April 16, 1956 to April 21, 2021
William Higashida passed away in his sleep at his home in Las Vegas, Nev. just before his birthday. William was a fun-loving person throughout his life. He enjoyed fishing, movies, playing poker, dining out and loved playing video games. In his youth, William would find as many video games as possible and made sure he had the high score on every machine he could find. He put his initials, “WMH” on video game machines throughout Los Angeles. William could play hours on a single quarter.
In his youth William was interested in fishes and dreamed of making a fish farm i n the 1970s before fish farms existed. We took a trip to Bodega Marine Laboratory just north of San Francisco across the Golden Gate Bridge where William planned on attending in the future. William’s love of fishes led to his nickname of “Fuju,” which was derived from the puffer fish (fugu) in Japanese. In his youth he loved to cruise the city listening to his favorite R&B tunes. One of his favorites was “Wedding Bell Blues” by the 5th Dimension. Once a favorite came on while we were cruising, he would turn up the volume and sing along. He worked as a truck driver, produce worker and Pac Bell telephone repairman. William loved to BBQ and his friends enjoyed his secret teriyaki BBQ sauce. He took the early retirement from Pac Bell at 50 years old and enjoyed the remainder of life not having to work again. William invested in a machine shop called Devika Enterprises and was the president.
William’s parents and sister are predeceased and he is survived by many relatives and friends. William will be missed by everyone who knew him.
Services will be held on Saturday, Aug. 7, 2021 at 10 a.m. at Evergreen Cemetery, lot 217, about 150 yards west of the chapel, 204 N. Evergreen Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90033.