It wasn't a typical funeral and everyone thought that was just fine. Upbeat, they all said, as bagpipes played "Aloha 'Oe." Heartfelt, too, as the voyaging canoe Hokule'a carried the ashes of one of Hawai'i's favorite adopted sons, newspaper columnist Bob Krauss, toward a setting sun and a place beyond the reef.

His family, friends and loyal readers gathered at the Hawai'i Maritime Center and the Falls of Clyde to say farewell to Krauss, a reporter with The Honolulu Advertiser for 55 years. They did it with a smile and a loud "Aloha, Bob." They did it with a touch of sadness, yes, but with cold beer and plates of 'ahi poke, because Krauss would have wanted it no other way.

Krauss died Sept. 10 following complications of triple bypass heart surgery. He was 82 and had planned to return to work. Even after 8,000 columns, he wasn't through with journalism.

"I guess Bob, to me, is kind of like one of those individuals who isn't supposed to die," said Nainoa Thompson, master navigator of the Hokule'a. "You just can't imagine it. When it happens you don't know what to do."

Krauss wrote often about the voyaging canoe and even crewed on it. He captured moments that would have otherwise been lost — perhaps the best epitaphs for a reporter. Thompson remembered Krauss always with a notebook and a pencil in hand.

"It was as if for Bob every moment counted," Thompson told the 80-plus mourners. "Every moment had value. Every person's thought had value and he was there to capture that.

"We were so lucky and so blessed to have him in our lives."

The son of a Lutheran minister, Krauss was born Jan. 14, 1924, in Plainview, Neb., and attended schools in Kansas. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1943, serving three years as a radio operator on a landing ship tank in the Pacific. Krauss arrived in Hawai'i in 1951 with a journalism degree from the University of Minnesota and a hankering to uncover the yarns of Hawai'i.

PILES OF STORIES LEFT

Krauss was The Advertiser's most senior reporter. He was eccentric and sometimes cantankerous, but he always had a twinkle in his eye when he had a story to tell.

Mike Fisch, publisher of The Advertiser, said Krauss left behind a desk piled with notes about half-finished stories and people he had met while walking through Honolulu — people he wanted to interview when he came back to work.

Fisch said Krauss spoke to him before his surgery and explained that he chose the operation because he didn't want to live on the margins of life.

"He said, 'Mike, I have too many stories to tell and too many people to meet' and as always, he said it with gusto," Fisch said.

Bill Brown, president and chief executive officer of the Bishop Museum, said he met Krauss five years ago. Brown wasn't sure what to make of the columnist, who had come to scold him because he thought the museum was neglecting the maritime center, which it owns at Pier 7 in Honolulu Harbor.

"I pretty much had no idea who he was and he got so animated that I wondered if he were sailing a little close to the wind," Brown said. "He kept saying 'gawl darn.' You know, for most people, 'gawl darn' is a euphemism shielding a sharper phrase, but for Bob, it was just what he meant, stated with emphasis."

In time, the two became friends, said Brown with obvious pride.

"I trusted him," he said. "Bob had an eye for the truth."

Several members of Krauss' family were there, including son Buck Michelsen, who told the audience about the Krauss they never knew — the father whose globetrotting search for stories never got in the way of T-ball games, recitals and "those dreaded parent-teacher conferences."

'THIS IS HAPPY SAD'

He was a father who brought scholars home for dinner to meet the family and who took his kids on summer vacations amid the ruins of old churches, Michelsen said, his voice choking just a bit. Theirs was a father who never said "I told you so," but simply pitched in to help when something went awry. A father who felt they were an indispensible part "of his big adventure."

"We were very proud to share our dad with you," he said.

The connection with readers was the thing that moved Mark and Diane Yashuhara, who had read Krauss' columns for years before they met him a few months ago. Turns out their daughters know each other.

He and his wife sang "Amazing Grace" in Hawaiian and English and later, as the Krauss family and the crew of Hokule'a took some of the columnist's ashes to sea, Mark Yashuhara leaned on a railing and smiled.

"You know, this is happy sad," Yashuhara said. "Hawaiians are famous for happy sad."

The sun had slipped behind a bank of clouds, turning their edges golden as mourners watched from the stern of the Falls of Clyde. The bagpipes shrieked once more.

Happy, Yashuhara said, because Krauss would have liked the afternoon beauty.

Sad, he said, because the columnist is gone.

Ann Ruby nodded in agreement. She didn't know Krauss personally but read his words so often, she felt she knew him nonetheless.

"He wrote down-to-earth," she said, as the Hokule'a reached the harbor mouth. "He showed his passion in his writing. I will miss his writings. I already miss them."

Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com.