By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

It's time to catch up on backyard glimpses of Our Honolulu, the kind of stories you hear on the way to work. Like the lost parrot in Kailua. This parrot is worth $1,000. Many people were out looking. Corinne Waterhouse, a friend of the owners, went around giving the call of this species of parrot.

Sure enough, while she was walking with friends, the parrot called back from the rear of a house. Corinne sent her friends to the owners with the news.

The owners came rushing up. They asked permission from the homeowner to go in and pick up their parrot. The homeowner wouldn't let them come in. Obviously, rescue of the parrot from wrongful captivity called for heroic measures.

The husband jumped the fence and sneaked the parrot out of the back yard. During this foray, his wife took off her blouse in which to wrap the parrot. She went home in her bra. That's the way parrot owners are. They offered Corinne a big reward but she refused.

• Elia Long, president of the Friends of 'Iolani Palace, will be honored at a big 'Iolani Palace lu'au today for his contributions to Hawaiian culture. He's one of the few people still alive who knew the old beachboys from the 1950s, contemporaries of Duke Kahanamoku. How many of these colorful characters from half a century ago can you name? See below.

• This just came in from Claire Hill in Alaska: "Guess what we have right here in Anchorage? A restaurant called Hula Hands. It's just like walking into a plate-lunch place in the Islands. The food is so 'ono. The bruddahs talk local and it feels like home."

• We have to thank Jan TenBruggencate, The Advertiser's environmental reporter, for this report on modern newsgathering. TenBruggencate tried to call Sen. Dan Inouye's press secretary in Washington. The lady on the phone said the press secretary wasn't in. He asked for the number. She wouldn't give it to him.

"You won't give the press secretary's number to the press?" said TenBruggencate.

"It's office policy," she answered.

• Steve Lipske, who renovates old houses, wishes to report the presence of a "pressing ghost" on upper Ward Avenue. He said it attacked him while he slept on the job site.

"Every night, I felt something holding me down," he said. "I couldn't get up. The only reason I knew what was affecting me was because I read the ghost stories of (the late) Glen Grant."

• The beachboys Elia Long called friends are Laughing John, Ox, Chick Daniels, Joe Akana, Jimmy Soong, Joe Pang, Harry Robello, Hiram Kaakua, Turkey Love, Dave Panama Baptiste, Willie Whittle, Dutchy Wilhelm, Sargent Kahanamoku, Kalakaua and Sam Steamboat Sr.

Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073.