I was a product of the end of WWII, and was born and raised in Albany, Oregon.  I grew up watching Portland wrestling, along with my little brother and parents.  I lost track of wrestling until 1973, after eight years in the Army.  I was working in San Francisco, and started watching All Star Wrestling, with Lou Thesz, Bobo Brazil, and the rest.  In 1979, I ended up in Portland, OR, and used to attend the matches Don Owens promoted.  In April 1984, I moved to Honolulu, HI, to get away from the cold, rainy weather and ice storms Portland had been experiencing.    

After I got settled at the Armed Forces YMCA, and spent a couple weeks roaming downtown Honolulu, with some people that lived at the YMCA, I started asking people why there were no wrestling matches in Hawaii.  I was told that they took place at the Palama Settlement Gym, once a month.  Finally, I saw a poster, advertising a match the next Saturday.  Being used to long lines in Portland, and getting there an hour ahead of time, so I could be first in line, I figured Honolulu would be the same way.  Arriving at Palama Settlement Gym, I was the only person around, except for some workers going in and out of the building.  Eventually, an older Samoan woman went into the ticket booth, to get everything ready for the show.  She started talking to me, and asked why I was so early.  I told her why, and that I had just moved to Hawaii.  She gave me her phone number and told me to call her on Monday, and she would try to help me find a place better than the YMCA.  Finally some people started arriving, and I stood around listening to them talk about the shows.  Once inside, I saw only a small amount of chairs set up around the small ring.  I think there was a total of around 100 people there, some of them military, but most of them young Samoans.  There was a camera crew on an elevated platform, filming the show.  More...