The recipe is from my chef e-friend and former Food Editor of the Orange County Register, Cathy Thomas.
Since I’m a mechanic at heart, this should prove that anybody can “cuisin-ate” her easy-to-follow recipes.
I’m sure some of you pros out there can put the dessert together in a much more appealing presentation.
In the “old days”, we shot with 35mm cameras that used something called…film.
You loaded your own bulk film if you shot a lot.
You manipulated something called “ASA”.
You had to meter the light and set your shutter speed and f/stop.
There was no auto focus.
The cameras were made out of steel with metal gears – weighed a ton…especially if you carried an external motor drive with EIGHT AA batteries.
You developed your negatives at home – according to temperature.
There was no “Photoshop”. You used an enlarger and “dodged” and “burned” your prints to make corrections.
You all have it easy now. Well, I guess me too.
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Just for memory’s sake (and my ego), here are two of my award-winning sports shots from 1972. From one statewide photo contest. These are surviving test prints, i.e., boo-boo prints that had been stashed away by luck. 🙂
The final prints – from the best printing efforts – were mounted and submitted.
Available light (and lighting was poor, believe me). I didn’t use flash as I felt it distracted the players trying their best to win.
Exposed Tri-X at 2400 ASA and “cooked” the negatives in HC-110 replenisher. Brutal stuff.
I usually shot from the stands, rim level, for a different perspective.
You had to anticipate the play and pre-focus.
And some luck.
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1st Place
Honorable Mention:
Not bad for not having taken photo classes. All self-taught.
OK.
My ego’s placated…and no criticisms from the pros who might be peeking.
Bad for ego.
I had a date last night…and she was a varsity high school cheerleader, no less. Any man’s dream as they say.
It was the most wonderful evening for me in close to two decades.
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Oh, her name is Mari Jo and very happily married. Darn. Double darn. Her loving Husband was kind enough to “lend” her to me for our 40th high school reunion. They both bought me my ticket to make sure I’d go to the reunion. How embarrassing for a man of old ways.
Mari Jo and I have been friends since six or seven years of age – from around (ahem) 1960 or so. We went to a great elementary school in the heart of East Los Angeles called 4th Street Elementary. It still stands. Brick auditorium, too.
She had a touch of freckles, blond hair with the slightest of curls and an infectious smile back then. More than 50 years later, she still does. Priceless.
True childhood friends. The best. No walls. No mask. Out in the open.
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Nearly all of us were pretty much in the same boat. Our families were trying to make ends meet. Since we knew no other lifestyle, we all looked upon each other for support. I see this in hindsight now.
It seems as if mom stopped by for this “May Day” dance perhaps in 1966. Mari Jo can be seen being twirled around by another childhood friend Ralph – he’s the tallest one on the left.
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We were all blessed to have stayed together through what we called junior high school back then. That school, too, is still standing. Junior high school would end up giving Mari Jo a lot of memories – both painful and happy. One of her proudest moments… I think she looks fabulous, don’t you?
Mari Jo was cheerleading even in junior high. She is at the far right.
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In high school, our friendship continued. Mari Jo was a popular young lady. She was funny, outgoing and cared about others…and she was one of our varsity cheerleaders. Odd that bubbly Mari Jo would be one. Are you kidding me?
She is off to the far right – it is from a frame from one of my surviving negatives from back then.
Did I mention she was a ham, too? She was one of my favorite candid photography subjects. I was apparently known as the guy who always had a camera hanging from my shoulder. While sports photography was where I exceled (with basic equipment), many of my photos ended up in the school newspaper or the yearbook. I had taken tens of thousands of photos, then developed the negatives at the house then printed them. And the friends I gave the prints to were happy… and that made me happy. The plumbing was never the same after all the processing and printing. That didn’t make my parents happy, I’m sure.
