HAWAIIAN STYLE
Lanikai SpongeBob has soaked up enough abuse

By Wade Kilohana Shirkey

When the likeness of cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants was stolen from his owners' Lanikai yard last May, neighbors brought flowers and tiny SpongeBob figures to pay tribute to the popular neighborhood icon. After an impromptu memorial service, mourners dined on sponge cake from Safeway.

SpongeBob joined Carlos Weber, children Evan and Simone, and wife Tekla for the family Christmas card. Courtesy Weber family

Word of SpongeBob's plight spread to Texas, Tennessee and Oklahoma. A long-lost Mainland friend forwarded his condolences. "'The Saga of SpongeBob' had made the Philadelphia paper," said Weber, a Kaiser surgeon.

All leads led nowhere. To this day, SpongeBob has never been found.

"The thing I like about SpongeBob is that he has this sort of air of the ridiculous, happiness and good will — this grin on his face," said Weber. It was, everyone agreed, "this little beacon to the neighborhood."

"You know," said Weber, "I've been a surgeon here for 16 years — and I think more people know me as the creator of SpongeBob."

Weber started off by creating front-yard decorations for Halloween. It spread to other holidays, and at some point Weber made a likeness of SpongeBob, an adorable mass of batting, old exposed X-ray film and yellow spray paint with a trademark left-handed shaka sign, big eyes and short pants.

With Halloween and a critical deadline for a new front yard decoration fast approaching, Weber decided to go bigger and better. An 11-foot SpongeBob, this time suspended from two palm trees and illuminated at night, took up residence.

It thrilled the 150 or so trick-or-treaters and made it through Thanksgiving.

When pranksters stole SpongeBob's leg, Weber propped him up on crutches to show he was "bloodied, but not bowed." When malcontents lobbed eggs, Weber used big, fake BandAids to cover the damage.

But even SpongeBob couldn't survive January's big storms. One morning, he was violently twisting in the wind, "having a grand ol' time!" joked Weber. By evening, it was clear: "It had been SpongeBob's last dance."

So, with the addition of late night-cruising hooligans shouting obscenities, and continuing vandalism, Weber decided it was time to remove the neighborhood favorite. "I won't put him back; it's so uncomfortable to see the slings and arrows SpongeBob has to endure."

So for now, said Weber's wife, Tekla, the neighborhood icon is in hiding.

"Now," said Tekla,"it's time to let go."

The Advertiser's Wade Kilohana Shirkey is kumu hula of Na Hoaloha O Ka Roselani hula halau. He writes on Island life.