and Royal New Zealand Navies were stationed at Pearl Harbor, and meeting their sailors was simple, easy, and pleasurable. But US? . . never!

At a social evening I met a pleasant couple from California, on a visit to their son, a husky Marine named Ron, whom I later met, and during the course of the evening, gently pumped for information. He was very touchy on the subject, and finally I had to drop it, but not before learning that hitch-hiking is forbidden, that certain bars and areas are off-limits, and what the ever-vigilant Armed Services Police are on the watch for. Obviously an obsession with the military authorities.

A newspaper report tried to make out that the Waikiki-Honolulu-Pearl Harbor area is one vast seething underground homo-sex-pot. Really? Nowhere did I see anything to indicate this. The Chinatown-Iwilei section of downtown Honolulu I got to know well, along with Waikiki, Brothels and prostitutes, yes. Illegal, but tolerated and plentiful. But no gay sights. You might expect the lobby of the Armed Services YMCA to be the meat-rack that it is at certain times in San Diego. But no-it's as innocent as a Sunday School.

Among the local nahona hau'oli I met two useful contacts, and learned that it's there all right (of course), but quite hidden away. This is because most people are of oriental ancestry. They may have lost their traditional eastern way of looking at homosexuality, having adopted the American view of condemnation, but they still retain their concept of the importance of Family. Hawaii has a small population (600,000), and families are large and closely interrelated. Important it is to keep one's homosexuality tucked out of sight. The influence of the puritanical missionaries remains. The days of Polynesian tolerance are over in Hawaii.

Once in Tahiti, I was dancing the

tamure with a dusky wahine at Au Col Bleu, a night-spot in Papeete, when she suggested some fun (free) in the bushes outside. "No, mahalo," I declined blandly, "I don't sleep with wahines, only kanes." "Oh," she replied, not batting an eye; and promptly called over Michel, a doll if ever there was one, for me to take out into the bushes!

Recalling this on a previous visit to Honolulu, I tried this direct approach on a beachboy one evening. Beachboys are pretty broadminded. but this one simply sneered and left in a hurry. Auwe!

Just before my trip, I had come across a publication which purported to list all the gay bars in the world. (!) I copied down the Hawaii listings. and systematically set about what I like to call Basic Research, patronizing nine of the ten listed (the tenth had never existed). With the exception of two, none was gay, and from what I was told, never had been. "The Little Dipper" is 75% gay, full of elegantly-dressed young men, with piano entertainment, and bunny-type serving-girls, serving-girls, yet! But with beer at $1.10 a throw, I didn't stay long. I later learned that there are no other gay bars in the Islands.

Now for the tale of Yappy's, surely a unique bar. I remarked on the press of traffic on Kapahulu Avenue outside this little bar, as I snaked my way through the crowd on the sidewalk. The burly Hawaiian bouncer refused me admission without ID. I returned with my passport. Once inside it was evident what all the fuss was about. The place seated exactly forty, exactly forty, divided evenly between drag-queens and tourists. I have never been one for drag myself. but take the view that if the girls want to dress up, well-let 'em. Not even at Finocchio's or the Jewel Box Revue have I seen such excellent high drag. The tourists were gawking and making ribald remarks, and the girls

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