I treasured the negatives for decades…but about six years ago, my littlest firecracker Brooke decided to let the air out of an IMMENSE three tier inflatable pool full of water… but the darn wife had put the IMMENSE pool IN the garage (where my CAR should have been) so that the kids would not get dark from the sun. Why have an IMMENSE three tier pool bigger than Lake Erie if you don’t want your kids to get dark??
When my angelic Brooke pulled the plugs, the garage flooded – and all but one set of the high school negatives were ruined. The prints from those precious days that survived were also gone…including my most favorite one which was a double-exposure of Mari Jo immediately after losing the football league championship game in the final seconds.
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I last saw Mari Jo later that year – 1972 – after graduation. She was moving to Las Vegas to get married.
While we had written a letter or two soon thereafter, for the next 37 years, I oft thought of Mari Jo (and of two other childhood friends, “Fritos” and Ralph)… What happened to her? Was she happy? I was so angry at myself for failing to stay in touch…
Then… I came across a lead. I sent off another blind email like I did for my dad’s high school yearbook; I guess that’s my MO… and she replied! OMFG.
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We learned of each other’s paths since parting. But most of all, she was HAPPY. That was all that mattered to me. She is now happily married with two great kids…and a granddaughter!
But good ol’ Mari Jo… She knows of my life’s recent events and she – with her good husband’s encouragement – came to my rescue last night. If I can sum it up as best I can, she said basically you plan for life – but what happens is life. Life is but ambiguity and dwelling does no good… to move on.
Before we met, I kidded her my hands were sweaty and that I was nervous… like a certain escort she had one night when she was young. She called me poop head. Loved that. But I was nervous.
She snuck up on me and surprised the dickens out of me… and man, it was worth it. She looked stunning – gorgeous if I may say – but it was Mari Jo. That same infectious smile. From 4th Street School. In East LA.
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Speaking personally, I had the most grandest of times… It started with Mari Jo screaming – just a tad. After picking her up from her hotel, I did a burn out in my car. It was just a little scream, Husband. Really. Well, it was more a case of Mari Jo sinking her manicures into the ceiling.
Needless to say, she was the most ravishing one there… and she was my date! Thank you, Husband!
I felt so good, I did the cha-cha with her… Well, kinda. I had forgotten how to… but the song was “Suavecito”. An East LA favorite. My legs hurt this morning.
I won’t go into the reasons but the varsity cheerleaders and I overall had a special relationship – and four of the eight were there!
Aren’t I a lucky old fart?
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Thanks for rooting for me, Mari Jo. You blew in fresh air and helped rekindle a smothered flame.
An old flame at that.
Love ya.
Dad’s eyes got a teensy-weensy bit watery again today.
Perhaps its becoming a routine.
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Went to see Dad this morning. Took him his “bentou”, or Japanese lunch to-go, as a change of pace. They only serve America cuisine there.
Not that he complains. He doesn’t. But all the servers there know he WON’T eat fish. He makes sure of that.
Also took him “yokan”, “senbei”, “manjyuu”, and Morinaga caramel (his favorite from decades ago)… Oh. And “anpan”. Gotta feed his sweet tooth. Make him happy is all that matters now.
While he asked how “Sue-boh” is as usual (his favorite brother who was KIA), he – by coincidence – talked about how he broke his elbow again. 😉
But this time, I had the pictures I had taken last month with me! Blew his mind. He “kinda” remembered my son and I went to Japan, but he couldn’t comprehend how I got those pictures. Oh well. Anyways, the most important thing was that yes, that was the large stone he jumped from…but he asked, “Where’s the benjo? There was a benjo there behind the tree.” A “benjo” is kind of like an Japanese-style outhouse. 🙂 And that definitely was the (remnants of the) branch.
You should have seen his boyish smile.
I took along what vintage pages I dared to from Grandmother Kono’s album today. I was concerned as they were so fragile… but Dad handled them gingerly.
He particularly liked the photo of him, Mieko and Suetaro… He had a nice smile. I wonder what was going through his thoughts then but I wasn’t going to interrupt.
