The owners of Eki Cyclery on Dillingham Boulevard announced recently that they were closing at the end of this month after 109 years in business. I hate to see venerable old companies shut their doors.

So I thought I’d look back to the beginnings of Eki Cyclery. My predecessor and mentor, Bob Krauss, interviewed the founder, Toichi Eki, in 1966 when he was 78 years old.

They sat under a hibiscus tree Eki planted at 681 S. King St., now the site of Hawaii Central Credit Union.

In 1908, at age 19, Toichi Eki came to Hawaii from Yanai city in Yamaguchi prefecture, Japan. His brother-in-law, Harry Sadayasu, was a manager at the Oahu Country Club and got him a job there.

Oahu Country Club had just opened a year before and had a dormitory for its workers.

Eki’s roommate was another young bachelor, Taichi Sato, who was one year older. Sato went into the hat cleaning business in 1914. Later he began selling hats, then he added clothing. The firm was known as Sato Clothiers, and it was an original tenant in Ala Moana Center.

Eki worked as a waiter and earned $25 a month (about $700 in today’s dollars). He sent $15 ($400 today) of it to his parents in Japan and, of the $10 left, managed to save $160 ($4,500 today) in three years to open a one-room bicycle shop.

Cars were fairly new to Hawaii in 1911, and horses were still common. But many rode to work or school on bicycles. His business thrived, and he opened a second store at Ala Moana Center in 1966.

Eki became one of Schwinn’s top dealerships in the nation, selling, at one time, over 1,000 bikes a year.

Toichi Eki’s granddaughter Jayne and her husband, Jay Kim, are the last generation to run the store. I think Eki would be proud to know his business survived well over 100 years.

More hekka

Three weeks ago I wrote about hekka and whether that was the same thing as sukiyaki.

Alvin Yee told me he volunteers at the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum and works with Tomoko Kamiya, who’s from Japan.

“She told me hekka was originally a Hiroshima regional fish dish,” Yee says. “In the 18th century, beef was introduced into the diet and eventually pork and chicken.

“Her best description of hekka is ‘sukiyaki.’ Nowadays people in the Hiroshima area still use the term, but Japanese in other parts of Japan, especially the Tokyo area, do not say ‘hekka,’ but rather ‘sukiyaki.’

“Other Japanese nationals I inquired with had never heard of hekka. The original Japanese immigrants were from Tokyo, but were sent back as they were not accustomed to field work. Succeeding groups of immigrants were from southern Japan, such as Hiroshima, which at the time were primarily peasant-class people who were accustomed to field work.”

Alan Yagi said the article on hekka brought back a flood of warm memories from his childhood. He was born and raised on Lanai in the mid-1940s to mid-1960s.

“Most referred to it as hekka on Lanai. My great- grandparents on my dad’s side were from Yamaguchi- ken and first settled in Lahaina. Then, my grandparents moved to Lanai. As in your article, hekka seems to be from southern Japan — Hiroshima, Yamaguchi and others. A ‘country thing.’

“It was primarily chicken hekka, being it was the least expensive. As was on all of the plantations, a number of families raised chickens. I imagine a lot of hens past their laying years wound up in hekka (more tasty than store-bought). We had beef or pork only when we could afford it.

“I believe my grand­father taught my dad how to cook hekka, since I don’t recall my grandmother or my mom (Niigata-ken) ever cooking it.

“It was always my dad and in my early years, it was always in a heavy cast-iron pan on a round ’shichirin’ charcoal grill in the center of a low round table on the parlor floor of our small plantation house. We sat on the floor around it, each of us with a chawan rice bowl and a dipping bowl with a beaten egg to dip the hekka in.

“My dad said hekka always tasted better cooked on a shichirin and charcoal or wood fire.

“Dad’s hekka had more to it than the sukiyaki I had in Japan later in life. Dad’s had a more local touch, by including green onion, watercress, pepeiao (when available), konnyaku slices in addition to the noodles, and shiitake slices. Some others added baby corn.

“And dad’s hekka was definitely not stir-fried. He’d sear the chicken (or meat) as the charcoal fire died down, add the dashi (shoyu diluted so not too strong), then layer other ingredients over with the veggies on top with green onions.

“He’d cover and let it simmer until the veggies were half- to three-quarter cooked from the heat of the dying coals. The chicken would fall off the bone tender, and the flavor of veggies and the other ingredients was not overpowered by the dashi. It was all in timing of the heat. Then, he’d turn it over once or twice before digging in and dipping in the beaten egg.

“When we finally could afford an electric fry pan, it was not as good as on the shichirin. Maybe it was the ambience of it, but Dad was right, it did taste better on the shichirin.”

Yasaiya-san and sakanaya-san

Jean Nishimura wrote about the “yasaiya-san” and “sakanaya-san” — vegetable and fish peddlers — who used to come around her neighborhood in trucks.

“My favorite dishes were calf liver with crispy fried bacon and lots of sauteed onion. Also, my mom’s ono tripe stew.

“All the ingredients were bought from the ‘yasaiya- san’ and ‘sakanaya-san,’ who both came twice a week to our street.

“First stop would be in the driveway of the last house on the street and then in front of our carport halfway up the block. At the toot of the truck’s horn, the neighborhood ladies would come out.

“The side flaps of the truck would be raised and a hanging scale pulled out. Fresh and processed meats and fish would be cut as requested, placed on pink butcher paper, weighed and wrapped.

“Vegetables, tofu in square cans filled with water, bread, saloon pilot crackers and whatever else would be brought to the scale area.

“A pencil would be pulled out from behind the yasaiya- san or sakanaya-san’s ear, prices jotted down on the butcher paper and quickly tallied up. No calculator. No credit cards. No plastic bags.

“Purchases would be simply picked up in arms or aprons and carried home. If everything couldn’t be carried in one trip, no problem. Just make a second trip. And maybe buy another forgotten item.”

The Rearview Mirror Insider is Bob Sigall’s weekly email that gives readers behind-the-scenes background, stories that wouldn’t fit in the column, and lots of interesting details. My Insider “posse” gives me ideas for stories and provides personal experiences that enrich the column. I invite you to join in and be an Insider at RearviewMirror Insider.com. Mahalo!