From ‘Rocky Road, please’ to ‘Whirl of Change’
Posted: Monday, October 27, 2008 11:24 AM
By Jennifer Carlile, msnbc.com reporter
HONOLULU – "I was trippin' when I found out (Barack) Obama worked here – I was like, what?!" Jason Juan discussed the Democratic presidential candidate’s first job as he scooped ice cream at the Baskin-Robbins franchise on South King Street where Obama once worked.
"Newscasters came here, people came here from Japan; it was pretty cool," the 19-year-old said.
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| Jennifer Carlile/ msnbc.com |
| Jason Juan, who has worked at Honolulu's South King Street Baskin-Robbins for four years, gives an embarrassed grin as his picture is taken. |
Although the store is just a few blocks from Obama's old high school, Punahou, I was also taken aback to find out the presidential candidate received his first W-2 from this address, as it was my first place of employment as well. However, we probably donned the famous pink shirts about 15 years apart, and while it gave him a life-long distaste for ice cream, I still have a healthy appetite for the 31 flavors.
Last April, Obama told a crowd in Malvern, Pa., that working at the ice cream chain "was actually kind of embarrassing because you had to wear, like, a brown cap and stuff [like] the apron," he explained. "Girls would come in and you'd be trying to talk to them, and they wouldn't give you the time of day, because you were wearing this cap."
Today's uniform of blue T-shirts forgoes the old-fashioned charm, but is far more face-saving than the accessorized pink polo Obama wore in the late 1970s and I wore in the mid 1990s.
"I'm trying to imagine how he looked like cause he's really tall, I think," said customer Ed Del Banco, a 50-year-old coconut frond hat maker whose first job was also scooping ice cream at another establishment close to Ala Moana Beach Park.
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| Jennifer Carlile/ msnbc.com |
| Ed Del Banco sports one of the coconut frond hats he makes and sells in Waikiki as he finishes off an ice cream scoop at the Baskin-Robbins on South King Street, in Honolulu. |
"I don't remember him here, but he certainly chose a nice family place to start at," said Del Banco's friend Joe Rossi, who has been coming here for ice cream "for at least 20 or 30 years."
As I looked around the store, I remembered some of my fellow former colleagues – the three guys from my high school, Roosevelt, who all got their names tattooed in Hawaiian heritage lettering across their backs, the University of Hawaii student from Moloka'i who told me her island consisted of basically one road and a stop light, and the serious ice cream cake-maker from China who was the only one out the dozen or so of us that wasn't a student. Like most things in Hawaii, the workplace was a melting pot of races and character types.
The store’s owner, Day Goswami, would bring in her small son Omar and buy us all Sunday lunches of yummy local foods like ahi and tako poke (raw tuna and octopus in a mix of seaweed, soy sauce and spices).
As well as serving cones, splits and cappuccino blasts, we learned to decorate ice cream cakes. I once even designed one with Edward Munch's "The Scream" for a class project.
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| Jennifer Carlile/msnbc.com |
| Manager Sherill Fernandez, who has worked at the store for 8 years, serves up a taster spoonful of "cookies and cream" flavored ice cream. |
Reminiscing, I wondered what Obama's days here were like – and if back then he ever imagined he'd have a flavor named after him – let alone be running for president.
The Democrat's signature scoop, "Whirl of Change," beat John McCain's "Straight Talk Crunch" in Baskin-Robbins recent online "flavor debate" vote.
"He's come to Hawaii, but not here," said the store's current manager, Sherill Fernandez. "I wish he'd come here 'cause two times I seen myself in the TV for interviews about him, but I never met him," the 33-year-old said, describing the media's interest in Obama's former haunt.
Asked if she thought the job would produce any more presidential candidates, she laughed and said "I don't think so – well, we don't know."
