BOKTRAVELTIPS: MOLOKA’I

THIS WEEK CELEBRATING GMA’s 40th ANNIVERSARY WE REVISITED A BEAUTIFUL STORY FROM 2004. THAT BROADCAST EVENT ON ABC WAS A PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL CATHARTIC MOMENT. HERE I GO BACK IN TIME TO THAT FRIDAY BEFORE MOTHERS DAY. I was shaking like a leaf.  Because of the voice on the phone.  It was MY voice on…

“You need to get rid of that,” said the skinny bespectacled..almost – but not quite – scrawny doctor seated before me.  “Get rid of what?”, I half asked, only realizing what he was referring to that very instant. “Its like a Buick bumper,” he proclaimed as he sneered at my belly. “You’re too young to…

“BRIAN O’KEEEEEEEEFE….THERE HE IS………”…..like an electric bolt across a hushed gymnasium sized newsroom. “MY HERO…..”, the anchorman boomed which caused every single person to stop what they were doing….and look at me. Oh…how I haaaaaate being the center of attention. There I was blushing in Nagano. Japan. 1998. You remember. The Winter Olympics. For me:…

The car was still running and for some reason we didn’t get out of the car.  I was scared.  I felt something big and serious was about to happen. I remember my heart thumping through my chest the moment he asked me. I couldn’t breathe air into my lungs…yet my heart beat like an orchestra’s…

“Brian O’Keefe. Floral Park. Pleased to meet you!” somehow rolled out between my lips into the air in front of me. Say what?! Yes, I did. To a girl. In college. On my very first day. While weirdly endlessly shaking her hand. It was my spontaneous nervous Tourettes-ish and peculiarly formal reaction to seeing the…

“None of these people are your friends,” whispered young Alex my first and only roommate at Seabrook House. “They’re low lifes: drug addicts, alcoholics, liars and cheaters….you’re not gonna be friends with any of these people, Brian.” A boy of 20 not even old enough to drink, who had been in rehab and various institutions…