on.