For exactly 100 years, Fujihara Store has been at the center of something special in South Kona, which Dusty Boyd stumbled on quite by accident.
A flashback to 14 years ago finds Boyd, now 50, disillusioned from a life on the go in corporate Los Angeles. The former chief operations officer for Teleport Communications Group found himself in the parking lot of the Kealia store, coming down hard off an emotional absence without leave.
He noticed the flow of humanity going steadily in and out of the place, and sensed something he was hungry for — a feeling of community.
A decade and a half after buying the establishment, he’s watched fathers teach sons how to fish and has bartered with them over the catch. Eyes that used to barely peek over the edge of the counter now stare level at him. People say things to him like, “Hey Dusty, you da mayor. What they catching at Hookena?” And he knows the answer.
It’s been an unbroken flow of the connection fostered decades ago by Madeline Fujihara Leslie, already an elderly woman when Boyd introduced himself that first day.
“I said, wow this store is busy,” Boyd recounted Thursday. “She said, ‘Yes it is, but I’m kinda tired.’”
On a handshake, the two struck up a deal where Boyd would buy the business and Leslie would be allowed to stay for life in the house behind the store, where she cared for her dying husband.
When he first took over, the store was heavy on fishing gear and Japanese products, and light on presentation. Early on, Leslie was whispering to Boyd a few pointers for success. They didn’t include beer.
The big secret was ice.
Areas south of the store are off the grid, and to this day, many folks stop in for 20 to 30 pounds of ice. That’s their refrigerator, Boyd said. Fishermen fill coolers the size of a large trunk with ice.
Leslie knew the power of cold, and she worked it.
“She would make block ice. I quit doing that; it’s really tricky. She said, ‘I bought this back hill with ice. I own it all from making ice.’”
Back in 1915, the original store had been established just across the street by Kohei Fujihara, according to the Kona Historical Society. Fujihara’s wife, Lily Haae, died at age 32, plunging Leslie into the world of grown-up responsibilities. As the eldest daughter, the girl left seventh grade to help with her father’s store and seven siblings. Even prior to that, however, she was practically running the store by the time she was 8 years old, Boyd said.
The original store was moved from leased ground to a spot just across the road in 1966 — land which Leslie purchased while also running a fish market in Kealakekua.
Following in her steps, Boyd gave up the luxury of 3,000-square-foot homes and a posh Southern California existence in which he had “denied himself nothing.” He moved into a structure at the back of the store that used to house the ice machines, and he started a family. Boyd has not looked back to the old life.
Instead, he stood in the store Thursday morning, with his wife Susan and his young son and daughter, Denali and Everest, behind the register helping out. As the parking lot suddenly filled, Boyd recognized three generations of one local family.
One member of that family, “Braddah Hose,” had a delivery of fresh vegetables. Hose has created a large community garden that feeds five local churches and gives a gardening plot to seniors so they can be active outdoors.
“I plant flowers for the eyes; this is for the belly,” Hose explained as he transferred the bounty to the arms of the Boyd family and made a quick trade for a bag of lychees.
Like the Fujihara kids before them, the Boyd children make themselves useful in the store, bagging ice and using small and quick hands for easy stocking of shelves, Susan Boyd said.
The family is continually surprised by how many people come in the store.
Besides being a clearinghouse for gossip and happenings, the small yellow and red building also has a practical allure: cold six-packs of soda and beer, hotdogs for $1.25 — which go out the door to the tune of 100 a day — wasabi peas, lychees, and even staples like pet food and rice.
The same woman has been making the trays of sandwiches and musabi for decades. Boyd can’t figure out how she doesn’t miss a day. The big crimson jar of pickled mango for sale in the cooler is prepared by his neighbor.
In Boyd’s early days at the store, Leslie was always busy out back, pulling up weeds, never slowing down. Boyd admired her industry. An Ironman triathlete himself, he has climbed some of the world’s highest peaks to benefit youth groups and has done extensive philanthropic work in Nepal. He is also the founder of a Hookena children’s summer camp, now in its second year and attended by about 40 children.
Life in South Kona wasn’t always a cakewalk, though, as Boyd learned the ropes. It seemed the harder he threw his L.A. energy around, the more disordered things became.
But more local wisdom set him straight, including a dose from the pastor of the Pukaana Congregational Church, just across the road. Her words became something Boyd has not forgotten.
“She comes in and says, ‘Dusty, relax. You don’t own this store; you’re just caretaking it. You’re gonna pass, but the store will stay. It’ll always be here.’”
On Sunday, Fujihara Store commemorated its 100th birthday, with free coffee mugs so the Boyds don’t go through so many disposable cups.
They celebrated the home that Leslie made — and which the Boyds are glad to now call their own.
Email Bret Yager at byager@westhawaiitoday.com.
