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Itrace my friendship with Howard “Toby” Louis to my first year of life. That’s an exaggeration, because Toby was away at war at the time, but I came to know him soon after.
My parents, Anne and Larry Laurent, were business people in San Luis Obispo from 1939-50, and since Mom was an intimate part of the businesses, their little boy who came along in ’43 needed looking after during work days. Until I was 3 or so, I was under the care of Mary Chong, who lived next to what was known during most of my youth as a sweet destination: Chong’s Candy Store. Across Chorro street stood Ah Louis’, and some of my earliest memories involve visiting the mysterious, exotic shop with my mother, in search of one Asian item or another.
My early association with the Chinese and Japanese communities in and around San Luis Obispo came about because my mother had a very strong sense of justice. It’s no secret that Asians and other minorities faced great discrimination upon their arrival to this country. One of the consistent themes that emerged in conversations with Toby over the years was the deeply buried hurt from the many instances of prejudice, both individual and institutional, he and his family encountered for so many years. But my mother would have none of that and insisted on making friends and doing business with many local Asian-Americans during and after the war years, including the Louis, Chong and Eto families.
When I returned to the county after a 14-year absence with my young family in 1976, one of my first stops in reconnecting to my roots was to visit Toby at Ah Louis. Although he didn’t recognize me when I first walked in, after I told him who my parents were he cried, with that trademark rise of excitement in his voice, “Larry! It’s great to see you!”
Nobody, before or since, called me “Larry,” but that was how he knew my father, and that was the honor he bestowed upon me. From that moment, whenever I came into the store, the happy greeting was “Larry!” which always made me feel like the prodigal son coming home.
Toby’s marriage to his wife of 60 years, Yvonne, began as a contractual arrangement when that was still the norm for the children of Asia. Yvonne, quietly friendly and with a bearing that made her seem taller than she was, did not aspire to the image of a docile wife. Our sales transactions at the store were discussed, often volubly in squall-like little tempests, by both partners behind the counter in what I assumed to be Cantonese. Somehow, a decision would be made, and usually Yvonne would be left with a doubting look that suggested the item in question should have sold for several times the amount settled on.
Over the years, Toby nourished my interest in Asian art. Visits to the store seemed always to begin with: “Larry! I’ve got something you have to see!” or “Larry! I put something aside for you! I think you’ll like it!” And he was unfailingly right: I would like it, no, love it. Because of Toby, nearly every room of our house has something that came from Ah Louis. And nearly all of the sales were derived the same way —with the inevitable squall between Toby and Yvonne, ending with Yvonne telling me that I was getting a good deal. Because their interplay was part of the transaction, she was right.
I am most grateful that my friendship with Toby extended to my family. When Marci and I married in 1988, Toby insisted on our getting our rings through his connections, since he could save us “big money.” Pouring through several catalogues with Toby, we finally found a unique design we liked, and this was Marci’s beginning as a friend of Toby.
That my son and daughter were able to get to know and love Toby the way I do is important beyond human measure. It’s also important in the historical measure that my children were able to know the honorable last son of the venerable Chinese immigrant who came to California not long after statehood. This provides my children with a link to San Luis Obispo’s and California’s beginnings, and makes me a link in that chain. In this era of restlessness and rootlessness, a sense of continuity is a precious gift. My daughter, especially, developed a close friendship with Toby over his final years, becoming, in his term, his “number one girlfriend.” Whether she was his only number one didn’t matter, she was on the list.
With his death, some may say that Ah Toa, aka “Howard ‘Toby’ Louis,” is gone. But the Laurent family, like so many other really fortunate people, knows better. Through his expansive good nature, through his great talent at friendship, through his happy, sparkling eyes which seemed able to instantly detect the good in others, through his unadulterated love of life, Toby drew people of good will into his orbit and rewarded them everlastingly with the gift of friendship. He became a sweet part of each of us by making lives better through uncountable acts of generosity; by showing that the answer to prejudice is love, persistence and character; by being a match-maker between his customers and the lovely items that he knew they should have; and by mostly being a gentle man who, through his infectious sense of delight and enthusiasm, could make the rest of us feel better about ourselves and the particular day we stood in the aura of this remarkable human being.
Toby achieved his final goal: He beat the 100 mark, and having done so, made a graceful exit –his final lesson to us. If there is a heaven, I’m looking forward to hearing, “Larry! I found something you’ll really like!”
Bud Laurent, a former San Luis Obispo County supervisor, now lives in Corvallis, Ore.
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