Left to right , back to front: 1st my step dad/ called him unlce Dickie growing up, Uncle Ricky, Uncle Marvin (Boy), the one hiding is my uncle Roland, my aunty Anna knelt down in front, my aunty Val's boyfriend, my aunty Randa, my mom, and my aunty Jackie.
Although Hawaiian music has been in my family literally forever, the moments that impacted me most were when my uncles would get together and sing...

It wasn't often that they would sing together because my uncle Ricky lives in Hawaii and my uncle Boy (Marvin) mostly came around only during the holidays or when Uncle Ricky was in town... Uncle Ricky has been a part of one or two bands in Hawaii and had an opportunity to make some single records for a lady once which involved some poems that she liked....

Growing up those were the two people that I would try to emulate most when singing Hawaiian music.... I wouldn't dare try to sing in front of them because deep down I felt I could never sing as good as them... The last time I was around to hear my uncle Ricky sing was for my mom's 50th birthday (about 2 yrs ago)... He brought his karaoke machine which was just a hand held mic but had hundreds of Hawaiian songs in it... We sang and started picking songs for him to sing, then he looked at me and said, hey why don't you sing that one yourself??

The biggest compliment I ever received from him was when He said I sounded pretty good.... "You can tell you got the Paro blood in you." I still kinda shy from singing in public, but when I do sing now, I don't hold anything back....

Joe