[ READER REMEMBRANCE ]
Not many people passing 180 Sand Island Access Road would catch a panoramic view of waves breaking toward Sunset Beach. Kilgo’s triggers
fond memoriesMiki Ajimine
Special to the Star-BulletinYou'd have to be an "old-timer" of Kilgo's -- or, like me, one of their kids -- for flashbacks of Mr. Kilgo's Fourth of July picnics at his beach house overlooking Waimea Bay.
My family like to jump the wall, careful of the night-blooming cereus, and spend most of the day fishing with bamboo poles for anything but that darn puffer who kept snaking the bait.
One windy year, a bunch of coconuts fell, barely missing someone leaning against the tree. And every year, Mr. Kilgo would shake his head and pour more stuff into the pool water, which defiantly refused to clear and remained stubbornly whitish.
All these images, and more, just driving past Kilgo's.
I wish dearly for a peek of the place back when it was just the one Quonset hut full of Army surplus. As it was back when my dad drove by and pulled over on a whim to inquire about a job.
Legend has it, a tall haole guy straightened up from a pile of stock, shook hands ferociously and said to get started with that stack of boxes over there.
Startled by the streamlined hiring process, Dad asked, "Is that all?" Around a well-chewed cheroot, A.L. Kilgo growled, "Want me to kiss you, too?" With a grin (and a NO SIR), Dad got started.
Sometime around Dad's 30th year at Kilgo's, he met up with cancer. He went from hardly ever missing a day of six-day workweeks to indefinite stretches of hospitalization, followed by extended home stays from treatments that just floored him. Staunchly, with a soldier's we-leave-no-one-behind conviction, Mr. Kilgo insisted Dad continue on as the vice president of Kilgo's.
Dad's friends at work steadfastly kept his desk exactly as it was, ready for him to return to as he could -- which, sometimes unbelievably, he did. It is inexpressible, what it did for my dad at that terminal stage to simply be expected back.
I remember Mr. Kilgo as a tall, only slightly stooped man. Balding. A nose that, well, matched his height. No-nonsense square-rimmed glasses. Cheeks usually ruddy from the fervent pursuit of one errand or another. Not, at first glance, liable to strike most people as an idealist.
Yet, in his heyday, personal principles alone led him to treat his employees as people of "his own." I think and dare say, one of his measures of success was being able to significantly help many families he touched.
Not many people would know that this wry businessman had an ingenuous side that prompted him to, among other things, provide medical assistance, sponsor a few 4-H cows and hire someone with a simple handshake that retained its integrity over decades.
No, not many would know the scope of his generosity. Perhaps only just about as many as can see Sunset Beach from Sand Island.
Miki Ajimine is a longtime Oahu resident.
