OUR HONOLULU

By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

Cape Cod, Mass. — The aloha spirit is alive and well 5,000 miles from Hawai'i. It's probably no wonder that people on Cape Cod act much the way we in the Islands do, because the cape is sort of an island cut off from the mainland by a canal.

People here are friendly. They make eye contact and smile when you walk by. They're polite.

I picked up a copy of the Cape Cod Times to read over breakfast and discovered that its readers worry about the same things we do. They're big on energy conservation, until it happens in their back yard.

A developer named Cape Wind Associates is about to build 130 wind turbines in Nantucket Sound six miles offshore of Cape Cod. The turbines would supply most of the electricity for the cape. But some big names oppose the plan.

Sen. Ted Kennedy has introduced a congressional bill that would allow the Massachusetts governor to veto the windmill proposal. It's probably just a coincidence that the senator would have a clear view of the windmills when he goes sailing. The venerated former newscaster Walter Cronkite, a bastion of objectivity who's also a yachtsman, has added his voice to the opposition.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough, of Cape Cod, is quoted in a

60-second radio ad: "How would you feel if you heard that in one of the most beautiful, unspoiled placed in all America, a factory was to be built?"

As in Honolulu, traffic is bumper to bumper in Hyannis. Developer Lee Cubellis has had his Canalside Commons complex of shopping center, hotel and apartments turned down three times because the Cape Cod Commission is worried about traffic.

Noise makes headlines. Becky Powers got on the front page by complaining about loud partying by college students who rent the house next door during the summer.

Hyannis is very much like Waikiki — with a waterfront street lined with hotels and restaurants, lots of boat tours and souvenir shops, and license plates from all over the country. What's different is the color of the people. Everybody is white. Also, many beaches are private.

The comparison of Lahaina with Nantucket, the historic whaling port, is startling. There are no whales but lots of ice-cream parlors, art galleries, antique stores, souvenir shops and bicycle rentals. There's even a Wyland store. On the outside, Nantucket has the marvelous ambience of whaling in the 18th century — cobblestone streets, picturesque streetlights, colonial architecture. On the inside, it's Martha Stewart.

As in Lahaina, nobody who works in Nantucket comes from there. I talked to waiters and clerks who come from Poland; Jamaica; Georgia; and Malibu, Calif. A woman who lives in Nantucket said local residents can't afford to stay because rich people have driven up the cost of housing.

She and her husband rent their cottage for the summer and live in the shed in back to make ends meet. I met a waiter who lives in a basement. It's all he can afford.