Everett native’s book a humorous look at a simpler time

When Everett native Tim Aalbu left for Arizona in 2003, boyhood memories of his hometown went with him. He never forgot the fun and friends he had growing up near Forest Park.

Aalbu is a 59-year-old Baby Boomer, a member of Everett High School’s class of 1974. Coming of age in the 1960s and ’70s, kids didn’t have cellphones, social media or reality TV on cable. Life was simpler, at least that’s how Aalbu remembers it.

Now living in Arizona, Aalbu has written about his youthful antics in a humorous new book called “Fiddlin’ Around.”

There’s a tale of boasting to a younger friend about his paper-route earnings, and one about pretending to be a soprano singer for the chance to sit by a buddy in music class. In another story, he recounts efforts to woo girls during a trip to Whidbey Island’s Fort Casey.

The title “Fiddlin’ Around” came in part from his childhood home on Federal Avenue, where his neighbor across the street was Gene Nastri. An Everett violinist, Nastri taught for nearly 30 years in the Everett School District’s strings program.He was a founding member and longtime concertmaster of the Everett Symphony Orchestra, now known as the Snohomish County Music Project.

Nastri, who died in 1997, also taught violin lessons at his home studio.

Aalbu jokes in his book that when neighbors heard loud screeches, it was tough to tell if they came from the musician’s violin students or the peacocks that were a familiar sight, and sound, at Forest Park. “It was kind of painful, being right across the street,” Aalbu said.

He said he changed real names in his stories — where “Mastry” is the music teacher’s name — “to protect the innocent.”

On Saturday, from 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Aalbu will be at Harbour Pointe Golf Club in Mukilteo signing and selling copies of the book. From each sale, $5 will be donated to the American Cancer Society.

His book-signing will coincide with Golf for Life, held annually to honor the memory of Aalbu’s late wife. Linda Hardwick Aalbu, who had been his high school sweetheart, died of cancer in 1999.

Golf for Life, a fund-raiser for the American Cancer Society, is an effort started by women who were Linda Aalbu’s Everett High 1974 classmates. Those longtime friends created the fundraiser the summer after her death, beginning as a team of walkers in the American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life.

For a decade, the 4-U-Aalbu team participated in the Relay For Life. And for the past half-dozen years, the group’s golf events have been held at courses around the area. Over the past 16 years, Aalbu said, the 4-U-Aalbu team has raised more than $175,000 for the American Cancer Society.

Aalbu remarried after Linda’s death, and he and his wife, Pam, live in Mesa, Arizona. After selling his Everett-based Aalbu Landscape Maintenance business to TruGreen, a national company, he moved to Tucson in 2003. They have lived in Mesa about three years.

“Fiddlin’ Around” isn’t Aalbu’s first writing project. With Pam, he wrote the “Goober Guys.” It’s a book used in some elementary schools in Arizona and other states to teach second- and third-graders about Rotary International’s “Four-Way Test.” Its tenets are: “Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendships? Will it be beneficial to all concerned?”

Aalbu, who was a charter member of the South Everett-Mukilteo Rotary Club, wrote the “Goober Guys” stories and his wife illustrated them. The couple has been involved with Rotary in Mesa.

To get going on “Fiddlin’ Around,” Aalbu took creative writing classes at Pima Community College in Tucson.

He had watched “The Bucket List,” a movie about two men with do-before-dying wishes. “I think that reminded me — you know what, get off your butt and do it,” Aalbu said.

Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; jmuhlstein@heraldnet.com.

Book signing

Tim Aalbu will sign copies of “Fiddlin’ Around” from 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the annual Golf for Life benefit at Harbour Pointe Golf Club, 11817 Harbour Pointe Blvd., Mukilteo. A donation of $5 per book sold will benefit the American Cancer Society. The book will also be available at Everett Comedy Night, 8:30 p.m. Sunday at Emory’s on Silver Lake, 11830 19th Avenue SE, Everett. For more information, go to www.fiddlinaroundbook.com.

This story has been modified to correct the name of the Snohomish County Music Project.