Lucky kid, right out of high school, his family sends him and two of his siblings to Hawaii for the summer. It was '64 and the surfin' craze was getting underway. He got a job as the 9am to 12n disk jockey at the self-proclaimed Official Surf Station, KUMU 1500 Honolulu.
My brother, sister and I stayed with our uncle in a little house on the north shore. The uncle was a pilot for Aloha airlines married to a Native Hawaiin. They had two children. The house was so small that arrangements were made to have the Hawaiin disk jockey to be move to an accountant friend's house next to the Waialae Country club in the Honolulu.
Peak experience while there? Perhaps the KUMU Surf Carnival at the Waikiki Shell. Duke Kahahnamoku, then 80, gave away a diamond studded surf board. One of the other stations KPOI (it was #1) was home to a radio talent that would influence the entire US industry like no other for many years. Radio and the music it played was my world then.
Like I say, lucky kid.
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