After nearly eight years, perhaps we’ve all gotten just a bit jaded. Sure, Hawaii-born Barack Obama is the president of our United States — but did he really need to inconvenience our daily lives with traffic motorcades and all that Secret Service hoopla?

Now that he’s come and gone, some perspective, folks. We are talking about the leader of the free world, the American president. Way back in 1934, Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first U.S. president to visit Hawaii and our citizenry went positively giddy. One account spoke of a canoe flotilla greeting FDR, as well as 10,000 lei-bedecked children lining the road — and “to control 60,000 people along miles of presidential motorcade, police called in island Boy Scouts.”

So, as long as “Barry” Obama is president and wants to return for some R&R — and even after the changeover election — we welcome him. After all, being chosen president is a rare honor: we’ve had only 44 of them since America’s first in 1789.