Every now and then I find myself with several short stories that are not large enough to take up a full column on their own. They don’t share a common theme, so I just call them “da kine stories.”

Today we’ll start with former Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s first car, bought for $50 from David “Lippy” Espinda. Then we’ll find out why James Burns was given a Japanese middle name. After that we’ll learn about Linda Coble, who taught her parrot to imitate Marilyn Monroe for her husband, Kirk Matthews.

1937 Buick coupe

I was talking with Abercrombie last week. He told me about his first car, a 1937 Buick coupe, purchased from Espinda in 1959.

Espinda owned a gas station and used car lot near where Century Center is today, at Kapiolani Boulevard and Kalakaua Avenue. Many think it was Espinda who first called what is now our state gesture, using a thumb and little finger, “shaka.”

“Espinda was just like he was in his TV commercials,” Abercrombie said. “Very local. Very pidgin. I was a poor graduate student. I told him I didn’t have much money.

“He said, ‘I got just the thing for you, bruddah. Come over here.’ He showed me the car. It was a 1937 Buick coupe with a stick shift on the floor.

“How much is it?”

“Fifty bucks,” he said.

“Fifty bucks! Wow. I can do that!”

“And don’t forget you get one warranty,” Espinda said. “No worry. No worry.

“You get the car from me. You hit the road. I’m gonna be watching you going down Kalakaua Avenue. And as long as Lippy can see you driving down Kalakaua Avenue, you got da warranty.”

Seishiro

James Stanton Seishiro Burns was chief judge of the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals. He was married to journalist Emme Tomimbang for 33 years.

I interviewed him several times when I was writing about his father, Gov. John A. Burns. I was curious as to why he was given a Japanese middle name.

John and Beatrice Burns had two children prior to 1935 — Jack Jr. and Mary Beth. “In 1935 I was seven months pregnant with our third child when I got polio,” Beatrice Burns told the Hawaii Tribune-Herald in 1956. “We lost that baby. Then Jim was born in 1937, after I had polio.”

Beatrice Burns’ paralysis was so extensive that it was almost impossible for her to breathe. The physical therapist who attended her during a long convalescence was Seishiro “Henry” Okazaki.

“If it weren’t for Professor Okazaki, I wouldn’t be here and neither would Jim. He gave me treatments every day. The biggest thing he did was to give me encouragement,” she said.

“He used his elbows a lot. It didn’t bother him if it hurt me. If I yelled, he’d say, ‘Go ahead and cry another bucketful.’

“He put me in hot water with seaweed. In those days they put splints on polio patients, but instead he bent my legs. It hurt like the blazes while he was doing it, but when he stopped it didn’t hurt anymore.”

Slowly, she recovered.

One way she thanked Okazaki was giving her young son, James, the middle name Seishiro.

Okazaki also treated President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Olympic athlete and actor Johnny Weissmuller and actor Shirley Temple.

‘Bye-bye, Kirk’

One of my favorite Hawaii couples was Linda Coble and Kirk Matthews. They both worked in radio and television news and were born on the same day, Jan. 10, 1947.

They owned a medium-­size sun conure parrot named Belle. She was orange and green and over 20 years old.

Kirk was on the KHON “Morning News” for a while and had to get to work at 4 a.m. He tried not to wake his wife, who worked the KGMB evening news, when he left.

Linda taught Belle to speak like Marilyn Monroe when Kirk left in the morning. From under the cover of her cage, in a deep, husky voice, Belle would say, “Bye-bye, Kirk.”

Curry

In 2023, readers of this column voted for their favorite Honolulu restaurants that were, unfortunately, no longer with us. The top vote-getter was the Willows, on Hausten Street in Moiliili.

It was famous for its curry and sky-high meringue pies. I had no idea where the recipes came from. In September I learned how the Willows came to have delicious curry.

I was reading Jane Marshall Goodsill’s third book, “Voices of Hawaii: More Untold Stories of the Aloha State.” One of the many people she interviewed was Tami Pang Orozco. She worked at the Halekulani, Willows, Genki Sushi and Yong Sing, and she founded Tango Contemporary Cafe.

“In 1980, after I had been at the Halekulani for five years,” Orozco said, “Randy Lee, who was the general manager, bought the Willows. It was an existing restaurant on a charming site, with freshwater springs under it and ponds that the diners could look out upon while eating.

“The Willows had the thatched hut and the open-air feeling of the (old) Halekulani.

“Randy hired Kusuma Cooray, the personal chef to Doris Duke, to do special meals. She was from Sri Lanka and her curries were sensational.”

And that’s how the Willows came to have one of its signature dishes.

Chef Cooray went on to teach at Kapiolani Community College for 26 years.

Hawaii Islanders

From 1961 to 1987 Oahu was home to a minor league baseball team called the Hawaii Islanders. Recently, I was looking through the newspaper archives, researching KPOI radio and the Poi Boys, when I saw an interesting article on the same page.

Readers often ask me how I come up with ideas for my column, and this is one of those ways. While looking for one thing, I often find something else.

In this case it was a 1961 story in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin about a contest to name the new AAA baseball team. Readers nominated 247 different names.

Many used terms with an island connection, like Beachcombers, Tradewinds, Grass Shacks, Tikis, 50 Staters, Aikanes, Hukilaus, Kanakas, Kahunas, Lulus, Mynahs, Malolos, Sugar Babies and Poi Pounders.

The Star-Bulletin sports staff chuckled at these: Brudders, Gopher Brokes, Pupule, Hulagans, Sun Tans, Go Aheads, DaGuys and Da Kines.

H.F. “Hap” Kollmeyer Jr. won the contest to name the team. His was the first postcard with “Islanders” received, although 46 others suggested the same nickname. He won season tickets to the 77 home games.

Kaiser hospital, hotel

“I was a patient at Kaiser Hospital in 1974,” John Ishihara told me. The hospital was next to the Ilikai hotel on Ala Moana Boulevard, where the Hawaii Prince hotel is today.

“My doctor, who knew Henry Kaiser, said that he built the hospital so that it could be used as a hotel (with the lanais facing Diamond Head and ocean) if the hospital didn’t work out.”

In January 1959, The Hono­lulu Advertiser reported that many tourists arrived without reservations, not realizing this was a busy time for us, and most hotels were sold out.

Matson’s four hotels with 1,058 rooms were all full. Those coming without reservations were sent to downtown hotels. One hotel official said that three assistant managers had to give up their rooms, but every arrival was taken care of.

“Saturday night there were only 12 hotel rooms available in all of Honolulu,” Roy Kelley said. “But we haven’t yet had to resort to our list of apartments or private homes.”

Kaiser’s Hawaiian Village overflowed with tourists. Kaiser put them up in 18 rooms on the eighth floor of nearby Kaiser Hospital.

The Advertiser didn’t mention whether guests were offered hospital gowns (which opened in the back), bedpans or sponge baths.

Bob Sigall is the author of the five “The Companies We Keep” books. Contact him at Sigall@Yahoo.com or sign up for his free email newsletter at RearviewMirrorInsider.com.