I imagine I spent several summers with Uncle Bill, Aunty Blanche, and Kathryn in San Francisco. I remember them as being exciting days being Uncle Bill’s sidekick and watching him paint houses and work at his other profession: professional gambling. Uncle Bill would take me out to Petaluma to visit his friends who ran a cockfighting arena outside of town (and where he ran a blackjack concession that did very well), a place that was the center of activity on the weekends, particularly for the Filipino farm workers. He also would take me from time to time to pool rooms in Chinatown and ask me to sit in a chair downstairs while he “went to the bathroom” for a couple of hours. Invariably he would come down from the “bathroom” and say, “Ok boy, let’s go get Aunty Blanche and Kathryn and go eat pake food.” It was obvious that the trips to the bathroom were profitable.

Several times, Uncle Bill took me on his gambling adventures to Reno. Back in the 50’s, he had a simple rule: he would take five hundred dollars and when they were done, he’d go home. Often it was the other way around and he came back with significant winnings. I have never seen a man play blackjack with such success as Uncle Bill had. Over the years he won enough money to buy a large three or four story house on Jackson Street that he and Aunty Blanche turned into a boarding house for a number of residents. Each day Aunty and Kathryn would walk five blocks past the large city park on the hill and up to the boarding house to clean and do laundry for the tenants, several of whom I got to know over time. Uncle Bill’s career in gambling lasted until a few years before his death, when the Sherriff of Daly City changed and Uncle could no longer run his game with impunity.

In addition to gambling, Uncle Bill was a very proficient fisherman… primarily shore fishing along the coasts in and around San Francisco. His specialty was catching striped bass; he would allow me to bring them in, and from the shore we would go directly home and then to his favorite Chinese restaurant for steamed striped bass. It was heady stuff for a young kid to be included in these adventures!

Along with memories of Uncle Bill are memories of Aunty Blanche. One thing that pops into mind is the breakfasts Aunty Blanche would prepare for Uncle and me as we would get ready to go to work or to venture out on one of our fishing trips. She was a great cook. Eggs any style, thick slabs of bacon, and then, her special treat, thick pieces of bread fried in the bacon grease would start our day. Nothing the heart doctor would recommend, but certainly very ono! Aunty Blanche was also a consummate shopper and preserve maker and I remember the time spent with her at the farmers markets, the butcher shops, and bakeries around the little Fillmore neighborhood. The area was in transition from being a primarily Jewish neighborhood to becoming a mixed Japanese/black part of town. I believe it has again changed and has become a yuppie part of the city. She had her favorite

butchers who would provide the cuts she wanted along with the chicken heads for her cats and heart meat for her dog. When vegetables or fruits were in season and cheap, she’d buy large quantities of them and take them home to be canned in the dozens of glass jars that, when filled, would line the many shelves in their basement and find use during the long winter. It was an amazing process to be a part of.

The last, most vivid experiences with Uncle were our trips to Roseville, California outside of Sacramento to visit Bill and Lilly Kendrick. Bill was Momma’s first husband and a simple man who had worked at the bus company in Honolulu and was from around Roseville. He and Lilly, his second wife and a sweet, simple Hawaiian lady from Kona, lived on an acre of land with a very impressive garden. Lilly loved to cook local foods and Uncle Bill would always plan his trips to stay the night at Bill and Lilly’s place. I remember gigging frogs in the stream outback with a flashlight and then watch in amazement as Lilly turned the frogs into delicious fried frog legs we would have as a midnight snack. Bill and Lilly loved Uncle Bill and the love was returned in kind. They also became people who blessed me through the years.

I guess since Uncle Bill and Blanche never had children together, I was sort of a surrogate son. My cousin, Alpha, also become a favorite and a surrogate daughter to them and we all remained close as our lives moved on. Uncle Bill came to my wedding in 1968 and then passed away the following year from cancer. From that point on, our contact with Blanche and Kathryn was infrequent. I know that in his later years, Uncle Bill worked hard with youth in the Boy Scouts program in the Japanese community around his neighborhood. To this day we have many of the plaques that honored him for his work with young people. Uncle Bill was always one to extend a hand to those in need and it was a lesson I have always held close to my heart.

This week begins the holiday season for most of us.  It can be depressing, but it also can be an opportunity to celebrate all of the GOOD things we have been given through the years!  Let’s help each other celebrate the good things that have populated our lives.  The great people, the great events, even the tough things that have given us strength and encouragement on our life journeys.  Seek the opportunities we have over the coming holidays to reaffirm one another.  Holiday blessings to you and yours.

As I have put down some of the memories I have of the early years of my life, I am reminded that those years were filled with strong individuals who Ke Akua used to mold my view of the world and fill out the person I have become over these many years. Before going forward with the chronological account of my early years, I’d like to pause to highlight a few of the personalities and adventures that stand out in my journey to adulthood.

In addition to my mother and father, I would say my two maternal uncles, Uncle Bill and Uncle Alfred Chock, were particularly important in my early years. For much of my life up to my teenage years, my father was often stationed overseas either in Alaska or Korea, and these two men often filled in the gap. Uncle Bill Chock (or Chuck as he often spelled it), was Mom’s older brother and lived in San Francisco. He had left Hawai‘i in his youth to join the Merchant Marines, served on various merchant ships, and then settled in the Bay area in the Fillmore District at 2517 and 1/2 Sacramento Street (funny that I still remember the address after all these years). He was married to a lively and very kind Englishwoman, Blanche, who had an adult daughter, Kathryn, who suffered from epilepsy and depression. Uncle Bill was half Hawaiian, half Pake, and knew enough Chinese to get around Chinatown and Chinese restaurants (more on these adventures later). He was also a very gifted house painter who was highly sought after for his painting skills. I used to watch him cut edges in rooms perfectly and with great speed. Uncle kept an impressive array of painting and general hardware supplies in perfect order and prided himself on being good at his painting profession, something he said he got from Grandpa Ah Fung Chock, the plantation painter in Kohala.

I remember Uncle Bill and I had a shared addiction to watermelon. As we were about town, we’d often find a truck filled with watermelon for sale and immediately Uncle would be pounding on various green spheres to finally come up with a couple to take home. As soon as we had finished dinner, it was a mano a mano contest between Uncle and me over who could devour the most red flesh from the green spheres. Plenty fun and great bonding.

Uncle Bill with his cars and the pose that defined him

Many images of Uncle Bill fill my mind. He was square and solid in built. He wore khaki pants and shirts when not dressed in his white painter overalls, and was rarely seen without a cigar in his mouth. To this day, the smell of a cigar triggers positive memories of Uncle Bill and his generous spirit. He loved to drive and would not blink at going several hundred miles out of his way to take a soldier he picked up hitchhiking to his home in another state. I remember one time when Dad was sent to Korea, Uncle Bill drove his 1954 Oldsmobile all the way to Pennsylvania so that he could drive Mom and me across the country. The fishing in trout farms in Colorado, the stopping in Tombstone to visit all of the abandoned buildings, and the frequent stops at fruit stands to refresh our car stash were some of the exclamation marks during the crossing of the country with Uncle Bill. The trip was filled with his persistent questions about the names of state capitals, history, and the geography of the continent. He was a man who engaged those about him with humor and good will and he made sure his nephew (me) was a constant focus of interaction.