UKE MILEAGE

On a sweltering August day in the ‘50s, I cut my summer school class at Hollywood High School and headed for the beach with my buddies. That afternoon, flaked out on the sand, one of the guys pointed out Catalina in the distance and speculated that it was “around 26 miles” away. (Yes, I now know it isn’t.)

I picked up my ukulele and began to compose a song called “26 Miles” (Across the Sea) that would ultimately take my high school recording group the Four Preps to dizzying heights and help put my daughters through college.

I’ve probably performed that song 10,000 times since then with a guitar and now I can finally confess the truth . . . it sounds better with a ukulele.

Thank you, Lynne Heffley (“Still Small, but Making a Big Comeback,” Aug. 2), for making it cool to admit that again.

BRUCE BELLAND

Encino

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My 84-year-old mother recently announced she had sent her ukulele (circa 1925) out to be restrung. I think I was 8 when she taught me how to play.

Recently we had a wonderful get-together at her house, where one of the guests grabbed up the ukulele and we once again after so many years enjoyed singing those old songs. So many memories.

I love you mom . . . and I love the ukulele!!

LARRY CARPENTER

Valencia

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On Aug. 17, five American ukulele enthusiasts will return the ukulele to its ancestral grounds--the Portuguese island of Madeira. Players from Hawaii, the Sierra Nevadas of California and the South Side of Chicago will travel to Madeira to teach the ukulele to Madeiran folk musicians, who will, in turn, teach us to play the braguinha, the stringed folk instrument that became the ukulele when it reached the Hawaiian Islands in 1879.

On Madeira Island Day at the the last world’s fair of the millennium--Sept. 6 at Lisbon’s Expo ‘98--we will perform together in concert. It is believed to be the first time in the ukulele’s 120-year history that the two instruments have been brought together. This historical, musical and cross-cultural event may well be as important to the popularity of the ukulele as the 1915 Pan Pacific Exposition in San Francisco was.

DAN SCANLAN

“Cool Hand Uke”

Grass Valley

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In 1948, my mother gave me a black, pineapple-shaped ukulele for my 16th birthday. A couple of years later, I loaned it to two Hawaiian friends, Frank and Freddie, from Westchester. I never got it back. Has anyone seen it?

DONALD KEYS

Newport Beach