Oahu - The Don Ho Show

When we started planning our trip to Hawaii, we were kind of joking about needing to have the Brady Bunch itinerary.

We did get a luau and some hula lessons at the Polynesian Cultural Center, and we did go to Pearl Harbor. We did not return a tiki figure to an archeological site, nor did we enter a surfing contest, which was probably for the best.

We knew we could not count on randomly running into Don Ho, but we found out that he had a dinner show and bought tickets, and then he didn't come.

He was sick that night, and he died not too long after our trip. (We went in February 2007 and he died in April.) The show did go on.

One thing we hadn't realized is that he had built the show not just on his own act, but as exposure for local talent, and that he had constantly been developing musicians and dancers and giving them chances to perform. Some people might have performed that night anyway, but also they started calling people in.

There was a real family feeling to the show. The person who led the show that night told us her name was Tiny Bubbles - possibly more of a nickname - but Don was like an uncle to her and her parents had met through him. She sang some songs, and she brought a young girl up to dance with her, and there was a male singer who had more of a rock style whereas their songs and dances had been more traditional, and it kind of went on in that vein.

It really wasn't bad. It wasn't what we were expecting of course, but we learned a lot about the island, and about Don Ho himself.

There were some unintended lessons about island life too. We were seated with a couple and a single man. All three were probably in their late 50s/early 60s, and they spent large portions of each winter in Hawaii. Obviously they were relatively affluent, and so there was this sort of competition going on between them, of how long they would spend, and how long they had been doing it and various ways of saying what they could afford.

When we were talking to other people, especially younger people, and they were talking about how to survive you needed three jobs and five roommates, well, I think it's the affluent people who make that happen, and while they are not doing that deliberately, they are still pretty gross. The big tip from them is that the real show you have to see is "The Magic of Polynesia" show, because he makes a helicopter disappear, and there's a lot of pyrotechnics.

That might be something to check out, because this show is gone. It sounds like they tried to keep it going as the Ohana Ho show, and then that didn't work out and Jimmy Buffet took over the space, and I don't know what's going on there now. An era has ended, but we caught a part of it.