Children see and remember a colorful world of things that adults overlook. Byron Yasui remembers boots. He's a jazz musician and University of Hawai'i professor of music who grew up in Nu'uanu. He was 4 years old in 1944 when the boots enchanted him.

"We lived in a Japanese neighborhood," he said. "Iolani School was located on Nu'uanu Avenue. During the war, troops were billeted there. Japanese ladies would call, 'Heitai-san' (to herald the return of the soldiers), at the end of the day. We children came running."

Yasui said he crouched on the curb, too small to see anything but the muddy boots of the soldiers as they marched by, heavy boots swinging in rhythm, crunching on the pavement. Tanks rumbled up Nu'uanu along with cattle trucks, canvas covered, packed with sweating, dirty soldiers.

Some people, I think, store up information that others miss. I got that impression over lunch with Yasui at Wai'oli Tea Room, so I invited him to my office for a different view of Our Honolulu than we usually get.

He started with his grandfather, who contradicted the stereotype of small, stiff, sober Japanese immigrants. Ryutaro Yasui was tall and handsome with a big handlebar mustache. A barber by trade, he had a shop on Hotel Street in Chinatown where the police substation is now.

Ryutaro was the first to hire attractive, young Japanese lady barbers in the late 1920s or early 1930s. Japanese lady barbers in Honolulu became a tradition until about 20 years ago. His barbers were local girls who lived upstairs in his house.

Ryutaro Yasui must have been a talented character. He bought a camera and became an amateur photographer, shooting photos of Queen Lili'uokalani's funeral going up Nu'uanu Avenue to the Royal Mausoleum, and the Yasui family picnicking on Sandy Beach, all the men in formal dress. He wore a silk top hat. There's a photo of him in a naval admiral's uniform and he's on roller skates.

Of samurai blood, Ryutaro used to hang an apple by a string in the yard behind his barbershop. He would ask somebody to make the apple swing like a pendulum. Then he would whip out an arrow from a quiver at his waist, fit the arrow to his bow and send the arrow into the apple.

The other characters Byron Yasui remembers hung out on the corner of Bethel and Pauahi streets in the late 1940s and the 1950s. See if these names ring a bell: Miner Li'i, the Bull of Bethel Street, who drove a flashy yellow-and-red car; Punch Drunk Willie, who shined shoes near Bill Lederer's bar; a Japanese merchant with a cleft lip who sold boiled peanuts in the old Honolulu Stadium; a Chinese 'ukulele player on crutches who leaned against the wall and played left-handed. But the uke was tuned for the right hand so he strummed up instead of down.

Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073.