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Last week I began a review of some of my favorite columns from the past nine years. In this, my 500th column in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, I’ll present the top eight.
8. “Over the Rainbow”
Which local song has had more impact around the world than any other? It’s been used in over 80 movies and TV shows. Its YouTube video has been viewed 970 million times. Which song is it?
It’s Israel Kamakawiwo ‘ole’s “Over the Rainbow.” What I didn’t know was that it was recorded in a single take in 1989 as a medley with “What a Wonderful World.” Iz came to the studio at 2:10 in the morning. He did one take of it and a couple of other songs and left 30 minutes later.
Mountain Apple Co. founder Jon de Mello says “Over the Rainbow” has outsold everything else that has ever been released in Hawaii. It’s made the ukulele the most famous instrument in the world right now.
“It’s changed Hawaiian music forever, and except that we have rainbows here, there’s nothing Hawaiian about it. It’s an amazing thing.”
7. The Patron Saint of Kakaako
Mother Margaret Waldron was a fourth grade Pohukaina School teacher from 1913, when it opened, in the then-developing residential neighborhood of Kakaako until she retired 21 years later in 1934.
After school, Mother Waldron organized football games, sewing classes and cooking clubs. When Matson complained that many of the boys who dived for coins thrown by ship passengers at Aloha Tower were naked, Mother Waldron obtained swim trunks and built a changing shack for the “wharf rats,” most of whom were her students.
Naughty kids were sent to the principal, former resident Sam Kapu Sr. recalls. Those who were worse were sent to Mother Waldron.
The children of Pohukaina School gave her a pin that said “Mother” for her 50th birthday in 1923. She wore it every day for the rest of her life. As she was dying in the hospital in 1936, huge throngs of people came to pay their respects to “Mama.” Many now call her the Patron Saint of Kakaako.
6. “Star Wars” and Hawaii
I was surprised to learn that a Hawaii man played a pivotal role in the creation of the “Star Wars” movies.
The man was Joseph Campbell, who was a world expert on mythology. “Star Wars“ creator George Lucas called him “My Yoda.”
Lucas read Campbell’s 1949 book about myths and legends as he was developing his story about a galaxy far, far away.
“When I started doing research on fairy tales, folklore and mythology,” Lucas recalled, “I started reading Joe’s books. I began to understand how I could make ‘Star Wars.’ It was a great gift. If I hadn’t run across it, I might still be writing ‘Star Wars’ today.”
5. Strive for the highest
Will anything we create still be benefiting the community 150 years from now?
That’s the standard set by Queen Emma and her husband, King Kamehameha IV. They went door-to-door to raise money to create The Queen’s Hospital in 1859. They founded one of the roots of ‘Iolani School and St. Andrew’s Cathedral and Priory School in 1863 and 1867, respectively.
Queen Emma did all this despite losing her 4-year-old son, Albert, in 1862 and husband a year later. She certainly lived up to her motto, “Strive for the highest.”
4. A local boy at Appomattox
Wailuku-born Samuel C. Armstrong joined the Union Army in the Civil War as a captain. He led the 125th N.Y. Regiment at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 and fought off Gen. George Pickett’s Confederate charge. For that he was promoted to major, then colonel, in charge of the union’s 9th Regiment of “colored” troops.
By the end of the war, he was a brigadier general in attendance at Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Va. He was 26 years old.
Following the war, Armstrong founded the Hampton Institute in Virginia to give newly freed slaves educational tools to compete and survive after the war.
One of his students, Booker T. Washington, took over the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama using the same school model, and it’s now one of the top schools in the South.
3. Duke and Corona del Mar
On June 14, 1925, 34-year-old Duke Kahanamoku was at a beach party at Corona del Mar, south of Los Angeles.
A nearby fishing boat, the Thelma, capsized in rough water and threw its passengers into the sea.
Duke grabbed his surfboard to help, as did his friends. They rescued 12 of the 29 people on the Thelma. Since then, surfboards became the norm for lifeguards worldwide and have accounted for millions of lives saved since that fateful day in 1925.
2. The Patron Saint of the Japanese American GI
In 2015 Tom Moffatt suggested I write about Earl M. Finch, who welcomed over 10,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry at Army basic training at Camp Shelby, Miss., in 1943.
When others called them “dirty Japs” and worse, Finch made it his personal mission to change the lot of the nisei soldiers. It was an undertaking that engulfed his whole life.
Finch wrote long letters to the soldiers when they served overseas. Over 1,500 of the young men named him as executor of their wills. He visited them in hospitals if they were wounded or visited their families if they were killed in action. In 1944 he traveled over 70,000 miles at his own expense.
Finch visited Hawaii in 1946 and was toasted at “Go for Broke” breakfasts, lunches and dinners on five islands. Thousands attended. He later moved here, and he, Ralph Yempuku and Tom Moffatt got into the concert promotion business.
By the end of 1964, they had put on 34 shows and sold 680,000 tickets. Finch died suddenly in 1965 of a heart attack at age 49. He had a heart condition that few knew about. However, the amount of aloha he shared with others in those brief years was extraordinary.
1. Operation Babylift
Of all the 500 articles I’ve written for the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, the one that was shared the most (over 2,000 times on Facebook and in other places) was about the rescue of over 3,000 mostly biracial children from Vietnam in April 1975.
Fred Hemmings told me he was a Red Cross volunteer who met one of the jets at Hickam.
“The plane had been on an 18-plus-hour journey, and the caretakers on board were wiped out with exhaustion. We boarded the plane with a sea of crying youngsters and babies that ranged in age from several months to 7-8 years old. Most were in bassinets tied to the seats. They wore wristbands with their information. It was a mess.
“After about a half-hour of changing diapers and cleaning babies, I came upon a bassinet of what appeared to be an 8-month-old child,” Hemmings said.
“She was howling, and her arms reached up while her eyes pleaded for me to embrace her. Her eyes pierced my soul. When I held her she clutched me so very tightly. After caring for her I went to secure her back in her bassinet, and she would not let me go and howled with anguish. I could not put her down.”
Hemmings spent the remaining time helping other children while somehow holding her. “I should say she held me.” Hemmings flew to Seattle, and the little girl stayed in his arms for the entire flight.
“We landed, and it came time for me to let go of my little girl. It was difficult. All these years later I would most love to meet the grown lady I held as a wee baby all those years ago.”
Bob Sigall is the author of the “The Companies We Keep” books. Email him at Sigall@Yahoo.com.
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