The Best of Aloha Kugs: Volume II: Kugs Says Aloha!, #2

By Robert Kugler

ALOHA KUGS IS BACK! Come along once again on a journey through over a decade of work as "Aloha Kugs." Robert Kugler, author of the novel THE LAST GOOD DAY revisits some of his favorite topics including, being a stay-at-home parent, an independent author, life, love, loss, and of course, a 1961 Sears Silvertone Cabinet Stereo system and turntable.

 

Laugh along through stories of engagement, Saint Patrick's Day, and an intense Black Belt Test.

 

Prepare all your feels for reflections on losing a parent, saying goodbye, and missing the chance to say goodbye as well.

 

Prepare yourself for an intense visit to the surgical wing of Children's National Hospital and be ready to answer the question: "Are you now or have you ever been a grownup?!"

Another fifteen of Kug's best columns await you here in Volume II!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Four Leaf Publishing
• Release date: Nov 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781393203766

Book preview

DEDICATION

This collection is dedicated to Don and Kathy Schulz, who’ve been supportive of me for over twenty years.

––––––––

Good on ya.  That can’t have been easy.

CONTENTS

By way of explanation

I started the Aloha Kugs blog when my family and I left New Jersey for Oahu in 2007.  Facebook was just becoming a thing and people used to still talk to one another on the phone.  The world was bigger then.  I started the blog initially as a way to not only reflect on our new adventure in Hawaii, but also as a means for keeping in touch with people as a whole.  It seemed easier than mass emails about what we were up to. 

––––––––

Over time, the blog became a real outlet for me both creatively and as a means of navigating what was an exciting yet challenging adjustment to life overseas.  Some years I posted a lot and others, less so, but the blog always was in my mind when I had something to say.  It simply became my way of distilling my experience into a cohesive thought.  Some were better than others.

––––––––

I still blog occasionally at www. RobertKuglerBooks.com.  I’ve moved into writing novels now, but I look back on many of these very fondly.  Often, the writing of these columns kept me afloat.  This volume features several newer columns written within the last few years.  I hope they’ll make you laugh, or cry, or both.  I mean seriously, that’s a pretty good day if you can get both of those done in the same sitting, am I right?

––––––––

Aloha!

Chapter 1: In which Kugs says Aloha to Family Stuff

My father’s radio/turntable was often a source of fascination for me as a kid and I was so glad to have held onto it over the years.  That my children love music of all eras to this day is a great testament to this amazing piece of vintage technology.  I cherish it to this day.

––––––––

Grandpa’s Radio

––––––––

It’s a Silvertone, with Sears Integrated Circuits, Model # 8072 in Colonial Style Cabinet. It was a gift from his parents when he graduated college in 1961. Growing up, until I was in the eighth grade, it was the center of many of our evenings.

It plays both AM/FM stereo and played records until recently, when the needle and cartridge succumbed to the age of the unit. It is quite fixable, so if anyone knows where I could find Cartridge #57-88930 and Needle #5788119 for the Silvertone, vintage 1961, I would totally love you for ever and ever. Honest.

Music was a huge part of my life in my parents’ house, and continues to be in my own home. As a kid, I remember very fondly listening to Friday’s With Frank Sinatra hosted by our old friend and Philadelphia legend, Sid Mark. We followed Sid from Friday’s with Frank, to Saturdays with Sinatra, and later Sundays. Sid is still making it happen: www.soundsofsinatra.com/ Good for you Sid. I remember fondly learning at Dad’s left hand at the dining room table the difference between the Dorsey Era-Sinatra, and his later work with Percy Faith and Nelson Riddle.

When Frank wasn’t on the radio, it was likely be Philly’s favorite Oldies station, WOGL, with Hy-Lit, or one of the other scores of vintage DJ’s they carried. Dad would quiz us on Artist names and song titles. I still find myself playing this game in m y head whenever there is music on, and have taken to torturing my children, co-workers, family members, and occasionally complete strangers with what they must surely see as trivial information. Alas, all that info is locked in my brain, never to be removed, and always feeling somehow important. I mean, who can anticipate when I might be called upon to tell someone if that is Ben E. King or Clyde McFatter leading The Drifters on a particular song? Perhaps someday I’ll be called upon to settle an argument of international significance by clearing up a dispute over whether Big Mama Thornton’s version of Hound Dog was better than Elvis’ version. (It was)

When the radio wasn’t on, it was records. Vinyl. Yeah, the good old stuff. I’ve always been a vinyl fan, in many reasons because 8-tracks always sucked, I didn’t get a cassette player until I was ten, and CD’s weren’t even widely available until I was in Junior High. So, we listened to records. And we listened to them on the Silvertone. The favorite records were kept in the small storage space beneath the turntable. On any given evening, I might find myself sitting in front of the speaker and listening to Elvis, or Sam Cooke, or Simon and Garfunkel, or Crosby, Stills, and Nash (and sometimes Young), but we would be just as likely to have the Soundtrack to West Side Story, Oklahoma, Pirates of Penzance, and the whole Gilbert and Sullivan lexicon.

Beethoven’s 9th Symphony was a popular play, but only the version with the Chicago Symphony, conducted by Sir Georg Solti. This was a departure for Dad, as he typically preferred the conducting of Eugene Ormandy and the local Philadelphia Orchestra, and that of Leonard Bernstein, both of whom had conducted the 9th. I know this, as they were also part of Dad’s record collection. But, he swore by the Solti one, and to be honest, I think it holds up the best, and it is the only version of the piece on my iPod. Still have the vinyl though...

I remember one Winter Saturday in particular, when for some reason, Mom and my sister were out of the house, and Dad baked bread, and we listened to Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, conducted by Leopold Stokowski, with Basil Rathbone as the storyteller. It is an album, playable only at 78 speed, which most modern turntables don’t even offer. I remember looking at the picture on the cover, and was confused at first, thinking it was a story record, like the Star Wars story record and the Gingerbread Man story record I used to listen to in my room on my Popeye record player. Yes, I know how cool that makes me. I also had a .45 of The Monkees Last Train the Clarksville, so maybe it’s a wash?

I once told a student about my .45 record collection, and, aghast, she cried, YOU own a gun?! But I digress...

Peter and the Wolf was neat, but I was confused because the story was mostly music. He explained to me that I had to imagine what the music was describing. It was weird at first, but by the time it ended, I understood, and remember feeling like my brain suddenly had access to a whole new kind of music. Bread was pretty good too.

Between general yearly use, and its increased use around the Holidays, I remember vividly the day he taught me how to use the turntable on his Silvertone, and got authority to change sides. I was also given clearance to adjust the player when it got to that skip in Johnny Mathis’s Blue Christmas. I still can’t hear that song without hearing I’ll have a bluuuuu, a bluuuuu, a bluuuu, a bluuuuu....

To have earned permission to use and handle the unit was very much a coming of age in our house, as until the great Christmas CD player and stereo system purchase of 1986, Dad’s radio was in many ways the centerpiece of Family dinners, and general