More Than Names on a Page

Born 16 Aug 1941. Died 18 Dec 2010 - 70 years old.

Nick was my dad. He loved fishing, bowling, food, and people.

I remember him as a tuna fisherman when I was a kid. He would go to places like Kwajalein in the South Pacific and be gone for months. He said he captained his boat. Whether as captain or deckhand, whatever he fished was done in warm water.

Here are the fishing pictures I have of him:

Grandma Akana and Grandma Chu by Dad's 87lb Ono Wahoo

Dad and his 138lb yellow finned tuna

One of Dad's boats

A beach on the Ivory Coast

Dad holding his 5.5lb 23.5in German Brown Trout
Grandpa Chu holding his 3.34lb 18in Rainbow Trout

He was left handed and held his bowling ball low (his left elbow was straight) before making his approach. He bowled on a traveling team. His bowling average was in the 200's which is pretty good considering the top score is 300.

There is bowling in my blood that comes from him, Grandpa Chu and Mom's side of the family.

I appreciate that he's left handed because I am too. So is my son, Bryan. There are left handed people in at least three generations in a row in my family. That's pretty neat.

Dad not only loved cooking, but also eating. One time, when I visited him in Texas, we stopped at Church's Fried Chicken to get more food after we had just eaten at Taco Bell. During that same trip, but at a different time, workers and the owners of a Chinese restaurant treating him like royalty. (I loved going to restaurants with him because the experience was always fun.)

When I was ten years old, Dad and Mom opened a restaurant in Provo, Utah called "The Hungry Hawaiian." Dad was the cook. He made delicious food!

His wife, Dusti, told me that after he became disabled in the 90's he still cooked but made the gadgets in the kitchen work to his advantage. He cut using an Alaskan knife that rocked. He also had a nail hammered into his cutting board to hold food so it wouldn't slip. He asked people to dice things for him, but their work had to meet his expectations. I treasure his recipes (Nishi Mei, a.k.a Stir Fry and Nick's Spaghetti Salad.)

The thing I remember most about Dad was how much he loved people and how much they loved him. My love for people is one thing I've inherited from him. Everywhere I went with him, he was loved. He knew people at the grocery store and the bank, to name a couple places. I believe he considered everyone his friend and was kind to them as much as he could be.

He lit up when meeting friends, and talked to them as if they were his best friend. I've heard it said that Hawaiian's are friendly people, and that was certainly true of my dad. He made people feel comfortable, like family.

My dad wasn't perfect. In fact, he had many flaws. But I choose to focus on the good things about him.

He called me several times in 2010 - from the hospital just before he died. The fact that he called me instead of the other way around meant a lot to me. We talked and joked around on the phone. I think he related to me because we were both handicapped. I enjoyed talking to him. He said, "I love you" and I believed him. (At 41 years old I still enjoyed hearing it.) Sometimes when he called I couldn't understand his speech. It made me sad because I knew he wanted to tell me something.

After he died I had no regrets. I didn't wish we had mended broken fences because we had. I didn't feel sadness but peace.

Here are some other pictures of my dad: