The picture, unlike most Hollywood productions, was strictly unglamorous but highly realistic. Shot from the bobbing raft by members of the expedition, the scenes maintained a solid pace of action.

Oct. 16, 1951. Krauss' first story for The Advertiser was unbylined piece that ran on Page 6 about the opening of the film "Kon Tiki."

Kon Kini voyage

Krauss teamed up with local TV personality "Kini Popo" on several expeditions, this one a walk around O'ahu in 1955. Advertiser library photo • 1955

A few hours from now, folks, I will step aboard the good raft Kon Kini and begin our expedition down the Ala Wai canal...

As is to be expected on these expeditions, we have had a lot of trouble making arrangements. Kini Popo, my partner, is still out looking for provisions, potato salad and beer. I expect to subsist on sashimi, which I consider a much more practical diet at sea.

As you probably know, the scientific purpose of this expedition is to prove our contention that the members of the Waikiki Yacht Club might well have migrated from Kapahulu. There are several indications of this in old records. For example, a bottle is known to have floated from the upper end of the canal (where the expedition will start) to the very mouth of the yacht harbor before sinking.

Why, we said to ourselves, couldn't a human do the same thing?

... Never having floated down the Ala Wai on a raft, you probably have no idea of the problems involved in planning such an expedition.

Take, for example, the matter of communications. Smoke signals are out of date. Shouting is the most practical but you aren't supposed to shout on a scientific expedition. We could take along a radio transmitter but that wouldn't leave room for the potato salad. ...

August 13, 1954, before the start of one of Krauss' most infamous stunts, a raft voyage down the Ala Wai, which was covered extensively by local TV, radio and, of course, The Advertiser.

Statehood

Aunt Jennie Wilson, Hawaii's grand old woman, didn't attend the statehood celebrations downtown yesterday. She sat alone on her shady lanai with memories that go back 87 years.

The court beauty who was once King Kalakaua's favorite hula dancer wore a faded black duster over her mu'umu'u. A cat was on the floor beside her.

Her house is at the end of a rutted, winding road that leads through the brick factory founded by her late husband, longtime mayor of Honolulu, Johnny Wilson. She lives alone.

"I heard on the radio that if the whistle blows it means statehood," she told me. "I heard the whistle blow. ..."

"Has the spirit of Hawai'i changed?" I asked.

"Yes, it has changed. Poor old Waikiki! Sometimes I go down to the beaches in front of the new stores and just look. When I was a little girl there were no houses at all. ..."

"Do you wish it were still that way?"

"No can help. So why kick. I'm not kicking. I'm just telling you about it."

"Do you have any advice for the state of Hawai'i?

She lifted her wrinkled hands in benediction with a motion as graceful as a soaring gull and answered, "It will be all right."

March 13, 1959

Statehood, 40 years later

While Auntie Jennie grieved in her koa rocker at Wai'alae, people danced in the streets of Honolulu and church bells rang. You have to understand how it felt to be admitted as first-class citizens to the greatest nation on earth.

We were the darlings of the country for a while and we had much to give in return. Time magazine commented that Hawai'i was the only state with a motto that meant "love..."

I remember going to a tract house in Wai'alae-Kahala in the summer of 1959, the night of the first election after statehood to interview the first person of Japanese descent to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Dan

Inouye, in his shirt sleeves, sat dazed in his living room trying to comprehend the significance of what had happened. Those are powerful emotions.

We weren't cynical about tourism. It was a bright, new hope. We wanted to share our love of Hawai'i with visitors. I wrote a guidebook and put in it my secret places. That book was very successful financially. But it taught me some harsh lessons. In the first place, my secret places got trashed. That began to happen all over the Islands as tourism mushroomed.

The building boom that followed statehood created so many changes that I had to rewrite half of the book for the third edition.

That edition never got printed because I didn't want to compromise its accuracy and the publisher wouldn't spend the money on so many revisions. I decided I'd write no more guidebooks. Instead of exploiting my home, I'd try to add to its cultural resource.

Aug. 18, 1999

Hokule'a

The tired, wet crew of Hokule'a stepped ashore here yesterday morning at the same spot where a voyaging canoe named Te Re landed in 1343 A.D. and established the village that greeted this historic arrival.

It is the first time in at least 200 years that a voyaging canoe has returned to Raratonga from legendary Hawaiki.

Yet the crew members were subdued, not jubilant, as the canoe glided the last three miles toward the shore of a picture-postcard island of jagged mountains, shaggy coconut palms and feisty people ...

"Nobody knows what to say," explained navigator Nainoa Thompson. "We are humbled by the ocean. ..."

The skies were so overcast that they had to navigate by the few stars that were visible in breaks in the clouds. Master navigator Mau Piailug, Nainoa's Micronesian teacher, said they could not see the sun, moon or stars for two days. He said they steered the canoe by wave patterns.

Sept. 15, 1985. Krauss accompanied the voyaging canoe Hokule'a for part of its voyage from Tahiti to Rarotonga. Throughout most of his career, Krauss has been fascinated by the people, cultures and history of the South Pacific and has written about them extensively.

