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50 years ago, about this time of year, I happened to meet a scufty old guy in the Rigger Restaurant, located on the ground floor of the Outrigger Hotel in the center of Waikiki. He had several days growth of whiskers and his hair was a bit unkempt, shaggy. He wore a Lahaina Whaling Spree tee shirt, a pair of baggy denim shorts, and sandles. First, I thought he was trying to get a free meal or coffee; but he knew the waitress and ordered for both of us. He asked that she put it on his tab and she gave him no grief. Rather, she was very cordial.
He smiled and asked, "life treating you a little rough?" He had seen me pondering my navel over a cup of coffee. The problem was a woman, a beautiful woman. She was a model for Alfred Shaheen, the premiere Aloha fashions designer. All I wanted was the nerve to ask her out.. If she said, "No," so be it; but I did not have the guts to put my ego on the line. The old guy laughed. He knew the girl and said that many men wanted the same thing....the nerve to ask. She was just so beautiful, so graceful. He urged me to make a plan and approach her by saying to me,"If you do not squeeze the trigger, you cannot kill the bear; and, sometimes, the bear will eat you,"
Oh, the first part was easy enough to understand; but the second part was deeper. He was saying that my failure to make this commitment would gnaw at me for more than just a day or two...that I would ever wonder, "What if...."
I made the commitment. She was quite taken with my ardor and we were room mates and lovers for 14 months, until I left for Vietnam. Never saw her again, By the time I returned, she had moved on, made commitments of her own.
The scrufty old guy was Richard Boone, actor and wise man.