A few vignettes.

On a muggy night in Honolulu many years ago, a young boy sat along the third base line on battleship gray bleachers taking in the sights and sounds of America's Pastime. Don't ask me why I remember this particular incident, but a bearded red-headed man selling hotdogs cokes and peanuts came by around the seventh inning hawking his wares, telling everyone that this was the last chance for the night. A military type behind me asked the red-head, "Is that a threat or a promise?" and got a good chuckle from those near enough to hear the statement. Don't ask me why an insignificant incident more than a quarter century ago stuck in my head. It just did, and I guess I'll take that one to the grave with me.

One of the things a friend and I did at home after games was to imitate the snack and beer hawkers at Honolulu Stadium. While your particular style was more a visual one that would be impossible to recreate here, there were others who were easy to imitate by voice, including Howard, for obvious reasons, Cardoza, who was gruff and short (and who often would throw us a curve by demanding that we purchase "Frosteh Malt", beer man Gary Boyer who had that "haole" twang, and a local gentleman whom I never knew the name of, but who seemed bored with his "bea, cold bea" call.

One of the highlights of my life was to be hired by the Hawaii Islanders as a batboy for the 1974 season. After years of kibitzing from the centerfield bleachers, I got a chance to be a part of a professional ballclub for one short summer. While I could fill your emailbox with thousands of words about how much it meant to me, I can show you a lot easier (and I'm hoping you have the ability to look at attached email jpegs.) The first photo is of a 16-year-old boy that resembles this 41-year-old man, grinning from ear to ear? in an Islander uniform, with the stadium and the Koolaus over his back. The second photo is of the 41-year-old man's 5-year-old boy, who is wearing the same hat and standing at approximately the same spot.*

After all of this diatribe, I guess the bottom line is that it was nice to accidentally come across your website and see the photo of your crew of
hawkers. Yes, I vividly remember you, Howard, Cardoza and all the other characters who lurked at the corner of King and Isenberg for the first five years of the 1970s.

Have a nice life and keep up the interesting website?

Bobby
(Hawaii)