Every now and then, I pause to share comments from readers and cover short topics that come across my desk.
Jeff Cook, in response to last week’s April Fools column, told me his grandparents had their own April 1st story, but it wasn’t a joke. They were living on the ocean side of Lanikai when the April 1, 1946, tsunami hit just after dawn.
That tsunami devastated the Big Island and took 159 lives. Many don’t know that it hit all the islands. It took out miles of railroad tracks on the North Shore, leading to the end of the Oahu Railway & Land Co.
"My grandfather Manuel Augustine, a fisherman, saw the water going out and sounded the alarm," Cook said. "His wife, Leo, and my mom and her sister got in their Cadillac, but the water from the incoming tsunami reached the car and it stalled.
"Fortunately, a car behind them pushed them up to the point, at the beginning of Lanikai, where they could watch the whole thing happen from a place of safety."
"Grandpa was upset that his boat was taken out to sea, but also that his Cadillac had to be pushed by a Pontiac, an inferior car in his opinion."
The house was hit by the tsunami, several windows shattered, and there was a lot of water damage, Cook recalled, but the house was not pushed off its foundation, like many others in the area.
MidWeek Editor-in-Chief Don Chapman wrote about Aku and some of his April Fools stunts. In it I mentioned that Aaron "Buck" Buchwach worked with Aku to create the 1954 tax refund prank.
Buchwach led an interesting life, but I didn’t say much about it last week. Buck came here during World War II, working for Stars and Stripes — a military newspaper — alongside George Chaplin. Both later found themselves at The Honolulu Advertiser.
Chapman said that "Bucky did much more than work at the old Advertiser — he was its longtime managing editor and retired as editor-in-chief. He also owned a public relations firm."
Buchwach met Frank Sinatra when he was in Hawaii making films, Chapman continued.
"Buck and Sinatra were friends for more than 30 years, and when Sinatra heard Buck needed revolutionary heart surgery, he hooked him up with the famed Dr. Michael DeBakey in Houston.
"Sinatra sent his private jet over to fly him to Texas. Whatever HMSA didn’t cover, Old Blue Eyes did."
Buchwach had been there for Sinatra through the lows of his career. Now he was able to return the favor.
Buchwach was also friends with such celebrities as Clark Gable, John Wayne, Connie Stevens, Lana Turner, Dorothy Lamour and Arthur Godfrey. When Jackie Kennedy came to Hawaii, Buchwach drove her around town in his red Mustang convertible.
With a press card he made himself, Buchwach was able to get in to interview Gen. Douglas MacArthur in Tokyo in 1947, said Advertiser columnist Bob Krauss.
He asked the general one question, "Will Japan rise again to world power?" MacArthur gave him a 35-minute response, and Buchwach had a scoop. He was also able to interview seven U.S. presidents, beginning with Herbert Hoover.
Chapman was first hired to write an entertainment column. "Bucky told me my application for the three-dot columnist job was the 300th he received," Chapman said.
"I’ve always wondered how much both of us being products of the University of Oregon School of Journalism influenced his hiring me. I am eternally grateful that he did.
"Bucky and Aku were once very close, but for some reason they had a feud that lasted the rest of their lives. As a result of that feud, the morning my first Honolulu Advertiser column appeared on Oct. 29, 1979, Aku went on the air bashing Bucky for hiring a mainland newbie and predicting I’d never make it in this town.
"Contrary to Aku’s prediction, things have worked out pretty nicely," Chapman said.
Bob Krauss said Buchwach was most famous for his Statehood Honor Roll. "He unrolled a spool of newsprint a block long on Bishop Street in 1954 and let people sign it," Krauss recalled. "It created a traffic jam downtown. People couldn’t wait to sign up.
"He talked the governor and important politicians into marching down Bishop Street with a Dixieland band."
The Honor Roll collected 120,000 names supporting Hawaii’s bid to be the 49th state, then Buchwach himself carried it to Washington. Congress was not moved. It took another five years to get statehood approved.
When he died in 1989, comedian Bill Dana said he wanted to write a different kind of news story about his old friend — a "no-bituary."
Bob Sigall, author of the “Companies We Keep” books, looks through his collection of old photos to tell stories each Friday of Hawaii people, places and companies. Email him at Sigall@Yahoo.com.
