(Just Like) Starting Over

I wasn't working when the news came over the AP wire. I was home, fixing dinner for my son. Jeremy was two years, ten months by then. He likes to kid me these days about the baked tofu topped with brewer's yeast I fed him back then. What was I thinking?

The phone rang. It was Dan, the deejay covering the KHEI evening shift on that Monday night: December 8, 1980.

"I can't believe they killed him," were the first words I heard when I answered Dan's call.

"Who?"

"John Lennon."

I went into shock. I don't recall much more of the phone call. I left Jeremy with housemates and drove down the hill from Wailuku to Kahului. I hurried into the KHEI studios, and went directly to the teletype machine where I read the grizzly news. John Lennon gunned down outside the Dakota Apartments where he lived with Yoko, and young son, Sean Ono Lennon. Murdered by an unemployed Honolulu janitor who reportedly had been seen earlier in the day getting John's autograph.

Six months earlier, I landed the deejay gig with Valley Isle Broadcasting, a new Maui radio group. This felt like my big break, a step up from the overnight shift I'd been working at KMVI-AM. KHEI was "Easy Listening:" big bands, Frank Sinatra and other pop vocalists, light instrumentals (think "elevator music"), and bland (non-traditional) Hawaiian artists a la Don Ho. At KHEI, I voiced hourly newscasts, wrote ad copy, voiced and recorded commercials, and kept the automated music machines humming.

I remember my interview with Valley Isle management, stating my goal of owning my own station by age forty-five; I had just turned thirty. It seemed doable and natural - I'd been addicted to radio since before I could walk or talk.

Valley Isle was set to launch KHEI's sister station, KVIB-FM, on January 1, 1981. KVIB would feature country music during the daylight hours, and rock 'n' roll after dark. Beginning on 1/1/81 I hosted the "Maui Rock Show" from six to midnight, Monday thru Friday. I held the gig - my "Dream Job" - for the next three years, before being squeezed out in February of '83. More on that fiasco to come.

On that fateful December night, I must have left Jeremy in Connie's care. Along with Connie and her daughter, Zaheva, another friend, Charles, and his two sons, and my then brother-in-law, Oliver, we shared a four bedroom Wailuku rental house, my eighth address since landing in Paradise.

A few months prior, probably in August of '80, I picked up the latest Rolling Stone magazine at Sir Wilfrid's coffee shop in the Maui Mall. Big News: John & Yoko were recording a new album! John was my favorite Beatle. After the breakup of the Fab Four, I'd faithfully followed his solo career. After Sean's birth, Lennon had become a self-described "house husband." Double Fantasy would be his first release since 1975's Rock and Roll. I was seriously stoked! New music would be coming from my hero in the fall.

Despite our easy listening audience, KHEI complied with Yoko's request of ten minutes of global silence to honor John on December 14. I don't recall there being any listener complaints. The whole world was grieving the death of a Beatle.

The Dream was over. John Lennon was gone, along with any more talk or hope of a Beatles reunion. The world was changed forever with his passing, just as it had been in 1964 with the coming of The Beatles.

I opened the Maui Rock Show on January 1, 1981, with Elvis Presley's "Good Rockin' Tonight." I was just six years old when I first saw The King on The Ed Sullivan Show. Our family tuned in primarily at the insistence of my big sister, Rosemary, who was twelve. Her love of rock 'n' roll was a huge influence on my own musical taste.

By the time the Maui Rock Show hit the airwaves, Rosemary had been gone nearly three years. I was still suffering with the pain of her suicide, Valentine's Day, 1978, just three weeks after Jeremy was born.

In that short three year span, I'd lost my only sibling; made the big move from Idaho to Hawaii with Suzanne and our nine month old baby; started over in a very different culture as a "Haole" transplant; seen our dream of setting up a Rebirthing center on the island fizzle out and our marriage fall apart. And, let us not forget the 1980 elections: Ronald Reagan trouncing Jimmy Carter. To a leftie Democrat, that was another bitter pill.

You know those lists of "stress factors" you might run across in Psychology Today? Marriage ... divorce ... death in the family ... big move ... new job ... new baby ... ? I'd checked off nearly every box.

Imagine moving from the white-bread culture of Idaho, where one had always been a member of the majority race to the melting pot of Hawaii - the world's most isolated island chain. In 1978, Haole Caucasians were not even the largest minority group. "Culture Shock" barely tells the story.

John Lennon's death somehow felt like another death in the family; John had always shared himself with us so intimately through his songs.

To borrow a line from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, things couldn't get no worse. Still, with a nightly dose of rock 'n' roll, my little boy's sweet smile, the warmth of the tropical sunshine, the fantastic Maui scenery, and plentiful "Maui Wowie," I got by ... with a little help from my friends.

My Maui life wasn't all rainbows and papayas. Many locals showed me their aloha, and after two plus years on the island, I'd struck up some good friendships with others who had relocated from the mainland. However, there was a very vocal group of local residents who did not welcome more transplants with open arms.

In time, as I watched more hotels being built and the subsequent tourists arrive to take over favorite beaches; the economy become more and more reliant on that tourist trade; local residents be priced out of the real estate market; I came - if not to feel what they felt - that would be impossible as I don't share their heritage or ancestry - to understand where the open hostility toward we intruders was coming from.

1981 began a personal high water mark - a three year stint as KHEI/KVIB music director, and Maui Rock Show host. Jeremy and I also made another move that year, upcountry, to Pukalani, where we would share a home with Connie and Zaheva.

1981 would also mark the first year my dad, Murph, and stepmom, Sharon, would begin their annual winter sojourns to the island. Can anyone say "Party?!?"