Category Archives: Friends

Friends, Military, Navy, World War II

A Humbling Easter Sunday

April 2, 2013 Mustang.Koji 68 Comments

Easter Sunday turned out to be a tough day – emotionally for me, at least.

But it was even tougher for a 90 year old widow of the Greatest Generation.

Marge.

Marge Johnson.

We went to visit her husband’s grave site…

Mr. Doreston “Johnny” Johnson. Sergeant, United States Marine Corps. World War II.

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As I was cutting down trees and chipping the cuttings in the backyard this past Good Friday, Marge’s caretaker drove Marge up to see me. What a pleasant surprise – besides, it gave me a great excuse to stop working. I hate yard work.

After chatting, she brought up her husband. It had been a year since his funeral with full military honors and that she hadn’t been back to see him.

She didn’t need to say anything more.

We agreed I would take her to see him two days later – Easter Sunday.

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Mostly, I will let the few pictures and short videos speak for themselves.

Her first words as she saw his gravestone: “Oh, my darling…” in a quivering voice.

She sat there, talking to him, for about 45 minutes. I left her alone for most of the time.

She loved and missed him so much, she struggled out of her walker to kneel down and kiss his gravestone. I offered to help and she said, “This is something I have to do on my own…” Such fortitude.

After I DID help her back up (she said I could help her now), she reminisced with me at graveside before we departed:

On the way back to the car, we took a break (in the hot sun) as her legs are weak now. As any great lady from that great generation does, she thanked me over and over for taking her to see her husband, especially on Easter Sunday, while crying. I said to her that Mr. Johnson and Old Man Jack could never forget the horrors from combat but they were the greatest human beings – because they learned to forgive – and that it was an honor she asked ME… an American of Japanese descent, to escort her to visit with her husband.

These Americans from back then gave their all for our country… and nearly all of them have outlived their friends. They are now alone – after all that sacrifice that you nor I will EVER weather.

I think they deserve better.

We should all try to return the favor, no matter how small the gesture, when the opportunity presents itself.

Indeed, a humbling Easter Sunday.

America, Cars, Children, Family, Ford Mustang, Friends, Japan, Nisei, Photography, Rights, World War II, WWII

A Saturday in SoCal

March 17, 2013 Mustang.Koji 28 Comments

A wordless post.

Well, almost.

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So what happens on a beautiful weekend in SoCal?

Picked up the wall portrait of my kids from Alan Miyatake of Toyo Miyatake Studios.

This appears to be an artistic rendition of one of Alan’s photographs of Ms. Condoleezza Rice?

The famous grandfather of Alan, Toyo Miyatake.

Went to visit dad… The workers there told me he’s not eating much as of late. He only had a small salad with a little bit of chicken for lunch. When I asked him if he was hungry, he said no but when I showed him one of his favorite Japanese treats, he went to town.

Number one.

There goes number two!

Number three down the hatch!

He’s happy now. 🙂 And he did finish the last ball.

Took him one of Alan’s 8×10’s…labeled. He’s 94 now.

My bud Brian drove down from Reno for St. Paddy’s Day weekend – no better excuse to share a stogie together!

Played around with my new Canon SX260 HS point and shoot camera. Never had one that I can remember but it was fun to shoot with.

Superior close up capability.

Hand held. Look at the detail… Not bad for a shaky ol’ fart?

aIMG_0156 — I’m keeping an eye on all of you! Who’s got Visine?

Fish eye setting…

My neighbor’s new son, Gabriel. The father is USAF… I pray for his safe return always.

And finally, these were for me. Like father, like son! LOL

America, Army, Children, Family, Friends, History, Marines, Military, Money, Navy, Rights, School, Uncategorized

News Reporting? Pffft

March 14, 2013 Mustang.Koji 7 Comments

This is what my monitor showed at 9:00 AM this morning.

For CNN:

For Fox:

If you click on the images, you can see the topics each news media “deems” important.

How can they be so different?

How can CNN essentially ignore the tremendous budget issues confronting the United States while concentrating on the election of the head of the Catholic religion? (Just being factual here – Catholicism is but one religion in this world. Just citing fact.) Well, Michelle Obama got a line in “for being in the vogue”.

Just weeks ago, CNN was headlining day after day Obama’s attack on the “GOP” as he greatly exaggerated the negative effects of the sequester. They even followed Obama when he went campaigning to bash the GOP…instead of trying to run this country.

I thought news was to be objective…or at least consistently applied?

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I will WRITE it.

Our country’s WOES are the result of two dictatorships… A dictatorship being defined as they do as they please as no one can challenge them. A form of Hitler-ism…

One dictatorship is the damn LAWYERS. We are better off without them. We don’t need lawyers representing jerks who go into small businesses just looking for minor violations. Attorneys WON’T restrict themselves as they feel they are “protecting us”. Pffft.

