maly, too: Hawaii

Friday, December 13, 2013

Hawaii

Friday, December 13, 2013

By RON MALY

I've got plenty of things on my plate today and tonight. More Christmas shopping, a trip to Hy-Vee and Fareway to see which one will dig the deepest into my pockets, a 2-mile walk, some time on the stationary bike, the Valley-Dowling boys-girls' doubleheader.

And wouldn't you know it--my neighbor Al, the health nut, was ringing my doorbell at 7:30 a.m., asking if I had a cup of Dark Italian Roast.

"I've been looking for you," Al said. "You've been home for a week or so from Hawaii and I've been trying to touch base with you so I can hear about your latest cruise."

"Great trip, Al," I said. "We've been on three cruises in the last 18 months--first on a trans-Atlantic trip to and from Italy, Madeira Island off Portugal and Monte Carlo, then in June to Alaska, and now this one to Hawaii. This one was the best yet."

Hello from Hilo

"I'm surprised you'd say that," Al commented.

"You missed Iowa's big football wins over Michigan and Nebraska, and you missed Thanksgiving in Iowa."

Al must've been kidding with that comment.

"No problem, Al," I answered. "I was living like a king and eating like Floyd of Rosedale in Hawaii and on the Pacific Ocean.

"The TV in our balcony room had all of the sports and news

Star Princess

channels I needed, so I saw the entire Iowa-Nebraska and Michigan-Ohio State games on the Star Princess, our ship, and I got updates on the Iowa-Michigan game.

"I was happy to see the Hawkeyes finish the regular season so well because I figure that'll make sales of my third Iowa football book even better."

Oriental lunch, including fresh pineapple, on the Star Princes

"Did you have turkey on the ship or on the Big Island on Thanksgiving day?" Al asked.

"I said before we left that I'd have turkey only unless there was something better on the menu," I answered. "I didn't have turkey, so that'll give you an idea about how good the

Plenty of fish, vegetables and seeds

food was. The closest thing I had to turkey and any other Thanksgiving food was lobster and prawns.

"I followed your advice because you're the health nut. I ate plenty of seafood--always for dinner, sometimes at the other meals throughout the day.

"We had lobster for two dinners, and at one of the meals the waiter asked if each of us wanted a second lobster. Now, that's service.

"Despite it being the Thanksgiving season, I

Baked Alaska

didn't bother with any pumpkin pie [one of the desserts at the final dinner on the ship was Baked Alaska].

"The closest I came to pumpkin was pumpkin seeds. I've become a big seeds eater, so I sprinkled lots of pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and whatever other kinds of seeds I could find on my salads at the lunch buffet."

"I suppose the weather was great, huh?" Al said.

"Fantastic, Al," I answered. "It was 80 degrees or warmer on all four of the islands we visited--Oahu, Kauai, Maui and Hilo on the Big Island. I was thinking of you while drinking coffee in

Some of Hawaii's beauty

the morning on the balcony of the ship."

"Sure, I'll bet you were," Al said. "Those were probably the days I was freezing my ass off when I was going to Hy-Vee to see if there was anything in the paper worth reading."

"Was there?" I asked.

"Was there what?" Al said.

"Anything worth reading," I said.

"Very little," Al said. "I read the obituaries, and I was through with the paper in 90 seconds. One of the obits I noticed was the one about Drake Mabry, one of your old cronies at 8th & Locust. Didn't you tell me once that Mabry was the news boss at the Tribune, and when the managing editor job at the Register was vacant, the asshole Gartner made Mabry and some other guys apply for the job? Then they didn't get it."

"I don't know, Al. I've forgotten about all of that crap," I said.

"Let's get to the important stuff. If I were Nebraska's first-year athletic director or the school president, I would've fired football coach Bo Pelini 5 minutes after his team was clobbered by Iowa, 38-17.

"I saw his postgame press conference on TV, and when he called the unsportsmanlike conduct call against him "chickenshit," then dared Nebraska to fire him, I'd have done just that. I'd have canned the jackoff.

"The fact that Nebraska didn't fire him tells me he's got the place by the balls because of his $7 million-or-so buyout. I think he's a bum."

"Getting back to Hawaii, what was your favorite island?" Al asked.

