The Day We Blew Up Al's Ukulele: September 2013

I don't remember everything about the day we blew up Al's ukulele.

For example, I'm not sure if there were two or three co-conspirators. I know Andy and I were there. Of course Al was there. After all, this act of mini-terrorism took place in his house on Gallivan Boulevard, in Dorchester. I'm not sure about anyone else. Morris? Bick? Joey? Somehow, I keep coming back to the notion that it was just Andy and myself.

I was 15 years old, one of the younger members of the Aardvarks, a club of like-minded Jewish kids from Boston who would congregate at the YMHA Hecht House in Dorchester. There were a number of boys' clubs at the Y. They all had more traditional, expected teenage boys club names like The Knights, The Sultans, or The Imperials. The fact that we called ourselves The Aardvarks tells you most of what you need to know about us. We were...ahhh...different. Almost all of us attended Boston Latin School. We were more likely to be preppy or "collegiate" than "greasy" or dangerous. What we lacked in black leather or studded boots we made up for with wit. We dug Lenny Bruce or Pete Seeger much more than Elvis. Was there a nerdy, slide rule aspect to the Aardvarks? Of course, to some degree. But we could field a very respectable basketball team and we somehow had no shortage of dates. Several of us even married those dates, who were themselves members of girls' clubs at the same Y. Their clubs had girl-group names like The Emanuelles or The Crescendos. As it turned out, I met the woman who would be my wife at an Aardvark-Crescendo social.

Becoming an Aardvark was mostly a matter of knowing one of the established members and being "sponsored" for membership. In this respect, it was not that far removed from the mafia. If one of us stood before the assembled Aardvarks and introduced someone as "a friend," there was a very good chance that he would be approved for membership.

It was in just such a manner that I began my years as an Aardvark, having been sponsored by Andy and Bick, two of the club's original members. To say that the three years I spent as an Aardvark helped mold me into whatever I am today would be an absolute truth. The Aardvarks influenced me much more than my parents, my teachers, my non-Aardvark friends, or my younger brother ever could. My primary identity, the way I saw myself was not as a Jew or a Bostonian or an American. I was an Aardvark. Period.

Al was an established Aardvark by the time I came along. I immediately took a liking to him. Somehow he seemed older than his years, more mature and responsible. Others must have felt the same way because I remember at some point Al was elected President of the Aardvarks. He ran the meetings with a parliamentary flair that was not lost on this young acolyte. It wasn't that Al was above some of the  sophomoric high jinks that helped all of us bond as Aardvarks. I seem to remember Al being involved in the great laundromat rock wash caper on Blue Hill Avenue and I am quite sure that Al served as the "reaction man" in our mooning escapades on summer evenings in Dorchester. (In case you're wondering, the reaction man watched carefully for the shocked reactions of those being mooned while the rest of us performed other duties in this Navy Seal-worthy operation. Also, in case you're wondering, it was I who very willingly provided the buttocks portion of this activity.) Al was a perfect reaction man. His descriptions were accurate and thorough. He was our Walter Cronkite, and we trusted him implicitly.

As I mentioned earlier, I very much looked up to and respected Al, even though we were only one year apart in school. So how did it come to pass that on the day in question in, say, 1962, Andy and I decided that we would blow up Al's ukulele?

I've been asking myself that lately.

Was it because Al was one of the only Aardvarks who lived in a single family home instead of an apartment? That hardly seems like a reason to blow up someone's beloved stringed instrument.

Was it simply a case of ukulele-envy that prompted Andy and myself to stuff a bunch of firecrackers into the sound chamber of the poor thing and laugh hysterically as the cheap wood was ripped apart by the force of the ensuing explosion? I hardly think so. I'm sure if there had been no ukulele handy, we would have blown something else up.

Did we not like Al at that moment in time for some reason? To the contrary, all of us loved Al. He was a young man you could count on. He was bright. He was funny. He was honest. He had ideas. He was a leader. He was even kind. Can you imagine? Here was a teenager who was not afraid or ashamed to show kindness to his peers?

No, the only reason I can think of 50+ years after the deed is that Andy and I instinctively knew that Al would appreciate the irony and randomness of the act. We knew that after an initial angry and shocked reaction, Al would see his two good friends rolling around the floor laughing uncontrollably among the shards of Hawaiian wood and smokey firecracker residue and he would shake his head, smack us on our shoulders, and join in the laughter.

And that's exactly what he did.

My wonderful friend Al (pictured on the right above) passed away suddenly last week while taking a walk with his beautiful wife, Gerri. Soon others will speak of him glowingly with regards to his professional life as a professor, a therapist, an author, and a counselor. His heartbroken wife and children will praise him lovingly as a husband, father and grandfather. Al was a remarkable person and deserves all these and more accolades.

But I will always remember Al laughing along with Andy and me on the day we blew up his ukulele.

He was the best of all of us.
J