I think his eyes got a bit watery.
Just a teensy-weensy bit.
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About an hour later, he remembered looking at the vintage pictures.
Today was a good day.
It was there at Grandfather Hisakichi’s feet… a Coleman stove! My guess is circa 1920 up near a Mt. Rainier campground… It’s just so…unexpected to see a Japanese family of the early 1900’s with such an “American” icon. I hope I am not a rascist but I sure didn’t expect it.
And amateurish-ly (is that a word?) retouched with free software. I’m El Cheapo:
Grandmother Kono is not pictured but I wonder who snapped the photo.
There was a photo of Mt. Rainier dated August 1920 on another page in the deteriorating album kept by Grandmother Kono.
It is remotely possible the man on the right is also Grandfather Hisakichi but I doubt it. I feel this was at a separate outing from the campsite photo.
The most wicked risk of a mother’s love for a child is loss, and the price of loss is grief… But the sheer passion of grief can become indescribable if a mother ponders on her decisions.
In Part I, we left when my father returned to Seattle to stay while leaving behind in Hiroshima his two youngest siblings and his parents. This was 1937. Before leaving, the family took this portrait with Grandmother Kono sitting on the sakura wood at the house. Suetaro is standing next to her:
My father says that their younger sister Mieko was ill often. Indeed, she passed away in 1939 at just 15 years of age from an apparent kidney infection. Since my father was already in Seattle by that time, only his youngest brother Suetaro was left along with my grandparents. Most decisively, Grandmother decided Suetaro was not to return to Seattle when he turned 18. In “Masako and Spam Musubi,” she was very concerned over the harassment and intimidation she had received due to the threat of war against Japan. I also “feel” that Grandmother knew Grandfather was ill by the time she made the decision.
Sure enough, the very next year (1940), Grandfather Hisakichi passed away from stomach cancer. He was 59 years old. After raising Mieko for 15 years and marrying Hisakichi 31 years earlier in Seattle as a picture bride, only she and Suetaro were left in their home. War with America would start the following year. A war in which her three oldest surviving children called America home.
I have a strong belief this was taken at the Fukuyama training grounds for his regiment, the 41st Infantry Regiment (unverified):
Another piece of his elusive history then emerged – but it was not from the 100 year old woodshed.
However, this is not a story on Suetaro’s life but about his life with his mother. In “Masako and Spam Musubi”, we know she had her second stroke after being informed by the remnants of the Japanese military of her beloved Suetaro’s death. The last Kanemoto in the family home was now… herself.
During my trip to the family home in September, my cousin Masako, her younger brother Kiyoshi, her son Toshiro along with my son were looking at vintage photos Toshiro uncovered just a couple weeks prior in the shed. A number were of Suetaro with my father and Grandmother. We were all quite emotional by then. Masako removed herself from the table; I assumed she was overcome. I didn’t stop her from quietly leaving thinking that.
Instead, she came back a few minutes later with something in her hand. It was a small notebook. Aged and frayed at the bindings. Her eyes were red.
It was Suetaro’s war diary. We were simply stunned. Masako had it secreted away. For decades. She chose to bring it out now. For closure. It was the right time.
It took us a few moments to realize what she had brought. It was brittle and smelled of old books. The paperstock was of low quality – more like newspaper stock – as paper was in very limited supply during the war years. We handled it as gently as possible.
The first few pages were of what he did during a short period of time; Suetaro’s writing was neat and in black ink.
Then the handwriting changed. Suddenly. It was hurried. Rushed. And in pencil.
I stress this abbreviated presentation can be misunderstood. My interpretation is, “I willingly go to war for Japan as we are on the brink of winning or losing. By winning, Japan will free my older brothers from the concentration camps in the US.”
He will fight – and die – so that Japan will win. If Japan wins, they would take over the United States and by doing so, free my Dad and his older brother Yutaka from the concentration camp. At the time of his writing, both were imprisoned at the camp in Minidoka, Idaho after being relocated from Tule Lake, CA. (His nephew, Bobby, had already perished in Minidoka at the young age of six.) His older sister, my Aunt Shiz who passed away last month, was imprisoned at Manzanar.
