Posted on: Friday, June 24, 2005

HAWAIIAN STYLE

By Wade Kilohana Shirkey
Advertiser Staff Writer

I've always looked at my last Hawaiian Style column the same way I looked at leaving my parents' house. Even though both were unusually enjoyable situations, eventually it would be time to move on. But how would I ever make the announcement to people who had been good to me?

I always worried what words I would use with my parents to explain why I'd leave a comfortable existence in our Wai'alae Iki home to move out on my own. To this day, my old downstairs apartment at home is bigger than what I pay dearly for now.

Somehow I knew the time was coming. Even before I thought about it in any concrete form, I had begun to squirrel "house stuff" away — used sheets my stepmom was throwing out, a cheap set of dishes on sale at Wigwam, an electric frying pan my hanai mom was parting with.

I'm sure some psychologist even back then might have said I was beginning my "nesting phase." Or, perhaps, my "messy old man syndrome."

I never had to make the decision how to break the news to my parents. I always joke, usually when you're about 18, you leave home — but in my case, a week from my 18th birthday, they left me. Divorced and sold the house. Problem solved.

It was as good a time as any to fly the coop. Besides, I had the sheets.

Now I worry about what words I'll use here, to say goodbye to a column that has become as much a part of who I am as my growing up at home was.

I've never been sure, over nine years — this column began in 1996 — where I left off and the column began.

My heart, I'm sure, is where the column's soul lives. And that place, even before this runs, is empty. And hurting. Again, like leaving home, a natural progression, I guess.

A learned editor once observed that having a weekly column is like having a swinging sword, point down, over your head. Back and forth, back and forth, it swings. And once a week, when the column is due, it slows down and comes to rest right over your head.

Another veteran columnist described it as always having a beast to feed. Turn in one week's column and the beast's appetite is assuaged. But one day later, it is voraciously hungry and roaring for its next meal.

Somehow what a beloved co-worker dubbed "That Li'l Piece of Fluff" had winnowed into my subconscious. One night, from a deep sleep, I fairly sat ramrod straight up in bed, and mentally screamed: "OH, NO! I DON'T HAVE A COLUMN IDEA FOR NEXT WEEK!" Of course, I did — it was just a bad dream. All was well with the world.

But it made me realize that "The Ol' Column," as I lovingly called it, owned me — it wasn't the other way around.

And I always kept, deep, deep in my being, the wish that when it came time to end writing it, that I'd go out like the cast of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" or "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" — ahead of the game, on my terms, when I was ready, and while the column — and my mental state — was still in reasonably good shape.

Well, that time has come. This column, gentle readers, will be my last.

I don't know how I'll feel come this time next week when there's no column topic to come up with, no interviews to arrange, or column to write — when I don't get to visit with you at the kitchen table.

Part of me will be gone. But part of me will never forget.

Thanks to everyone for allowing me that "Li'l Piece of Fluff."

Mahalo. Aloha. And malama — take care.

The Advertiser's Wade Kilohana Shirkey is kumu of Na Hoaloha Roselani No'eau hula halau. He wrote on Island Life.