Our Honolulu
100 candles OK — but no pheasant
By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist
George Luke Ing out in Hai'ku Valley is about to turn 100, but I'm not going to tell you when because he's afraid he'll be swamped by too many friends on his birthday.
"He's been elected president of anything he ever belonged to," explained his daughter, Barbara.
In 1958, when Chinese weren't allowed to join country clubs like Wai'alae and O'ahu, Ing formed his own golf club — 82 members including a who's who of prominent Chinese in Our Honolulu, with a waiting list.
An animated talker, he couldn't talk Chinese to his wife so that was one of the major burdens in his life. He's Hakka, and she was Punti. They had to speak in English.
Where Ing got his savoir-faire is a mystery. Born in 1901 on the slope of Haleakala in Kula, he walked barefooted three miles to school in clothes his sisters sewed for him. He didn't own a pair of shoes until he was 14.
His father, a farmer, owned a horse but no buggy because there weren't any roads in Kula. His mother cooked over a grill on stones outside. Ing never got as far as Wailuku but tramped around Haleakala a lot hunting pheasant with a shotgun.
"That was our meat," he said. "We shot about 200 pheasants a year. I got tired of eating pheasant. We had it every which way — grilled, salted, boiled."
He learned to ride a horse at age 10 (1911), learned to drive a car (Essex) in 1925, took his first ride in an airplane (to the Mainland) in 1955.
What amazes me about Ing is how many different careers he's had. He organized golf tours. As a school counselor for 30 years, he controlled students nobody else could. He built several successful businesses in different fields. He took a fling at politics and lost.
"What happens if you fail?" I asked. "Try something else," he said.
He thinks he owes his longevity to his teenage caddying at O'ahu Country Club — for the Walkers and Waterhouses and Cookes, or Charley Chaplin or Babe Ruth. It got him started in golf, which kept him young.
I asked him what he enjoyed doing the most. He said it was being a school counselor. Then why did he quit? So he could devote more time to his business.
Bewildered, I said, "You like golf. You like counseling. You like business. What don't you like?"
"Cigarettes and liquor," he answered firmly. "I tried them and I don't like them."
About five years ago, he went for a cataract operation and had his first physical. Son Melvin recalls, "He said the doctor told him his blood pressure was 120 over 70. He asked me, 'Is that good?' " Ing has never been hospitalized. He's never had a headache.
I asked him what was the best time of his life. He thought about it and said, "When I was about 40. Then you have a little money to spend."
He said he wouldn't like to go back to 1901 because it was too hard. What did he like about it? He said, "I was BORN in 1901."