Man, my eyes welled up. Everybody was in shock…even Masako once again.
I am unable to comprehend how my Grandmother must have felt reading that letter in 1944. Suetaro had secreted it away in the “butsudan”, or family altar. She had decided Suetaro was not to return to Seattle to join his elder siblings. Now, having read this letter, her regret must have been immense. Grief. She lost a piece of herself. A beloved piece.
Mieko had passed away. So did her husband in 1940. Now her youngest son writes he does not expect to return.
Could she have foreseen this fate while she happily stood in front of her Seattle barbershop near King St. and Maynard in Seattle in the 1910’s? I doubt it.
She would be alone. To ponder. To possibly regret to her last day.
A mother’s anguished solitude.
They walked on it. They posed for family portraits on it. They passed away on it. It felt as if their souls were infused in it.
Although my ancestors have come and gone through that house for about a hundred years, the old sakura wood shared their souls with me.
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Then:
Now:
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While I am certainly not in the construction industry, my father’s family home is based on the Edo design era. Generally speaking, they are built on stone foundations, with supporting square timbers and a raised floor. “Tatami” mats were used for flooring.
My father, while now 93 and suffering from dementia, fondly recalled the floor plan of the Kanemoto house…especially of the main room seen the family portrait. He said it had a “tokonoma”, or a small alcove alongside the altar, or “butsudan”. He also clearly recalled the floor space measured by the number of tatami mats used; in this case, “hachijyou” or eight mats.
This is the room in which my cousin Masako “saw” Aunt Shiz a few days before she passed away.
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The house was indeed damaged from the atomic bomb’s shock wave. This same shock wave shook the Enola Gay violently even while trying to escape the blast at about 30,000 feet altitude. She was 11-1/2 miles away.
The house is about 4-1/2 miles away by way the crow flies. Almost due west of the hypocenter. Masako was knocked down by the hard-hitting shock wave while in her classroom.
A low lying hill called Mt. Suzugamine served somewhat as a barrier, deflecting the shock wave. Still, nearly all of the sliding door panels were knocked down and the ceiling was sucked up more than a foot per Masako. Roof tiling was also blown away from the force.
My Uncle Suetaro took one of his last photos in front of this house in May 1944. My grandmother already had her stroke and is not in this photo but his sister, Michie, is standing to his right.
Grandmother Kono’s funeral in 1954; my father can be seen in the lighter suit to the left standing next to Michie and Masako (hidden by the flowers):
The home does have spirits within. It’s not cornball. It is an incredible sensation. We were called to those souls in the wood this month. Seriously.
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When I saw my son in front of the home, I saw that I’m in the last half of my journey in life… but I came back to myself on that old sakura wood.
Too much of a coincidence… A dull dagger… Cutting my heart out with a dull spoon… Now this… Chatter Master has it out for me. I kneel before the Queen.
But the dental hygienist got me to lay on my back… Man, sharp tools. 🙂
Although my Aunt Shiz passed away ten days before my son and I were to travel to her childhood home in Hiroshima, I believe it was her caring soul that made our journey eerily complete.
Time for heebie-jeebies.
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Like all but one of the siblings, Aunt Shiz was born in Seattle in 1916. My grandparents operated a barbershop as mentioned in “Masako and Spam Musubi“, the first story in this blog. In the picture below likely taken early in 1918, she is standing in front of her mother Kono at their barbershop in Hotel Fujii near King and Maynard in downtown Seattle. Grandma Kono is smiling while looking on; she appears to be holding a straight razor. My relatives tell me Grandma was great with the customers and gave excellent shaves. (If it is a straight edge razor, she’s holding it in her left hand. We have a number of lefties in our family. Hmmm.) Notice the wooden sidewalk:
In this photo taken about five or six years later, the wooden sidewalk has been replaced with concrete. Aunt Shiz shows her friendly character while dancing on the left. You can make out “Fujii” on the sign hanging overhead in the background:
Masako tells me Aunt Shiz was the village “hottie” as she grew up back in those days. It made us laugh but it was true. Surely, she broke a lot of the young boys’ hearts in the village.
