Post #747435 by akjefferson on Mon, Jul 20, 2015 12:09 AM

I stumbled across this website when I googled "Andres Bumatay", to find my brothers obituary to print a picture, his name was Andres Bumatay Jr., he died in 2010 and he is buried next to my dad and they share a headstone together. So, it is definitely by accident that I found Tiki Central. You can trust that this is absolutely a surprise out of no where to me. I had no idea that my dads tiki's have come this far in time. I looked at the blogs all day and all night, and when I looked at the newspaper clippings, it touched my heart and it immediately brought tears to my eyes, I sighed and said, it is my dad. He always rolled his pants tight at his boot collar or cut his pants to that length, he also cut the arms and around the neck of his t-shirts and sweatshirts. I asked my aunt questions about my dad today, she told me that my dad carved tiki's in California before I was born, when he was a bachelor. My father left Hawaii, went to California where he met my uncles from my moms side, and became like a brother to them. They brought him to Washington, where they originally came from, he met my mom, and they were married. My aunt told me that his carvings were unique, and people from California paid for his trip to go back to California, to carve tiki's for there business. She also, said that he belonged to a tiki club and his carvings were in shows and many people wanted his carvings, and it was how he made his living until he married my mom, settled down, had my sister and me, and worked a nine to five, at the same job until his retirement. He carved tiki's on his spare time, he had many talents; he was a carpenter, he was always building onto our house; he collected and restored classic cars; he made some of our furniture, bunk beds, dressers, and reupholstered our living room furniture. He carved a tiki for my sister and me when I was 4 and it's stored with the family assets, with my step mom. The carving is about four or four and a half feet tall. It is similar to all of his work but the carving looked like it was holding two round trays, one on top of the other, but they were end tables kinda like shelves. The top table was mine and the bottom was my sisters. The mouth was wide, rectangular, and carved inward and used to put little things like jewelry or pencils etc... (this is the best I can do to describe it) and it stood on the side of our bunk beds. My thoughts are that my dad didn't talk about this part of his life because I was too young and it might of reminded him of my mom, she was his first love, and he loved her until the day he died. He did carve two tiki's for the Hawaiian night club that he and his band played music at, and a few other places but it was so long ago. He gave carvings as gifts to our relatives on a special occasion. One of my favorite carvings hung on the wall it was a head and shoulder profile of a beautiful Hawaiian girl, she had long hair, with a plumeria flower on one side, the way Island girls where them on one side by the ear, and on bare skin she wore a flower lei. My dad gave it to my Uncle and his wife as a wedding present for their brand new home. I will work on tracking down some of my dads carvings and hopefully, I can take pictures and/or get pictures to share with you. It will take some time and I wouldn't be able to begin this right away because my step mom lives in Seattle, she's really old school she doesn't use computers or smart phones and I live three hours north of Seattle, 18 miles south of the Canadian boarder. I am happy to share memories of my father... FYI, there are three Andy Bumatay's in my family, my dad, my brother, and my 1st cousin who is a stand up comedian entertainer In Waikiki.

[ Edited by: akjefferson 2015-07-20 20:15 ]