It’s time to go bon dancing

Whatever it may mean to an observant Buddhist, obon means one thing to almost every Hawaii kamaaina: summer.

That’s because, whereas Memorial Day is just one day throughout the U.S., obon is truly a season. Bon dances and all the attendant rituals and festivities run for months. On Friday the Star-Advertiser’s calendar of obon events has activities slated statewide until the end of August.

And it’s got a broader geographical reach than people may realize. Wherever there’s a Japanese community, from Argentina to Malaysia, there are bon dances.

It’s hard to imagine a Toro Nagashi, the famed floating lantern ceremony, as pretty as ours, though.

Colt’s bucking again in football

Barely seven months after suffering injuries in a two-car crash on the Big Island, former University of Hawaii quarterback Colt Brennan is returning to professional football.

Brennan has signed a contract with the Hartford Colonials for this year’s United Football League season. The signing reunites him with wide receiver Ryan Grice-Mullen, his former teammate at UH who signed with the Colonials four weeks ago.

Playing in the UFL "has done a lot of things to help a lot of players get back to the NFL," Brennan said. "That’s my ultimate goal."

Hawaii fans of the UFL now have even more incentive to catch the games.