Posted on: Sunday, September 5, 2004

OUR HONOLULU

By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

This true story is about how one little act of kindness to a stranger can blossom into a tidal wave of good deeds.

Vera Estes of 'Aiea is the widow of a first sergeant who served in World War II and Korea. She was at the PX recently buying malasadas.

A military man ahead of her ordered a bagful.

"Are you going to eat all those by yourself?" Vera asked.

"No, they're for the people in the UPS store because they were so nice to me," he explained.

The lady dishing out malasadas overheard the conversation.

"I think that's wonderful. So I'm going to give you two for yourself," she said.

Vera stepped up to the counter and ordered two malasadas. Then she and the malasada lady discussed acts of kindness. When Vera got home, she opened her bag and found three malasadas.

"Tomorrow I'm going to go back and give her a bouquet of flowers from my garden," she said.

The next day Vera brought the malasada lady a bouquet of roses and received a bagful of malasadas.

Funny and forceful

Attorney Frank Damon agrees that one of Hiram Fong's most endearing qualities was a sense of humor, but he was also a powerful orator. Damon gave two examples:

The Chinese World of Sept. 25, 1959, in a column by Ken Wong attributed this story to Fong under the heading, "Hiram the humor man." Hiram said that Captain Cook wasn't the first foreigner to discover Hawai'i; it was a Chinese sea captain who dropped anchor off O'ahu after surveying the beach with his spy glass.

He saw scantily clad maidens flitting about under the palm trees and decided not to let his crew go ashore. However, the cook slipped over the side that night and disappeared. The captain led a search party for the deserter. They found the cook in a hammock being fanned by a bevy of hula girls.

Furious, the captain, wearing heavy boots, kicked the cook out of the hammock and down the beach as the cook shouted, "Captain, why kickee, why kickee?" And that's why the beach came to be called Waikiki.

The first speech Hiram Fong gave on the floor of the U.S. Senate was about immigration. Damon was in the gallery.

In the Senate, Republicans sit on one side of the aisle, Democrats on the other. As Fong's speech picked up power, a Democrat crossed the aisle to sit nearer to Fong so he could hear better. Then five more Democrats crossed the aisle.

"In the U.S. Senate, that was unheard of," Damon said. "I know it happened because I was there."

Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073.