Photo Frame

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Wednesday - October 08, 2008

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It was just another normal day at the newspaper when suddenly I was thrust into somewhat of a scandal. You may have seen the ads in MidWeek and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin for a book put out by the Star-Bulletin called Hawai’i 50.

The book commemorates Hawaii’s 50th year of state-hood and contains pictures from the Star-Bulletin photo archives depicting island life these past 50 years. Our office received the first delivery of them, as we would be one of the outlets where the book would be available for purchase.

Some of the office staff are involved with that process, but I was pretty oblivious to all that in my daily pursuit of running MidWeek. Little did I know that I would soon be thrust into the middle of it.

My assistant had come into my office and casually mentioned, “I saw your picture in ‘the book.’”

I wouldn’t have thought much about it, except she had a sly smile on her face, which seemed to be masking something about the photo. I asked, “Are you sure that’s my picture in the book?” I questioned it because why would my picture be in a book about 50 years of statehood?

“Oh yeah,” she replied and went off to get a copy to show me. Sure enough there was a photo of me, but not just any photo. It was a picture of me surrounded by a bunch of female swimsuit models. I seem to be sporting a nice tan and look to be about 70 pounds lighter than I am now.

I suddenly remembered the photo being taken a few years back by John Berger of the Star-Bulletin at a party celebrating MidWeek’s annual swimsuit issue. It’s somewhat compromising because these beautiful bikini-clad models are kind of all over me.

Before the end of the day, word had gotten out and everyone was looking for my photo like Where’s Waldo. I wasn’t crazy about it because the picture depicts the “after” whereas I look like the “before.” Still, the men in the office were fist-bumping me as though I were Hugh Hefner or James Bond.

I was kind of eating that up thinking that the picture wasn’t the worst legacy I could have. Then reality set in when I thought about what my wife would think about the picture. That inspired me to go seek out a home equity loan so that I could buy every single copy of the book.