Posted on: Sunday, May 1, 2005
Stringing their Island memories on each lei
By Keith Haugen
Special to The Advertiser
It was an honor system — beautiful orchids on a table along Haleakala Highway and a box where you paid for them and made your own change — that prompted Jack Concannon to start giving his wife a lei every day.
Advertiser library photo "Maureen has always loved flowers," Jack says today. "I always bought her flowers, anytime I could, for no special reason, and I took a lot of kidding about it. In Massachusetts, my friends would ask: 'What did you do now?' "
"We took about five orchids from that table on the Maui roadside and paid for them," he said. "And we drove away with such a wonderful feeling. How nice, we thought, that folks would be so trusting. We'll never forget Maui and that first visit."
Back at the hotel in Ka'anapali, Maureen put the flowers in the refrigerator, to "keep them as long as she could," Jack recalls. "I told her to take them out and enjoy them," Jack said. "That I'd get her some more tomorrow."
The next day, back in Waikiki, Jack found a plumeria lei at the International Market Place. He bought it for Maureen. "The next night, it just seemed the right thing to do, so I bought her another one."
Advertiser library photo "She wore pikake one day, a tuberose the next. When lantern 'ilima became popular, I bought her those. When the lei makers started putting roses and orchids together with ti leaves, I started picking them up too," Jack said.
Soon they found the Sweetheart Lei Stand on Beretania Street. "We buy most of our lei there now," Jack says. "But if they don't have something special, we go around the corner and find a special lei on Maunakea Street. They understand."
"Every lei is special," Maureen says. "He buys me jade, crown flower, maunaloa flowers, cigar flower, hala, 'ohai ali'i, pua kenikeni and roses, carnations, orchids, bozos and other flowers in every conceivable combination. I guess I've worn almost every kind of neck lei made.
"I remember when the Micronesian white ginger lei became popular in Hawai'i and Jack bought me the first of many."
The Concannons don't make a big thing about it, and only at the places they frequent do people even notice that she is wearing a different fresh lei every day. "It's not a big thing," Jack adds. "But she deserves the best."
Jack and Maureen Concannon live in Braintree, Mass. He is retired from a telephone company, and for most of his adult life was the accordion-playing leader of a Boston-area Irish band. She is an artist who paints for fun. At some Waikiki shows, entertainers recognize the couple and sometimes even invite Maureen into the spotlight to show off an unusually beautiful lei. For many guests, it is an education about lei ... and giving ... and that special Hawaiian feeling we call aloha.
The Concannons' children are grown, and as the couple have come to enjoy more free time, their vacations to Hawai'i have grown longer and longer. A few weeks a year in the early 1980s turned into two months a year in the 1990s. That's 60 fresh flower lei on each visit.
The florists must love the Concannons as much as Maureen loves the Island tradition of lei-giving, but not nearly as much as Jack loves Maureen.
"She deserves it," says Jack, as he presents his Maureen with another lei.
That was 20 years ago, on the Concannons' first visit to the Islands, and they'll never forget it.
May Day is Lei Day — and today or any day, a garland of flowers can express many sentiments.
Then they found the airport lei stands, some neighborhood flower shops, and finally, the Chinatown lei vendors. Soon they found themselves shopping to find the nicest, most fragrant, most beautiful lei available. And he bought one every day.
Concannon family photo Jack and Maureen Concannon are frequent visitors to Hawai'i — and each day they are here, there is a new lei for Maureen.