The other dictatorship is the MEDIA. Reporters are using it to spout off their personal feelings or agendas…or of their management…who gets revenue rewards of various “types”.

Media. Double Pffft.

Rant over.

America, Children, Cooking, Family, Food, Friends, Kids, Photography, School, Uncategorized

A Chatter Master Morning

March 9, 2013 Mustang.Koji 27 Comments

Ever wonder what happens when Chatter Master influences your daily life…

Lots. Just lots.

It started with a surprise from the reliable Chatter Master… delivered by the (usually unreliable) postal service.

What was in it?

A magic mug…made by Irish leprechauns, no doubt. Mischievous little buggers, they are!

So what did this leprechaun-made magic mug do for us this morning?

A brew of dark, just ground French roast coffee magically filled my magic mug…brewed at the perfect temperature of 195F, of course. Thank goodness they didn’t brew up a green smoothie. Miracle of miracles!

And the mug summoned Spring.

And a little visitor joined us – laden with delicious spring pollen. Achoo!

It made me make homemade waffles for the rug rats…with real maple syrup.

And the magic Chatter Master mug summoned our good neighbor Jake! He ate three! And the great kid he is, he took his plate to the sink.

The magic mug also compelled my son to work on his science project! (Of course, there was a bribe involved…that only partially worked.)

See what happens during a Chatter Master inspired morning??

Wait… What’s this? The yard looks the same… What’s up with that?

Children, Cooking, Family, Food, Friends, Photography

Dessert for a Nice Lady

March 3, 2013 Mustang.Koji 24 Comments

There is a nice person at a place I frequent.

Always smiling and courteous.

So she deserved a homemade treat… A strawberry and almond frangipane tart.

And you know what? She smiled…and that made me smile.

And I thought it matched her hair…and she had two servings.

No better compliment at that.

Automobiles, Cars, Family, Ford, Ford Mustang, Friends

Surviving Women’s Imaginary Things

February 27, 2013 Mustang.Koji 34 Comments

A fellow (not male) blogger took a light-hearted approach to her surviving her husband’s “man flu“. Us guys took it on our bearded chins from the ladies.

Lies. All lies, I say!

Blasphemy that us men would whimper and keel over from the invasion of tiny buggers we can’t even see with a microscope.

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Well, guys, its our turn. We must defend our manliness. Light-heartedly, of course.

The other night, I survived another commute home ~~with~~ against hordes of women drivers.

Barely survived.

Actually, it was a wonder I made it home unscathed and not get hit by the invisible things only women drivers can see.

They are gifted.

Us men can only see real things.

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It is not easy “sharing” the road with women drivers when they have a different perceptions of “lanes”, “sharing”…and things only THEY can see. Invisible things that apparently take up a LOT of space. Thank goodness they can see them or I would run into these invisible things.

And women’s maligned beliefs they had to suffer the consequences of the man-flu… Dastardly. If anything, a man-flu lasts but a week.

Commuting ~~with~~ against females and their invisible things (only visible to them) is five days a week, 50 weeks a year for us hard-working men.

And I thought about the man-flu smack down when I came to this (long) stop light.

I got my trusty new smartphone and managed to snap a picture for evidence (unlike the man-flu blog which had NO evidence)… but of course, none of the HUGE invisible things only WOMEN can see showed up in the picture.

(Trust me. The two vehicles in front of me have female drivers.)

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Here is a schematic of the picture. By some miracle, it is as UN-females see it:

A schematic of the photograph - which for some reason coincides with a man's view. — A schematic of the photograph – which for some reason coincides with a man’s view.

Notice where in the lane the female driver of the world’s tiniest car has decided to stop at this intersection. There was obviously a couple of those invisible things that only WOMEN can see…on both sides of her. If you can catch the Man Flu, you probably can’t see these invisible things. She is so blessed, isn’t she?

(This was during rush hour. At a long signal. With other drivers behind us. Forming two distinct lines…except for the two cars in front of me.)

Also trust me when I say the perspective of this photo hastily snapped with my smartphone is as deceiving as is the ladies’ perception of the effects of the man-flu. There is LOTS of space on either side of car #1.

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Which brings us to the second car immediately in front of me. There is enough space between car #1 and this one that the front offensive line for the Ravens could do their stretching exercises.

Well, she also stopped her car skewed to the right of center… You can see the reflection of my curbside headlamp on her LEFT tail lamp. Imagine that.

…and she is not trying to make a right turn… Here, at least.

She made the turn at the NEXT stop light beyond the freeway overpass.

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Well, gents, a lady friend viewed the photograph at my humble request… and with her special vision, she pointed out the invisible things to me. How blessed are women!

