Sandwich Islands: Best thing since sliced bread

Aloha and hand me some lunch meat between two slices of bread!

Mrs. Brad and I recently returned from the Sandwich Islands and this seems an appropriate place to share our memories.

The Sandwich Islands? Well, you may call them something else – most likely the Hawaiian Islands. I've got nothing against the people who call them "Hawaii." I'm just old-school.

And to those who think it's baloney to call them the Sandwiches, a reminder they were named that by Capt. James Cook, who "discovered" them in 1778. By "discovered," I mean it in the same way that I "discovered" "Mad Men" five years after it debuted on American television.

I call them the Sandwich Islands for a very simple reason. They are named after John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich. When Cook named the islands after Sandwich, it was an honor, multiplied by the fact that there's very little chance that anything else could ever be named after him. If we stop calling them the Sandwich Islands, the name Sandwich probably goes away.

I told that to Mrs. Brad as we ate some peanut butter and jelly, smeared between two slices of bread on Kauai, the northernmost of the Sandwich Islands.

(Side note: If I read about witches while I sat there eating that food, it would be about a "sand witch," right? Too bad for John Montagu that it never stuck. So he gets the islands named after him.)

The islands, of course, widely became known as the Hawaiian Islands in the late 19th century, which created a po' boy in Sandwich.

The beauty of the Sandwich Islands is that the weather is predictable. It was our third trip there – a triple-decker Sandwich? – and the climate has been the same every time. About 85 degrees as the high, 75 as the low. Humid. Residents – Sandwichians? – likely don't need long pants or jackets as they enjoy their cold desserts.

I know that because Mrs. Brad and I spoke about that while sitting at a local restaurant, enjoying one such treat. It was two thin slices of chocolate biscuit with vanilla ice cream between them. It's an ice cream-between-slices item, I presume. Don't know for sure, but it was good. It was the perfect kind of ice cream dessert for the Sandwich Islands.

The best thing about our entire week was relaxation as we enjoyed beaches, hikes, swimming and food while sleeping at a place I called the Club Sandwich.

The food? Delicious. We had bacon, lettuce and tomatoes between slices of bread; we had cheese between two slices of toast; we had several other great meals between (I wish there was a word for the process of inserting something between two other things!) the aforementioned meals. The one thing we didn't have? We ate no tuna on Sandwich.

So if you ask what we liked most about our trip to the Sandwich Islands, it's this: The variety of lunch food and delicious ice cream desserts.

We give a big salute to John Montagu. Thanks to me, no one will forget him, even Inspector Clouseau. Because even a French dip will now remember Sandwich.

Aloha.

Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.