Readers ask me questions every day. Sometimes it’s about a topic I have written about and know well; sometimes it’s about a subject I have never thought of.
This week a reader asked about the “coconut wireless” and where that term came from. I remember the KGMB radio morning news referring to itself as the “coconut wireless,” but I never wondered where that originated, until this week.
Another question led me to find that a private home in Nuuanu had become a place for Hawaiian food and entertainment from 1938 to about 1951. It was called the House in the Garden.
I love learning about things like this, so keep those questions coming.
Origin of the coconut wireless
“Pake” Zane, who owns Antique Alley on Queen Street near Ward Village, was curious to know where the term “coconut wireless” came from.
He has a book by Ray Franklin Kaufman called “Coconut Wireless,” written in 1948. It was about spying on Japanese and German activities along the Malay Peninsula during World War II.
And he remembers Hal Lewis, aka J. Akuhead Pupule, on morning radio. The KGMB news was over “the coconut wireless.” It had a short jingle with what sounded like coconut drums. Who invented the term? he wondered.
Answer: For those who are unfamiliar with the term, “wireless” dates to about 1907 and refers to over-the-air radio broadcasts. “Coconut wireless” refers to the rumor mill that conveys gossip and news in a tropical island setting.
I searched the newspaper archives and found one of the earliest references for “coconut wireless” was a syndicated article that ran all over the world in 1929 about Papeete, on Tahiti.
It was written by a correspondent who called him or herself the “looker on.” The earliest paper to carry it that I could find was the Bolton News in Manchester, England.
“Life in the highly- sophisticated South Sea isles is by no means as news- less as one might hazard,” the correspondent wrote.
“The Papeete planters have bestowed the pleasing name of ‘coconut wireless’ on the means by which their wives and daughters keep ‘au fait’ (‘knowledgeable’) with all the news that really matters.
“Every sun-up, the native maids meet at the market- place and pool the previous day’s domestic log, while they do the forthcoming day’s shopping. These reporters take back their gleanings to the housewives who ‘publish’ it to their spouses over breakfast.”
Don Blanding
The next reference I found for coconut wireless was in a Don Blanding poem in 1939. Blanding (1894-1957) was sometimes called “the poet laureate of Hawaii.” He was the originator of Lei Day in 1927.
Blanding moved to Hawaii in 1915 and wrote a popular column in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. His book “Vagabonds House” sold over 150,000 copies. Here is an excerpt.
The Coconut Wireless
By Don Blanding
It’s known as the Coconut Wireless.
It runs like a web through the land.
Its service is speedy and tireless.
No stranger can quite understand.
The Coconut Wireless carries
The rumor with marvelous haste.
Each messenger alters and varies
The story to suit his own taste.
A maid tells the tale to a matron,
Who tells it in turn to a clerk.
The clerk spills it all to a patron
Who leaves with a satisfied smirk.
And the next one who hears and repeats it,
Throws in a few bits of his own,
Til he won’t know the yarn when he meets it,
So amazingly fast it has grown.
The Terrible Coconut Wireless,
We loathe it and use it each day.
Its service is speedy and tireless.
“Have you heard any gossip today?”
So, it looks like the term coconut wireless may have developed in Tahiti by 1929, when Hal “J. Akuhead Pupule” Lewis was a 12-year-old in New York.
House in the Garden
Dennis Ching asked me about a teahouse in Nuuanu. “I believe there may have been one located near Stream Drive in Nuuanu. Access may have been by Liliha Street or the road off of Pali Highway, where Temple Emanu-El is now located.
“I’m curious to know the teahouse’s name since it was so close to my parents’ home on Namauu Drive.”
Answer: I don’t think it was a teahouse. Near Temple Emanu-El, at 120 Jack Lane, was a home called the House in the Garden. It had been a private home, then in 1938 became a place for luau and parties. It could accommodate up to 1,000 people.
Soprano Annie Kahinaweaulani Adams and her husband, Andrew, owned it. During World War II, service men and women were entertained there. High school reunions were held there.
A 1948 Honolulu Advertiser article said: “Adams uses pearl-shell plates and wooden dishes from her own collection. Guests are seated on lauhala mats on the floor before low tables covered with ti leaves and decorated with bright flowers.
“Native girls in costume serve the feast, which includes pig from the imu (underground oven), chicken luau, lomi-lomi salmon, baked fresh fish, coconut pudding, baked bananas, fresh pineapple, sweet potato with coconut milk, opihis (shellfish) flown in from Molokai, and other island delicacies.”
It closed in 1951 and became The Garden School Nursery for a short while. Then five private homes were built, and the House in the Garden receded into our collective rearview mirror.
Eagle’s Nest
Ray Sokugawa asked about a nightclub called Eagle’s Nest. Where was it located, and what years was it in operation?
Answer: Yes, there was an Eagle’s Nest. It was part of the Cavalier restaurant on the ground floor of the Pan Am Building at 1600 Kapiolani Blvd. and Kaheka Street.
John Quong and Charles Lau owned the Cavalier. It opened in the fall of 1969 and was there for about 10 years. The name came from a 1624 Frans Hals painting, “The Laughing Cavalier,” a copy of which hung in the lobby. A cavalier was a mounted soldier.
The Cavalier had an Old English motif, with original paintings and reproductions on the wooden walls.
Mel Sugihara remembered the Cavalier: “When I was a much younger guy, in my mid-30s, we’d have pau hana drinks at the dimly lit Eagles Nest on the second floor of the building.
“I recall most of the customers were bankers and lawyers. The waitresses were dressed like Playboy bunnies, but without the ears and cottontail. I learned years later that one of them who always waited on me was a nurse during the day for my doctor.
“I never once recognized Gina in her outfit, but we laughed about it when we became close friends later in life.”
Bob Tassie said: “In late 1969, when they opened the Eagle’s Nest, piano man John Saclausa moved from the Green Turtle restaurant and went to the Eagle’s Nest. My wife, Patti, who I met at the Green Turtle in 1965, and many others followed him, and hung out there for several years.
“John Saclausa could play any song in the world by ear,” Tassie recalled, “and in your key, and would remember you the next time you came in. That was impressive.”
Former House Judiciary Chair Terrence Tom, who was blind, played piano at the Eagle’s Nest while he was a student at UH in the 1970s.
Frank Genadio said, “My wife and I had our first date in 1980 at the Cavalier restaurant in the Pan Am building, which had excellent food and featured a combo headed by Gabe Baltazar.
“Upstairs was the Eagle’s Nest, for an after-dinner drink, where amateur stage performers gathered after a show to sing along at the piano bar.”
Thanks for the questions. I learned a few things I didn’t know before. If you have a question about people, places or organizations in Hawaii, send me an email.
Bob Sigall is the author of the five “The Companies We Keep” books. Contact him at Sigall@Yahoo.com or sign up for his free email newsletter at RearviewMirrorInsider.com.
