Days of my youth …

Small kid time, I liked sports, I'm talking 9 or 10 yrs old. Football was my favorite and I was good at it. I'm sure that a lot of young boys thought that they would be football players when they grew up. I know I did. I didn't realize at the time that being around entertainers and musicians that I myself would be a musician. My father was a wonderful ukulele player. Not of the slack key variety but more involved in beautiful songs like the swing era and American standards. I never had a desire to learn at the time, although he offered; I was more interested in surfing and hanging out in Waikiki and Kuhio Beach. Hanging out at the beach offered group singing, like a lot of locals do, not necessarily harmonies and the like, but just good fun singing.

My parents had a luau business putting on Luaus for some of the ships that came into Pearl Harbor. My mother was a receptionist for the Admiral at Pearl Harbor and offered to present Luaus for the Navy when they came in for assignments. It was a wonderful way to offer Hawaiian relaxation and Aloha to the enlisted men on the ships. My Mother would offer wonderful name entertainers of that time and era, like Lena Machado, Gabby Pahinui, Billy Lee (Kui Lee's Dad), Myrtle K. Hilo, and of course my sister Mikilani Fo, who was a wonderful talent and entertainer who played steel guitar, guitar, piano, ukulele, and had a lovely voice, singing Ha'i style (like Auntie Genoa Keawe). I didn't realize at the time that being around all these marvelous entertainers that I would someday be an entertainer myself. I also didn't realize it at the time, but my father had music in mind for me. He'd call me up on stage to sing God Bless America for all of the service men, which made them feel good hearing a youngster singing the National Anthem. As I got older I got called up now and then at different nightclubs in Waikiki. We'd go out for a night of fun with my pals, Joe Ta'zan Ahuna, Kui Lee, & Lath Mitchell.

When the Korean war came along, we decided to volunteer to join the Coast Guard. I can remember 50 Hawaiian boys volunteering at the same time and going to Government Island in San Francisco for boot camp. From there we were shipped to Green Cove Springs, Fla. to be assigned to our ships. 20 of the 50 were assigned to four ships; I don't know where the rest were assigned to duty, but the 20 of us had a wonderful time taking the ships up the Chesapeake Bay. Down South through the Panama Canal and up North to Mare Island, the Naval Ship yard for putting the four retired Second World War destroyers back into service.

One of the fortunate things that happened to me was to be stationed on a ship with Kin, Ta'zan, and Lath. I didn't realize it at the time, but at the end of a days work we'd go out on the fantail and play and sing Hawaiian music and have a good time. A lot of the other shipmates would come up and sit with us having a good time just associating with us. We were fortunate to spend the remainder of our time in Hawaii, our home port. We were very fortunate because we'd spend out days working on the ship and were able to go home and spend time with our family and friends. We were very fortunate to have that kind of duty. We'd work aboard during the day and we'd go to Waikiki at Kuhio Beach which was home away from home for us. Party time, seven days a week. After I was discharged I got into the entertainment business and have been entertaining ever since.