In 1972, when I was eight, my father bought a restaurant - with his younger brother - to better provide for our family despite not knowing anything about the food business. The Ballard Smoke Shop, a popular watering hole for rowdy Nordic fisherman, was known for stiff drinks, large portions, and loyal waitresses.

For nearly 30 years, he worked six - sometimes seven - days a week, in a dingy kitchen, cursing eggs and omelets, while his heart longed for the sea. He never raised his prices. He awoke every morning at four to open the Smoke Shop by dawn. From my bedroom window, I heard him curse the punishing night, especially in the wintertime, as he scraped jagged chunks of ice from his windshield. As a teenager, I hated that he worked so hard. He was always exhausted from standing so many hours on his feet.

Above the Smoke Shop was an alternative school for juvenile delinquents. One day, a student from the school, violently kicked the double doors that separated the kitchen from the smoky cocktail lounge. Intent on teaching the boy a lesson, he grabbed him by his neck and held his trembling hands above the burning grill. "You S.O.B.," he said in his thick Greek accent, "Don't ever do that again." My father believed in tough love.

From the beginning, my sisters and I were barred from working there. Although fate had denied my father a "future," he insisted we go to college.

He stood 5 feet, 7 inches, but he always seemed much taller to me than that. He had large, dark brown eyes and a broken nose from an old soccer injury. His favorite cologne was Old Spice. He said it reminded him of his teenage years, smuggling lemons and olive oil in a wobbly caique in the choppy waters of the Aegean Sea, risking his life to help support his family.

A dapper dresser, my father never owned a pair of blue jeans. "I'm not a cowboy," he'd say. His pleated, khaki pants were pressed with razor-thin creases. He smoked Winston cigarettes.

He grew his own tomatoes. And he loved watching sports on television. "Big game tonight Mary," he'd say to my Mother. After a while, she realized every game was a big game. dad also liked to play the lottery, and he often shared his winnings with the cashiers at the Albertsons in our neighborhood.

In 1947, dad left Aegina, the Greek island where he was born. During the Nazi occupation, a few years before, some 2,000 people starved to death including his cousin, Niko. My father ate bread and sardines to stay alive. His dreams of becoming a nautical engineer vanished against the ominous backdrop of World War II. At 21, after scoring a hat-trick in the local soccer final, he said goodbye to his beloved island.

He settled in Seattle. For more than 20 years, he worked for Boeing, making parts for airplanes. To make ends meet, he also bartended at night. On Sundays, he played soccer for an amateur team called the Old Italian Caf/. One afternoon, he punched the referee in the nose for yelling, "Hey you Greek," at lower Woodlawn near Green Lake. From then on, a sportswriter nicknamed him "Pugilistic Pete."

He married my mother in 1959 at the old Saint Demetrios Church - between Yale and Thomas - in a Greek Orthodox ceremony after courting her for a decade. At their wedding, he donned a black tuxedo with satin piping. My mother, dark haired and petite, wore an ivory gown with a scalloped neckline.

I, meanwhile, lived at home until my early thirties, and I never saw my father walk through the front door without a bag of groceries. "When you shop, shop heavy," he'd say. He filled our lives much the same way he filled our pantry: with sweetness and abundance. And I've realized that a large part of why I waited until 40 to get married was because all along I'd been hoping for someone like him.

At Christmas time when he couldn't break away from the restaurant, he'd summon me or my sisters to Northgate Mall to buy our mother an elegantly wrapped Chanel No. 5 gift set, the kind with fancy perfume and silky white powder. He wanted her to have something special from him under the tree.

Every Valentine's Day, he'd buy her a mega-sized greeting card and sign it: "Love, Pete." It came with a gigantic velvet box of chocolates adorned with a shiny, red ribbon. My two sisters and I would also find heart-shaped candy from him on our pillows when we returned home from school.

On Mother's Day, he'd set two pinkish orchid corsages on the kitchen table, one for my Mother and one for my grandmother, so they could wear them to church that day.

On their anniversary, in October, he'd send a dozen long-stemmed roses with clusters of baby's breath that looked like snow. My parents were married for 42 years.

Five years ago, just days before my father passed away, he met a young nurse's aide at Northwest Hospital. She had fled her war-torn country in East Africa, leaving her family behind. From his wheel chair, emaciated and suffering from an inoperable aneurism, he discreetly slipped some money in the palm of her hand. In a strained voice, he said, "Send it home. Send it home."

Elizabeth M. Economou may be reached via bnteditor@robinsonnews.com