"This might surprise you, but I'm going to say Kauai," I said. "All of Hawaii is absolutely beautiful, and I know rave about Maui, but I thought Kauai was wonderful.

"They told us there were fewer than 70,000 people on the entire island, and the rest of the place is totally beautiful nature.

At Waimea Canyon

"We visited the Waimea Canyon there, and it was like Heaven on earth. I could've stayed there for a week, just enjoying the scenery and breathing the air."

Beach on Oahu

I told Al we visited the beach on Oahu where part of the movie From Here To Eternity was filmed in 1953.

That the movie in which Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr turned in what was probably the sexiest beach scene in movie history.

"Because the destination of the cruise was the Hawaiian Islands, the movie was shown on the in-room TVs throughout the trip," I told Al. "I

Beach Scene in From Here To Eternity

saw Frank Sinatra, Ernest Borgnine and Montgomery Clift get killed plenty of times."

"I know you always meet a lot of interesting people on those cruises," Al said. "Was it that way this time, too?"

"Absolutely," I said. "We saw different people from all parts of the world at every meal. One night we were joined by Joan and Allan Cooper of Milton, Scotland, who told us they live in a house that was built in 1746. I can't imagine anything like that. That means the house was built long before the Revolutionary War in America.

"There are plenty of other houses of that vintage in Milton, a community of fewer than

Allan and Joan Cooper of Milton, Scotland

1,000 people. Allan Cooper told us his son lives in a house that's 20 years newer than his, and that there are four other 18th-century houses on the market in Milton now."

"Do you plan to buy one?" Al asked.

"If I can get over to Scotland sometime soon, I might," I said.

By the way, I meant that as a joke. I'm not sure ESPN is available in Milton. I wouldn't want to miss the telecast of the press conference when Bo Pelini is finally canned at Nebraska. Besides, Allan Cooper told us Milton gets as much, or more, snow than Iowa.

Another night on the ship, I sat next to a guy from Arizona. When I told him I was from central Iowa, he said, "I know someone from your area very well."

"Who?" I asked.

"Johnny Orr," the man said. "I was a teammate of Johnny on the Beloit College teams in Wisconsin. He was quite a collegiate basketball player."

Orr was a standout on the Beloit teams coached by Dolph Stanley [who later was the athletic director at Drake for a short time]. Stanley's Beloit teams won six straight Midwest Conference titles in his 12 seasons as coach, and one of his teams crushed Cornell College of Mt. Vernon, IA, 141-53.

"The next time I see Johnny I'll tell him I talked with you," I told the man. "I'll tell him I finally saw the best player ever to perform for Beloit. I'll say something like, 'Johnny, you've been telling me for years that you were the best player at Beloit. Now I've finally found the guy who was better.'"

Just joking again, of course.

"'Johnny will get a kick out of that," the man said.

"Sounds like you had a great time," Al said. "Pour me another cup of Dark Roast."

JOLTIN' JOE GOT IT STARTED

When Ron Maly was a kid in Cedar Rapids, he wanted to enter an essay contest, and he did. He wrote about Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees being his favorite baseball player. For finishing second in the contest, Ron won a Louisville Slugger baseball bat autographed by DiMaggio. Ron later wanted to be the first person in his family to attend college, and he was. He earned a degree in political science from the University of Iowa, and did what all political science majors do. He became a sportswriter. He had, after all, covered high school football, basketball and baseball games for the Cedar Rapids Gazette while he worked parttime during his university days. Ron wanted to sit in the press box and write about an Iowa-Minnesota football game, and he did. It happened while he was the sports editor at the Albert Lea [Minn.] Tribune, and the game was at Memorial Stadium in Minneapolis. Ron wanted to cover a World Series, and he did. Also when he was working for the Albert Lea newspaper. Ron wanted to cover Rose Bowls, Sugar Bowls, Orange Bowls, Cotton Bowls, Holiday Bowls, a Freedom Bowl, a Sun Bowl, a Super Bowl and NCAA basketball tournaments, and he did those things after he moved to Des Moines. Ron was a four-time sportswriter of the Year in the state of Iowa [the years were 1977, 1978, 1994 and 1996]. In 2006, he was named a charter member of the University of Iowa's media Wall of Fame in the Kinnick Stadium press box. A photo of the plaque that's displayed in the press box is displayed above this story. Following Ron's retirement from the newspaper business, a publisher asked him if he wanted to write a book about the rich football tradition at the University of Iowa, and he did. The hardback version of "Tales from the Iowa Sidelines" was a best-seller, and so was the revised, softback version. Now he's been asked by his publisher to update the book for a second time. He's in the process of doing that at the present time. Ron considers being asked to update a best-selling book for the second time to be the supreme compliment, considering the Hawkeyes won just four games in the 2012 season. When Ron isn't working on books, he's busy traveling and spending time with his family. Indeed, he attends the athletic, theatrical and musical [both vocal and instrumental] events in which his six grandchildren participate. He also writes about anything that interests him for his many websites. Every chance he gets, Ron proudly wears his America Needs Farmers T-shirt.

