Birthday Luau at 'Waikiki' Basement' Is Another Event That Got Out of Hand

Last fall, Colleen surveyed her friends. She presented four possibilities and each girl had to vote. The question posed was: For my 12th birthday should I have a Marilyn Monroe party, Hawaiian party, Fairy Princess party or pink party? The Hawaiian party was the overwhelming winner.
When Colleen told me the news I said something like, “Oh, that’s nice.”
At the time, I wasn’t particularly interested in Colleen’s birthday. I had to have birthdays for Patrick, Johnny, Maureen, Pete, and even myself before it would be Colleen’s turn, and I knew she would remind me. She did.
Preparations began at the grocery store. While I was in the produce department, Colleen wandered off. When she reappeared she told me she had been discussing Hawaiian flowers with a woman in the flower shop.
“They don’t regularly carry the kind of flowers I want for the party but they can special-order them,” Colleen told me.
“By all means,” I said. “We’ll have them flown in from the Islands if necessary.”
Phone calls between Colleen and her friends made the plans increasingly more elaborate.
One night when we were driving out to see Halley’s comet, Colleen told her friend who had come along, “We have everyone’s spot for sleeping figured out.”
“This is not going to be a sleepover!” I yelled from the front seat.
That was the extent of my involvement until two days before the party, when it became another of those things I let get out of hand.
First, we had to clean the basement. Colleen understood this, but her idea of clean and mine aren’t the same. She wanted to clear a path and hang decorations. I suggested a more thorough job.
Colleen wanted the upstairs to be California and the basement to be Waikiki Beach. We hung the “aloha” banner, a fish windsock and a hammock full of dolls dressed in bathing suits. One of her friends whose parents had been to Hawaii lent her some authentic decorations to put on the food table. I bought some paper umbrellas to place in the tropical drinks and the food, a couple pineapples, and figures of a hula girl and a guy on a surfboard.
Next came planning the entertainment. Colleen decided on a Hula-Hoop contest, a limbo contest, Hula dancing with the dancers taking turns wearing Colleen’s grass skirt, a tropical drink-making event, a Hawaiian Luau with all the trimmings except the roast pig, a movie to watch on the video recorder and going out for pizza.
I agreed to everything except the drink-making, because it sounded too messy, and the pizza outing, because it seemed unnecessary.
The day of the party I shopped for Hula-Hoops and a limbo record. Three sales people helped me search the music store, but we couldn’t come up with any version of the limbo. I decided we’d have to improvise – I still had to shop for the luau.
By the time the three little guys and I got home from shopping, the big kids were home from school and ready to go Hawaiian. My disposition was still on the mainland.
Once I got out the blender to start mixing the banana-raspberry slush, which I had to make with strawberries and no orange juice (I forgot to get raspberries and orange juice at the store), my spirits picked right up.
At 7 p.m. when the guests arrived in their Hawaiian outfits, the basement looked as close to a Hawaiian beach as a basement in Omaha, Nebraska, can in January. At the end of the evening when the guests indicated they had a great time, Colleen said, “This has been the best party I’ve ever had. I bet I’ll always remember it.”
As I surveyed the damage on Waikiki Beach I said, “I’m so glad, because I don’t think I’ll be ready for another one until your wedding reception.”

February 12, 1986