This alligator tale will give you an idea of who Larry Ing was. The 12- to 13-foot alligator was a mascot of Saint Louis School when Larry attended in the 1930s. It lived in a big pool near the school on College Walk down by Nu'uanu Stream.

One year, the stream flooded and washed the alligator out of the pool and down the stream and into the ocean. End of alligator. Larry Ing remembered things like that because he was a born storyteller. Maybe he never grew up.

He liked make-believe. Once, he dressed up like a Chinese fortune teller for Night in Chinatown. He entered a lantern parade as a manapua man carrying two baskets dangling from a shoulder pole. One thing he couldn't disguise was his mischievous smile and the twinkle in his eyes.

His biggest moment of make-believe came in a "Hawaii Five-0" episode in which he played a bartender. His second starring role was the woodcutter in a Herb Rogers production of "Teahouse of the August Moon" at the NBC Concert Hall.

He was always drawing. The things he drew were part of the world he lived in. Not that Larry ever made any money with his art. Probably the Star-Bulletin was the only institution that ever paid him, and that was back in the '30s or '40s. He drew athletes for the paper.

His brush found expression in unlikely places: the bathroom of the family garage, a wall of Waimalu Chop Suey between Pearlridge and 'Aiea, props for Chinese plays. If you needed Chinese costumes or stage props, Larry's house was the place to go.

Art was his hobby, but his passion was writing. Elroy Chun said it started at Saint Louis when Larry joined a literary club. He never stopped. He wrote "Rambling Thru Chinatown" for 25 years in the Downtown Planet, then in the Hawaii Chinese News. He wrote newsletters for Chinese civic clubs. He wrote history.

The thing about Larry Ing was that he spent his life doing what he liked best. Of course, he had a job until he retired at Gaspro, but the really important things he did practically for free.

In the process, he became an institution, the Voice of Chinatown, an authority on the history of Chinese in Hawai'i. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays you could find him on the fourth floor above the old C.Q. Yee Hop building swapping stories with Chinese old-timers about families.

He belonged to at least a dozen Chinese societies, and the other 80 all considered him an honorary member.

Larry died Oct. 31 at age 91. The funeral is tomorrow at Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa Church, visitation 8:40-9:30 a.m., tribute 9:30-10:30 a.m., Mass 10:30-11:30 a.m.

Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073.