The Hawkeyes' Rich Football Tradition, Revisited

I mentioned a while back that I was in the process of updating my Tales from the Iowa Sidelines book. Updating it for the second time. The original hardback edition of Tales from the Iowa Sidelines [pictured at the right] was published in 2003, during the 10-3 season, when coach Kirk Ferentz and his Iowa football team had a 10-3 record that included a 37-17 victory over 15th-ranked Florida in the Outback Bowl and after the Hawkeyes went 11-2 in 2002. That book was a best-seller, so the publishers came to me again in 2005, a season that finished with a breathtaking 30-25 victory over No. 11 Louisiana State in the Capital One Bowl on New Year's Day, 2005. Because buyers had cleaned out the the shelves in the bookstores, the publishers wanted to know if I'd do an updated version of the book. I agreed, The revised, soft-cover edition [pictured at the left] was published in 2005. Warren Holloway, who teamed with quarterback Drew Tate on a miraculous 56-yard touchdown pass to win the Capital One Bowl, was featured on the cover. That book, too, turned into a best-seller, So I had reason to feel very good about my years as a published author. It's not every day that a the original version is a best-seller, and so is the updated version. Then, imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail from a senior editor at the publishing company last fall, wanting wanted to know if I was interested in doing a second updated version of the book. It came at a time when things weren't going well for the Hawkeyes in the 2012 season. They lost their last six games and finished with a 4-8 record. Frankly, the thought of doing a revised edition of the book during a 4-8 season seemed to be a stretch. "Maybe producing a revised edition in a year or two would be a better idea," I told the publishers. "We'd like to do it now," I was told. "Let me think about it," I said. After a few days of thought, I accepted the idea. I talked myself into the idea that this was the supreme compliment--being asked to do a second book update during a 4-8 season showed strong confidence by the publishers in me and in the Hawkeyes' football program. So I got back into the business of interviewing players and coaches again, going to postgame press conferences, weekly press conferences and a scrimmage in West Des Moines. After a press conference in Iowa City, I did a one-on-one interview with coach Kirk Ferentz, and mentioned to him that I was in the process of doing a revised edition of my two best-selling books. I congratulated him on the excellent things he had done for Iowa's football program--all of which contributed to the success of my books. "I think Coach Fry had more to do with it," he told me, bringing up the name of Hayden Fry, his one-time boss at Iowa and a man who brought Iowa's football program back from the dead in the 20th century. That's modest Kirk Ferentz for you. Even though the 2012 season wasn't something Hawkeye coaches, players and fans will recall with any special feeling, Ferentz has a 14-year record of 100-74 at Iowa that includes two 11-victory seasons [2002 smd 2009], two 10-victory seasons [2003 and 2004], plus he's been the Big Ten coach of year in 2002, 2004 and 2009, and national coach of the year in 2002. Indeed, Ferentz has done some wonderful things at Iowa City, and I fully expect his success to continue. I've concluded my writing for the second update of Tales from the Iowa Sidelines, and the senior editor has furnished me with an early look at the book. Not only are the Kirk Ferentz years included in the updated version, but so is the stuff I previously wrote about Howard Jones, Dr. Eddie Anderson, Heisman Trophy winner Nile Kinnick and the 1939 Hawkeye Ironmen, Ronald Reagan, Ozzie Simmons, Ossie Solem, Randy Duncan, Alex Karras and lots of other legends from Iowa's rich football history. I expect the book to be in stores soon. I hope you like it.