By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

He stands erect like the statue of Kamehameha, motionless, on the edge of the Ala Wai, gazing across the canal at high-rise Waikiki. Slowly his arms come up

to full extension. He bends over little by little and touches his toes before unfolding again. Sometimes he rhythmically punches the air. I call him the Robot.

The Robot is a member of the Dawn Patrol of Our Honolulu, Ala Wai Regiment, an anonymous collection of freedom fighters. We emerge from the woodwork every morning to wage guerrilla warfare against conformist society before melting again into the labyrinth of our city.

We don't charge dues or ask a pledge of allegiance. There's no age limit. Nobody checks to see if you show up on time. All we ask of each other is good taste and consideration of our various idiosyncrasies. While exercise brings us together, it's not necessary for membership.

The Mummy is a good example. He's in his 50s, with a salt-and-pepper beard and clean bare feet. For most of the past three years, at least, he has been asleep on a park bench along the promenade. I've seen him in motion no more than a dozen times. The Mummy gets less exercise than a parking meter, but nobody nags him about it. We tiptoe by the park bench and wonder if he's ever going to wake up.

You see, the Mummy has good taste. He keeps his park bench neat and tidy, unlike some of his fellow guests who scatter junk around their benches as if they were teenagers at home.

We also accept the Bicycle Botanist, who sleeps on a park bench farther down. Unlike the Mummy, the Bicycle Botanist bustles with energy once he climbs out from under his plastic sheet in the morning and rides off on his bicycle.

He's created a flower garden around his park bench, beds of exotic plants that people gave him.

You can see that members of the Dawn Patrol are suckers for the underdog. The ducks along Manoa Stream are the best-fed in the world. Even Jim, an otherwise sensible man from up around Date Street, broke down last week. I caught him red-handed feeding a gaggle of little ducklings.

The Dawn Patrol doesn't try to flaunt individuality, it just comes naturally. Like with the Debutante's Grandmother, a pleasant, gray-haired matron who goes walking at 6 a.m. in a baby-blue, ankle-length gown that would knock 'em dead in the ballroom of the Royal Hawaiian hotel.

One of our mysteries is the Girl in a Trance. She resembles a young Mona Lisa as she strides along with downcast eyes, a faint smile on her lips, oblivious to us mere mortals. No one intrudes into her secret world. It's more fun to guess what she's thinking.

Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073.