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By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist
The latest news from over the back fence includes a couple of kolea stories.
Anne Harpham, the Advertiser's senior editor who lives in Wai'alae Nui, is worried about her kolea who has been straying from the back yard out into the street, where she's afraid it will get run over.
I'm not sure there's ever been a kolea traffic fatality, but death by gunshot used to be a common occurrence. Erling Hedemann on the Big Island sent us a 1917 photo showing hunters Fred Hedemann and Bruce Cartwright with their shotguns kneeling beside an open touring car. Their bag of 12 fat kolea is lined up on the running board.
An 1875 story in the March 27 Advertiser describes a "delicious breakfast of plover on toast. They are fine eating just now being fat and juicy." Stories indicate that 1871 was a good year for Hawaiian ducks (now protected by law). S.K. Rawson bagged 20 ducks, and a Capt. Scott brought home 19.
Whose photo?
A couple on Black Point are remodeling their house. The carpenters found a framed photo of two children in the wall. The homeowner thinks a family named Hayward used to live in the house. He'd like to return the photo if you can tell him who the children are.
Tribute to guitarist
Mrs. Amy Carpentino of Cedar Grove, N.J., kindly sent in a clipping from the Dover Star-Ledger about the Dover Historical Society honoring Joseph Kekuku, a Kamehameha Schools graduate and inventor of the steel guitar. He died in Dover and is buried there.
"Our goal is to raise enough money to buy an appropriate monument to this great person," said George Laurie, a member of the society.
A steel guitarist in nearby Chester, Mike Esposito, heard that the legendary Kekuku was buried in Dover. He told society members who finally located the gravestone hidden by brush next to the headstone of Kekuku's wife that had sunk into the ground.
'Vog' dispute
Alan Lloyd, the peripatetic historian, gets mad every time somebody complains about vog, volcano haze, the local version of smog. He insists there is no such thing as vog because smog is made up of smoke and fog. "Vog is made up of volcano haze and fog," says Lloyd. "It should be called 'vaze.'
Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073.
