Don Ho is dead

"Tiny bubbles
in the wine
Makes me feel happy,
makes me feel fine..."

THE first time I heard "Tiny Bubbles", I was five or six years old, studying in Little Angels Nursery School along Calamba St. in Quezon City. (Yeah and what a little devil I turned out to be!) It was after class, and I had on my little yellow grass skirt and a cute top, much like the top of two-piece bikinis, and shimmying my little body to this happy music I didn't understand at the time. "Tiny Bubbles", along with "Pearly Shells", (though not a Don Ho composition) became national anthems for many little six-year-old girls of my time, forced by their moms to attend Hawaiian or Tahitian classes which was the "after-class" or summer activities fad then.

I can't say a loved my Hawaiian classes, and I can't say I disliked them even. I was pretty much happy just shaking my booty to the music but I wasn't crazy about it especially when the sides of my tummy hurt when we had to do the faster Tahitian moves. Like my ballet classes, my Hawaiian classes didn't last. I guess my mom finally gave up on me after seeing I wasn't jumping up and down when I had to go to these classes. Hmmm...if only they offered taekwond then...

"Tiny Bubbles" made Don Ho a hit around the world. He introduced Hawaiian music to the world, even if it failed to accurately represent authentic Hawaiian music. (I've listened to it, and it is so much more meaningful than Don Ho's music.) He still became the island-state's most beloved music ambassador. What a life!

To this day, I still remember those graceful shakes I made to "Tiny Bubbles" and give a silent aloha to Don Ho, whose music was part of my mostly happy childhood.