Letter from Hawaii

We were saddened to hear the news about our friend Dan Meichel. We tried to have this read at his memorial but with the time difference, it didn't make it in time.

We met Dan 8 years ago when he was a regular at Parrot Tales. When he stopped coming in on a regular basis, we asked him what was up and he said he had been eating lunch at Cook's Café. He was in love. From that time on Dan and Jeannie were always together – they even plumbed together!

After a while Dan started to regularly spend his lunch hours at our restaurants again and we got to know him very well over the years and often acted as his answering service as people would call us to see if Dan was there. He was a great guy and a great friend.

Dan asked us one day (out of the blue - as his questions so often came) if we had ever been to Hawaii. We had researched Hawaii for years and had been planning to move there so this became a regular topic of discussion between us. Dan eventually bought a piece of land on the Big Island and he and Jeannie began to build their house there. We all hoped to end up in Hawaii some day.

When things weren't going well for us last year, we gave up on our Hawaiian dream – but Dan never gave up on us. He kept plugging us along and re-kindled our dream.

We spoke to Dan last Friday from Hawaii. We were making plans to meet here in Maui next month and were looking forward to seeing them and celebrating in Hawaii.

Here in the islands they build little stone monuments along the cliffs in memory of loved ones. We will build one here for Dan.

We will always remember Dan and feel fortunate to have been his friend. He was sincere, hard working, funny and refreshingly honest. If you didn't want to know what Dan thought – you didn't ask him because he would tell it like it is.

We will always miss him.

Bill, Rose, Holly, Hana and Keanu Valle

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