Eddie DeMello

I know this is the worst time of year to ask a favor like this. I'm as broke as you are. But look at it this way. The doctor says that without an operation Eddie will live until he's 10 or 12 years old. If it's put off, it will seriously damage his health later in life.

If the operation is successful now, he'll be as healthy as you or I.

It's not a case of throwing money down a rat hole. It's a case of seeing your money actually accomplish some good in this world.

I figure if the world's foremost heart surgeon can risk his expensive time to try to save a little Hawaiian boy from Ma'ili, the least I can do is bet a buck that he'll win. If you feel the same way, send the money to me in care of The Advertiser and I'll see that it's given to Eddie's mother. After that, it's up to Dr. Bailey.

Dec. 30, 1957. Krauss was seeking $700 to cover the cost of flying Eddie DeMello and his mother to Philadelphia for surgery to repair a heart defect. Advertiser readers contributed more than $3,000, prompting Krauss to set up the Eddie DeMello Fund, which was used to send other disadvantaged children to the Mainland for specialized treatment.

Big Island walk

A word about sleeping at the Kona Surf. There has been considerable criticism of our party of "missionaries" staying at a plush tourist hotel.

The reason for it is because the second Ellis party is attempting to make its journey as nearly like the first, which received only the best treatment wherever it went, as it can...

Purists will be pleased to know that we are sleeping tonight on the ground Ka'awaloa, where a Captain Cook was killed.

July 19, 1973. Krauss and a band of descendants of Hawaii missionary families, including then-Advertiser owner Thurston Twigg-Smith, re-created the 1823 journey of William Ellis around the Big Island.

Falls of Clyde

This is called shooting blind.

You see, in Seattle there's this square-rigged ship which once sailed under the Matson flag from Honolulu to San Francisco to Hilo and back to Honolulu. ... Now the ship is about to be sold for scrap. I don't think it's right ...

You see, this is what I mean by shooting blind. I don't know how to save the ship. Or exactly what to do with her if she did come back to Hawai'i. All I know is that our last link with a really interesting period is about to be destroyed forever. And I know that if she is saved she'd be the perfect place for all those old photos of Honolulu, of historic cannon, of old cutlasses and pistols, of tools of the sea....

Remember, it's easy to think of the reasons why this whole scheme won't work. But people who think that way never get anything done, do they?

May 29, 1963. Krauss went on not only to raise enough money to save the Falls of Clyde and bring it to Honolulu, but to restore it and turn it into just the kind of floating museum of waterfront history and lore that he imagined in his "shooting blind" column.

Vietnam

Krauss traveled several times to Vietnam to report on efforts to rebuild the war-torn nation. Advertiser library photo • 1994

Nueku (Lance Cpl. Robert Nueku of Nanakuli) had been relieved of his post. He lay against a low ridge of turf, resting. We were all reluctant to move on. This place seemed so safe. Here there was no mud, only wet grass.

The men ... were beginning to feel confident. They had been under fire, and they were doing all right.

Slowly they gathered their packs and wrestled into them. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Nueku start to get up.

There was a sharp "crack!" and he said, "Oh!" in an astonished, hoarse voice. I felt sick.

Nueku fell to his knees, his hands holding his head. Then he rolled over on his side. Two men ran to him.

"Corpsman! Corpsman!" they yelled in frustration.

He came, the Doc, splashing across a rice paddy. I heard Nueku mumble, "I'm all right." But the corpsman made him lie down on the grass. He wound a wide bandage around Nueku's head. A little blood seeped through.

"Can he walk?" asked the platoon sergeant.

"Yes," said Nueku calmly....

A man, weighted with an enormous pack, was carrying Nueku's helmet. "Here, I'll take it, I have a free hand," I said.

He gave it to me. There was a hole in the side. The bullet had come out just above the scrawled, "Bobito."

Feb. 2, 1966. Nueku's skull was creased by the sniper shot and he recovered from the wound. He was killed in action a few months later.

Terrorist attacks

The really difficult thing for me about dealing with world-class terrorism is feeling guilty for wanting to feel good.

It began about the 10th time a television newscast ran the picture of an airliner diving into a World Trade Center Tower in a ball of flame. That picture made me want to turn off the set. Yet the picture wouldn't go away, because this was the new reality. I felt ashamed for being unable to grasp it.

When I tried to write about it, I couldn't. That would be further compounding the violation of thousands of victims.

The column I'd written before it occurred was about flowers, as out of place as a joke at a funeral. Everything had changed. I felt guilty that what I felt was resentment when thousands of people had died.

In a strange way, consequences of the tragedy have begun to make it bearable. I went to Pier 10 to help plan the second annual Honolulu Harbor Festival. For the first time, a young guard politely asked to see a photo ID. ...

Then came the big question. Should we cancel the festival because of these uncertainties? Would it be in bad taste? Nobody wanted to cancel so we're going ahead. Terror shouldn't take over our lives. ...