Aloha!

“It’s Aloha Friday… No work till Monday!” Drive around the islands on a Friday, and you will no doubt hear this catchy tune on the radio. To listen, click here:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yZjDPAzx_I8

I’ve never really understood it, though. Maui is a 24/7 society. The sugarcane workers work on the weekends, all hotel workers work on the weekends (except the GM of course). So that leaves office workers. Maybe this song was written on Oahu, with all the high-rise office buildings…

So I go to my source for all things Hawaiian, the guy who sits across the breakfast table from me every morning. “Can you shed some light on this?” I ask Mike. Did they sing “It’s a Aloha Friday, no school till Monday” when you were in school?” He said no. “So when do you remember first hearing the song?” I asked. He gives the reply that always makes me smile: “We didn’t have radio reception on the North Shore of Oahu.” So, no reception, no song. But lets’s not forget, he was too busy surfing and having fun in life to care about radio reception.

“I do remember singing along to it when I got a job as a carpenter hanging doors at a condominium in Kailua,” he said. (Apparently they have radio reception in Kailua.) “On Fridays four or five of us would pile in a pickup truck after work, turn the radio on, and sing along to the song…” (Which features beer predominantly.) “And we would stop and buy a sixpack.”

I wonder how much beer that song has sold?
And by the way, riding in the back of a pickup truck is still legal in Hawaii.

I don’t know about you, but I’m glad this week is almost over. It’s been the week that would not die.

Dang, now I can’t get that song out of my head. Oh well, Happy Aloha Friday, wherever you are!

Next post, the history of the Aloha Shirt….

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Aloha, Jamaica