Tuesday, Sept. 30, 1997 | 8 a.m.
LIKE MANY reporters, I have neither the time nor the money to travel to exotic places.
The closest I've ever been to Hawaii was the time I dropped by a yard sale at my neighbor's house.
It was there that I bought James Michener's epic on the Aloha State for fifty cents.
The other books were a quarter. I suppose they were offered by the pound.
Since then, I haven't thought much of the nation's 50th state until my friend Adrian stopped me Saturday afternoon as I was making a sandwich with outdated turkey baloney and Chinese chili pepper sauce.
"Come on, let's take Murray for a walk to Lorenzi Park, and we'll get some Hawaiian food," Adrian said.
Murray is Adrian's Golden Labrador retriever, who has developed a bit of a weight problem, the result of sharing too many turkey baloney sandwiches with me over the years.
Once there, we were surrounded by the thousands of revelers enjoying Polynesian music and dance. The air was filled with the aroma of island delicacies such as sizzling ahi tuna, lomi salmon and kalua pig.
It was all part of the Ho'Olaule'A '97 Pacific Islands Festival.
Amazed by the size of the crowd, I decided to try to learn more about Southern Nevada's Hawaiian contingency.
I identified myself as a reporter to Billie Ann Sabala and Millie Misajon, members of the Alumni Association of the University of Hawaii.
"Where's your notebook?" Sabala asked.
"What difference does it make? I can't spell the Hawaiian words."
Sabala noted that more than 50,000 people of Hawaiian origin make their home in Southern Nevada.
"They come here because of the jobs," Sabala said. "It's just too expensive to live in Hawaii today."
Misajon noted that Hawaii is much like Las Vegas in that it's a melting pot of various ethnicities.
To communicate with each other, Misajon explained that Hawaiians have developed a form of slang known as "pidgin English."
In "pidgin English," she explained, the question: "Are you going to write a news article?" translates to: "You goin' write one story?"
As we talked, I could see workmen putting the finishing touches to the Imu pit where the unfortunate kalua pig was to be roasted over hot stones and under banana and tea leaves for multitudes.
But, although the pit had been dug and the fire was raging, we didn't see the pig. This made Murray more than a little nervous, and so we said goodbye.
On the way out, I stopped by one of the food tents and bought some salmon rolled in seaweed and poi, a native side dish literally hammered out of taro root.
"Hey, you don't eat the seaweed," a Hawaiian gentleman laughed at me, as I tried to stick the whole thing in my mouth.
After that, I tasted the poi.
"Ugghhhh!" I cried out in disgust, and followed that word with a few choice others.
A couple of young women, obviously offended, turned toward me.
"Pidgin English -- you know," I smiled, and they walked away.
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