Trotted globe after retiring
Staff Reporter
After retirement, some people sink deeper each year into a comfortable chair and a dysfunctional relationship with the remote control. NotMac Kawamura. After hitting their mid60s, he and his wife, Alice, visited all the places they had dreamed about since they were first married.
They traveled to Machu Picchu in Peru and camped in yurts in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. They fell into the Amazon River during a trip to South America. They booked passage on the Trans- Siberian Railway, at 5,000- plus miles one of the world’s longest, greatest train journeys. The Kawamuras saw the Temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the pyramids of Egypt, the Great Wall of China and the “moai” — monoliths — of Easter Island. They experienced a curfew in India after the 1984 assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. They visited Tibet, Nepal, Greece, the Galapagos Islands, Turkey, Mexico, Guatemala and the South American region of Patagonia.
One of their most thrilling journeys involved a trip to the islands of Indonesia to see Komodo dragons. The world’s largest lizards resemble dinosaurs. The biggest ever documented was 10.3 feet long and 366 pounds. They can take down water buffalo, pigs, deer and any human unlucky enough to get close to their drooly jaws.
It was a breathtaking moment for the Kawamuras when they arrived at their destination and saw a sign warning: DANGEROUS AREA Watch out, Komodo Crossing BE SILENT “They not only got to see the adult Komodo dragons,” said their daughter, Ami, “but some babies as well.”
Though he didn’t like to talk about it, Mr. Kawamura was imprisoned at the Minidoka relocation center in Idaho during World War II, when anti- Japanese paranoia led to mass internments of Americans of Japanese heritage. His future wife was held at Tule Lake in California.
He died at Swedish Covenant Hospital on March 21 at 94.
Mr. Kawamura was an only child born in Hanamaki, Japan. When he was about 2, his parents immigrated to Seattle. In grade school, “He was very naughty — the girl who sat in front of him, dipping her braids in the inkwell,” Ami Kawamura said.
After internment, he moved to Chicago, where he experienced trials by fire and ice. He landed a job in an ice house but quit after nearly getting crushed by a giant block of ice. At Piper’s Bakery, which evolved into Piper’s Alley, he burned his hands hauling hot pans out of the oven.
Seeking an old friend, “He was looking up all the George Mukais in the Chicago phone book,” his daughter said. When he showed up at the door of one of them, it was the wrong George Mukai, but Alice Mukai, who answered the door, became his wife.
They danced to Big Bands at the Aragon Ballroom. Mr. Kawamura opened up a North Side radio and TV repair shop. His wife operated a beauty shop near Diversey and Clark.
Once, he built a color TV from spare parts, “and we watched that TV for years,” their daughter said.
They bought a three- flat at Argyle and Magnolia. They rented out the third floor, installed Mr. Kawamura’s parents on the second floor, and raised their daughter and son, Jon, on the first.
Their children ice- skated at the Rainbow rink and watched films at two great old movie palaces, the Riviera and Uptown.
Married 53 years, the Kawamuras developed the comically blunt repartee of long- wed couples, their daughter said. “Mom would always say things like, ‘ We danced the night away’ — and dad would say: ‘ Oh, we did not.’ ”
“Somebody asked them once what their secret was of [ successfully] taking their trips,” she said. “Mom said before they go, they look at each other and say, ‘ No matter what happens, we’re going to have a good time.’ ”
Sometimes, they went on tours. Other trips, the Kawamuras planned themselves. “They were pretty unusual,” she said. “They weren’t like my friends’ parents. I guess I never knew parents who were quite so adventurous.”
Mr. Kawamura loved any kind of ice cream, was an unerring parallel parker and had a parakeet he enjoyed named Pretty Boy.
Services have been held. In addition to his son and daughter, Mr. Kawamura is also survived by two grandchildren. His wife died before him. Though he achieved many of his travel dreams, there was one adventure he didn’t complete, his daughter said. “My dad always wanted to go to Timbuktu.”
She has to decide what to do with one of his more macabre souvenirs from the Amazon jungle. “My dad brought back a stuffed piranha, and he wanted to put it right on top of the TV in my living room, and I said no, I’m not looking at that every time I watch television,” she said. “It’s still in his room. I can’t get rid of it just yet. It’s horrible, showing all its little teeth.”