Readers share stories evoked from Rearview columns

Readers have weighed in recently on events I wrote about over the summer. Each person had a connection to the events described:

I received a lot of positive response to my July 2 article about my mother’s cartoon stories. Recently, my wife and I dined at Bob’s Big Bear restaurant on Dillingham, and it reminded me of another story she told.

The owners of the restaurant were the former proprietors of Bob’s Big Boy in Mapunapuna, and they have the Big Boy statue in their entrance. My mom, Martha Sigall, knew Benny Washam, the man who created it.

The chain was founded by Bob Wian as Bob’s Pantry in Glendale, Calif., in 1936. A chubby 6-year-old boy named Richard Woodruf was a frequent customer. Wian called him “Big Boy.”

About the same time, a customer asked for something different, and in response, Wian cut his hamburger buns into thirds and created the double-decker sandwich. He named it the “Big Boy,” and it became a big hit. Many Hollywood celebrities came to try it.

Washam was a fry cook at the restaurant but had dreams of getting into animation. He drew a caricature of Woodruf that became the original mascot of the chain.

Washam got a job at Leon Schlesinger’s Looney Tunes studio where my mom worked. She said Washam was embarrassed with his mascot when he was a little older and wanted to redesign it, but Wian said no. He liked it as it was.

Decades later McDonald’s came out with its own double-decker hamburger, called the Big Mac.

On Aug. 18 I wrote about former First Hawaiian Bank CEO Walter Dods and the building of the First Hawaiian Center. His 2015 book, “Yes!: A Memoir of Modern Hawaii,” had a funny story I saved for this column.

Dods said he had built the cute little two-story building next to the old First Interstate building on South King Street. “We just finished construction but didn’t have tenants. I went in on a Saturday morning to inspect the building when no one was there.

“I had to pee, so I went into one of the bathrooms and shut the door. I finished, washed my hands and hit the door handle to go out. The handle spun 360 degrees. It was busted! There was no way to get out, and nobody in the world knew I was in the building.”

Dods had his cellphone and called the First Interstate building next door. He told a maintenance man what had happened. “Fortunately, I left my building’s main door unlocked, so the guy was able to come up to the bathroom. I slid the key through the crack under the door. He opened it and came in.

“I’m thanking him so much and said, ‘Let me show you what happened.’ Like an idiot I shut the door. Now the two of us are trapped in the bathroom! I felt like an ass.

“Then I remembered my son, Peter’s, Easy Music Center, was next door. I called, and fortunately there was one kid there before they opened.

“He came up, and I slid the key under the door again. He opened it up saw me with the janitor in the bathroom. He must have been thinking Peter Dods’ father is a weird guy!”

Earl Arakaki of Ewa Beach wrote me after my Aug. 4 article that mentioned the nuclear tests over Johnston Island that were visible in Hawaii skies from 1958 to 1962.

“I clearly remember the summer of 1962, when I was a high school student,” Arakaki said.

“Our family stayed up late listening to KPOI radio. The report said, ‘Tonight at about 11 p.m. (or it may have been midnight), a rocket will be launched from Johnston Island, and a nuclear bomb will be detonated.’

“Living in Ewa Beach, we figured Johnston Island was far to the south of Hawaii, so we walked to the shoreline and focused on the horizon.

“KPOI announced the rocket was launched. We waited, imagining we’d see a bright lightninglike flash over the horizon.

“Suddenly, to our amazement, directly overhead was a bright greenish blue flash that lit up the whole area. There was no sound. The greenish-blue light lasted for a few minutes, then turned red. At the same time there were pulselike rings from the center of the bright spot moving slowly outward.

“I recall the moon turned bright red,” Arakaki said. “This whole scene lasted for more than half an hour. I’ll never forget it.”

I’ve written about Arakawa’s store in Waipahu several times and became friends with Goro Arakawa, who turned 95 recently. He told me a cute story about how he met and proposed to his wife.

“My father, Zempan, sent me to New York University to get a business degree,” Goro told me. This was in the early 1950s. There he became friends with a number of other “katonks” (he called them) — Japanese born on the mainland.

“We only had a few cars,” he recalled, “so the girls had to sit on the boys’ laps. That was our version of premarital sex,” he chuckled. “I wore a cashmere sweater because it was warm and soft, and the girls liked to snuggle against it.”

He fell in love with one of them, named Mary Kadota. He asked his father to send him a ring and arranged to be on the Staten Island Ferry with Mary on the first day of spring in 1953.

As they passed Liberty Island, Goro said, “There’s the Statue of Liberty, the symbol of our nation’s freedom … and here goes mine.”

With that, he put the ring on her finger.

You didn’t ask her to marry you? I said.

“No, I just put the ring on her finger,” he replied.

What did she say?

“‘It must have cost a fortune,’ she said.”

“No,” Goro said. “I had to look through five Cracker Jack boxes to find it.”

Son David Arakawa says that whenever the Statue of Liberty was on TV, they’d poke each other in the ribs and giggle. “They had several small replicas of the statue around the house. It was a standing joke in our family.”

Goro and Mary had 43 happy years of marriage. She died in 1997.

Bob Corboy remembers an impressive, three-story waterfront structure at Fort De Russy which included a water slide and platform jumping and diving facility.

“There were also a couple of wooden rafts about 100 yards offshore. It was a kid’s dream of a day at the beach! I’m hoping one of your legions of readers might have a picture of this structure.”

Readers: Anyone have a such a photo?

Brad Coates has printed a fifth edition of his “Divorce With Decency” book. In it he has a few interesting quotes about love, marriage and divorce that I thought were insightful. Here are some of my favorites:

“I love you not for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you.” — Roy Croft

“Husbands are like fires. They go out when unattended.” — Zsa Zsa Gabor. (She also said, “Not diamonds, but divorce lawyers are a girl’s best friend.”)

“The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.” — the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh

“You don’t know a woman until you’ve met her in court.” — Norman Mailer

“Before marriage a man will go home and lie awake all night thinking about something you said. After marriage he’ll go to sleep before you finish saying it.” — Helen Rowland

“Success in life means more than finding the right person to marry. BEING the right person is even more important.” — Elos Nelson

Bob Sigall, author of the “Companies We Keep” books, looks through his collection of old photos to tell stories of Hawaii people, places and companies. Email him at Sigall@yahoo.com.