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Blogs by Robert A. Mills
OAHU 10/12/2013 9:10:09 AM
The first time I went to Hawaii was in 1967, and I wore a white shirt and tie. I took two suits and three pairs of patent-leather shoes. I thought all airline passengers, especially those in First Class, had to dress up. It was back in the days when 1st Class truly was: with polished silverware and shimmering white trays and immaculate linens, an array of wines and aperitifs in crystal glasses; scrumptious dessert carts featuring real ice cream and fresh cake.
I was given a suite at the Princess Kaiulani Hotel, but it did not take long to realize the sunset from the bar at the Halekulani on Wailuka Avenue is the best in Waikiki.
My first night in Honolulu I had dinner at Pfizer’s Hofbrau House in the International Marketplace. My waitress was Gerte Dolmann, a buxom blonde in her late twenties, with ringlets, pigtails et al, and I, even though married back on the Mainland, fell madly in love before dessert.
I am off at ten-thirty, she told me, while delivering strudel and coffee.
We went to Moonie’s, a comedy club near the Ala Wai Canal, where by 5 a.m., I became fast friends with Don Ho, Jack Lord, James MacArthur and Al Harrington. I was a big hit in an audience-participation hula contest; a haole in a silk suit who thought the hula was some native form of square dancing.
Gerte, who had come to Hawaii by way of California, and I never became a special item, despite she was something of a knockout. She told me she was a CIA agent. I did not believe her. Our romance, such as it was, was limited to togs on the tennis court, jogging pants at Kapiolani Park, and ill-fitting bathing trunks and a molded but skimpy, eyeful two-piece bikini on the beach at Waikiki.
Gerte, it seemed, was looking for something more permanent; I was looking only to get laid. And finding a new job. I hated being a radio and TV personality in western New York — a small fish in a big pond.
I had a car whenever I was in Hawaii, a gleaming white 4-door’63 Cadillac Sedan Deville, owned by an old family friend, Bill Lee. A Navy veteran stationed at Pearl, Bill, brother to a lady I knew back home, had jumped ship near the Aloha Tower during World War One, had made a fortune in costume jewelry, and lived in a modest but charming house on Monsarrat Avenue, near Diamond Head Mountain.
He had bought the Cadillac brand-new in 1963, but he rarely drove it. It was mine whenever I was on Oahu (which, although I did not know it at the time, was to be nearly 200 trips).
One night Gerte introduced me to Leonard Smith, someone she had apparently had an affair with and known in California. Leonard was an attractive young man with a mop of curly black hair; he asked me if I knew Johnny Brightman, a gentleman he had brought into the bar that night at the Halekulani on Wailuka Avenue.
Never had the pleasure, I told him.
He leaned over me in his Hawaiian shirt and jeans, as if he were hard-of-hearing. Johnny, shake hands with Bob Mills from Rochester, a famous radio/TV personality, a friend of Gerte’s here.
Johnny Brightman, I learned later, was a 3-dot gossip columnist for the Honolulu Advertiser. He had recently informed his boss he was leaving the paper to return to the Mainland.
I gave my editor notice last week, he told me; I told Art Hinds I was taking a gig at the LA Times next month. You wanna write for the Advertiser?
Did I!… I went to see Hinds the very next day, and he asked me if I had any writing experience. I sold a couple shorts stories to Seventeen, I said; plus a couple to some lit mags — been toying with a novel on and off for about a year.
He sent me away to write up a few pretend columns. I borrowed a portable typewriter from Gerte and holed up at my hotel for a few days and banged out a bunch of 3-dot prose pieces for Hinds. All gems, I dropped them off at Hinds’ office.
A week or so later I went by Pfizer’s Hofbrau House to see Gerte, but I was told she no longer worked there. Back in my hotel suite, I snapped the case shut on her typewriter and carried it to her apartment; the landlady said Gerte had gone back to California.
Whadda I do with her typewriter? I asked.
I dunno. How much you want for it?
A week later I went to watch the sunset and I ran into Leonard Smith in the Halekalani bar. Gerte was called back to San Fran, he said. Nothing here for her. When you go home?
I told him, Next Saturday night. Got a flight out at eight-thirty. Arrives in Rochester by way of St. Louis before noon.
That is nice, he said. He asked me how long I had the PK suite for.
I dunno, I replied. Until Tuesday, I think.
Can I have it till Monday?
Sure. Just don’t charge anything. And stay outta the mini-bar.
He drove me to the airport that Saturday after we dropped the Cadillac off and had a couple beers with Bill Lee.
At Christmas time, I heard through the grapevine that Leonard and Gerte had gotten married. Both of them, full-fledged CIA operatives, had moved to Tokyo. They were now a bona fide, real life Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
As president of a string of major travel agencies, I went back to Hawaii many times before I retired, but I never again dined at Pfizer’s Hofbrau House. I heard Moonie’s had gone out of business. Jack Lord and most of the old gang are dead. Gerte Dolmann and Leonard Smith, if they are still alive and kicking, are an old but odd couple of nearly eighty..
I never went to work for the Honolulu Advertiser. I retired as a radio and TV personality and tourism exec in western NY after nearly thirty years and moved to Georgia.
The Halekulani is still the best place on Waikiki to watch the sunset. Never did hear from Art Hinds. Oh, well, what the hell — C’est la vie!
