Who's who at your local-style shindig
By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Staff Writer
After writing about the rules of etiquette for local parties a few weeks back, I was inundated with letters from former Hawai'i residents who say they keep the traditions of local-style parties in places as far away as Alaska, Nebraska, and all up and down the East Coast.
The letters asked for more detail, though. Local parties are more than the abundance of food, they reminded. Sure, you gotta have the requisite two cups rice per person, mac AND potato salad, and lomi salmon that actually has visible salmon and not just salmon-flavored water, but that's not what makes a local party special. Write about the people, they urged. Talk about the characters.
Okay, so here are some of the regulars.
There's Uncle, whose designated place at the party is sitting on the cooler. Of course, they always have two coolers, one for beer and one for soda, as if bad things would happen if the two should mix.
Uncle Richard (every party has an Uncle Richard) sits on the cooler because that way he gets to talk to each person at the party. He doesn't mind having to stand up every time somebody wants another drink. He's happy for the conversation.
Then there are the pack of kids who run in circles around the old-door-balanced-on-sawhorses-covered-with-butcher-paper tables, their faces stained with strawberry soda, their eyes crazy with the sugar from three helpings of sheet cake. Most of the partygoers aren't quite sure who the kids belong to.
"Looks like Bernie's boy, but I think I saw that one come with Clayton-dem." Four hours into the party, the kids are all passed out on a Hawaiian-print patchwork quilt in the parlor, a jumble of legs and arms, their party clothes sticky with frosting and ice cream and grass from a tumble in the back yard.
Every good local party has the two people who aren't related to anyone there. No one quite knows how they got there — they're not even sure themselves — but they're always cool to talk to, and they end up becoming regulars.
There are the other characters: the habitual slipper-stealer, the dude who sings C&K's "I Am the Other Man" at the top of his lungs (chorus only), the auntie who loves to bust out the naughty hula.
No party is complete without the Philosopher. Toward the end of the evening, this character clamps an arm around the shyest teenager there and does the speech:
"You know, boy. I going tell you something. You listen, 'kay, cuz this going help you. You remember, cuz I going tell you this thing. Important you know. No forget ..."
The ramp-up goes on, but the actual advice never comes. But that's OK. It's a party. And the guy singing snippets of C&K is making too much noise for you to hear anything anyway.
Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Her e-mail address is lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.