THIS is what they can see with their magic vision!

THIS is what women drivers can see with their gift of paranormal eyesight!

OK, guys… How many of you want this special vision that only women possess??!
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America, Army, Family, Friends, High school, Kids, Marines, Military, Navy, Rights, School, World War II

“Let’s Play War”

February 5, 2013 Mustang.Koji 28 Comments

When I was a youngster, the kids on our Oakford Drive in East Los Angeles would play after-school and certainly after homework was done.

Playing was comprised of two general categories:

1. Sports – like baseball (complete with broken windows) or football (on our lawns spotted with metal sprinkler heads), or,

2. War

Needless to say, I was never a member of the US forces when we played war. (Oh, how I longed to be Sgt. Rock with his bulging biceps and Thompson machine gun blazing away…fighting for the red, white and blue.)

No, I was always the “J” or the “K”… You know what I mean.

To be killed over and over again.

Like with elaborate booby traps: a wooden clothes pin armed with a cap and taped onto a piece of wood. When I neared the booby trap (countless of times), Steve would pull the cord (countless of times) attached to a little string of metal from a spam can holding the clothes pin open..and “POP!” I would crumble to the ground. Very effective weapon if you ask me.

Or shot with John’s toy Winchester. Wait a minute. Winchesters were for cowboys and Indians. I wonder how that got into our (imaginary) war. Oh, well. We were just playing while building our love for country.

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After all, this was only a little more than 15 years after a most bitter war’s end.

Toyota wasn’t even in our vocabulary.

Sony became part of our vocabulary only because of something called a transistor radio.

“Tofu” wasn’t even a gleam in Webster’s eye.

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But we were playing. Imagining.

Today, I read this news story.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/02/05/colorado-boy-7-out-to-ave-world-reportedly-faces-suspension-for-imaginary/?test=latestnews

http://video.foxnews.com/v/2144044335001/

The gist of it? I hope you will read it and develop your own.

But…

Is this a case of hysteria? Of being afraid of being sued by spotlight-loving lawyers… or CNN making you out to look a villain to support Obama’s political agenda? Just my opinion, of course.

Of what HARM was it? The toy grenade didn’t even have a paper cap… Wait a minute. Was there EVEN a toy grenade? Or maybe it was a fuzzy tennis ball in place of his imaginary grenade?

OMFG.

Don’t punish the kid’s imagination.

Geezus H. Christ.

Maybe he just wants to be Sgt. Rock and save our country.

America, 第二次世界大戦, Family, Friends, Nisei, Photography, World War II

The Photographer for My Daughter’s Wedding

January 28, 2013 Mustang.Koji 51 Comments

“Just photos,” as they say… Photos of my beautiful daughter’s wedding a couple of weeks ago.

Well, with just a little writing, perhaps, with a smidgeon of our American history tossed in.

In my other blog posts, there has been mention of the “internment camps” in which one-half of my dad’s family was imprisoned in the US during WWII.

Internees were not allowed to bring in cameras amongst many other things deemed to be a threat to national or camp security – like knives, guns, tools…and cameras.

However, at one camp called “Manzanar” (where my Aunt Shiz and cousins were imprisoned), one brave soul braved the tight security measures and actually made his own camera…in secret. He then took prohibited photographs during his interment. His name was Toyo Miyatake… (Note: there is a super documentary on Toyo Miyatake called “Toyo’s Camera“: http://www.toyoscamera.com/. One contributor was George Takei who played “Sulu” on “Star Trek”. Takei was also imprisoned during the war.)

toyoscamera — Copyright Toyo Miyatake Studios

The actual camera he made is shown below; it is still in the possession of the Miyatake family:

In what I believe is a Signal Corps official photograph, the Toyo Miyatake family is pictured in their Manzanar barracks:

This is one of the more well-known photographs taken by Toyo Miyatake at Manzanar during WWII:

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Jump forward to today.

Toyo Miyatake’s grandson is Alan Miyatake; my 11 year old son sneakily grabbed my EXPENSIVE DSLR and snapped this photo of Alan and I chatting at my daughter’s wedding. The gent on the left is Alan. We are the same age……but I do look YOUNGER, of course. Just kidding, Alan!

We’ve known each other for over five decades now; we attended the same church. When we played B-ball in the church league, he played guard. When he let loose a shot, his form reminded me of a graceful ballet. He was good… and his photography was fortunately much better. (Smile)

He shot my weddings…both of them, unfortunately. And there was no one else I was honored to have shooting my daughter’s. Both of us were joking before the wedding that we were both extremely grateful for auto-focus…

The following proofs are Alan’s work where noted.

Thanks, Alan…but I still challenge you in sports photography! LOL

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