She returned to Seattle on April 7, 1935, a vibrant young lady. Amazingly (well, really not), her granddaughter looks very much like her at that age. Genes.
She married and had three boys and one girl. All but one were imprisoned during World War II. They had the dehumanizing horror of having to first stay in vacated horse stalls at the Santa Anita Racetrack in Los Angeles before being transported under armed guard in blacked out trains to Manzanar where they stayed until war’s end. They were American citizens. Incredible, isn’t it?
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Aunt Shiz, who was my dad’s older sister and last lving sibling, was a true “Kanemoto” as the saying goes. They were much alike…especially when they talked in their “Hiroshima dialect”. Funny they aren’t able to remember when their birthdays are but they sure remember their happy days as children in that Hiroshima home. Both loved to eat. And eat they did. Most of all, they loved sweets. Don’t ask why.
When I see Dad now, I always take him Japanese treats – mainly “manjyu” and “youkan”.
Last October, shortly after her 95th birthday, I took Dad to visit with Aunt Shiz. It is a long drive to and from. While Dad had great difficulty remembering why he was in my car – not just once but several times – there was no hesitation by either of them when they first got a glimpse of each other at Aunt Shiz’s senior home:
Yes, I took a bag of yokan. Its on the front right in the video in a cellophane bag. There were three different flavors, too. They ate them ALL. Really.
But they couldn’t remember who was older. Absolutely precious to our family.
At her funeral service in Los Angeles, her grandson described her perfectly as a very warm person. She loved to hug and give her young relatives a peck on the cheek. That was Aunt Shiz.
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But back to the story… Some heebie-jeebie stuff. You know… Stuff that gives you a year’s supply of chicken skin.
Our journey to Hiroshima was planned for months. My decision to do so was made after I met with Masako and the others in Hawaii in May and returned home…or so I thought I made that decision. It was as if something took over my thoughts and actions. It was kharma. I was also going to take my oldest son Takeshi (24 years old – very important. Remember that.) who had NEVER been out of the country.
As the time neared, our Hiroshima family was excited my son and I were going. Although those of us here in the States were unaware, in the extreme heat and humidity of Japan, my cousin Toshiro went deep into a 100 year old wooden shed which still exists in a last ditch effort to uncover past family information. He found it…about a thousand pictures from the late 1800’s through shortly after war’s end. That is where the photos of Aunt Shiz and the barbershop emerged from although all were damaged by mildew and insects. They were extremely elated and flabbergasted to have found these vintage family treasures still existing. They began to go through them in the main family room where their “butsudan”, or family altar was. The altar is also about a hundred years old.
A few days after they looked over the treasure, Aunt Shiz passed away quietly… She had fallen asleep in her wheelchair like she frequently did but this time, just didn’t wake up. Oddly, her daughter and my cousin Bessie, who diligently and energetically cared for her for many years, said “…she said she wasn’t that hungry that evening then just passed away”. Not having an appetitite is NOT Kanemoto. I will have to remember that.
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Bessie immediately notified the family in Hiroshima at which time Masako immediately said, “I saw Shiz in the room while we were looking at the pictures. She passed through the house.” We all got chicken skin when we heard that. Masako does not make things up and is as sharp as a tack at 78 years of age. She has all her wits about her. (That last trait is NOT typical Kanemoto, by the way.) We don’t doubt her.
Bessie suddenly requested I take some of her ashes back with me to the family home for interment. I was honored.
After my son and I arrived at the family home with Aunt Shiz, my cousin Toshiro immediately placed her ashes on the 100 year old altar…in the same room where Masako saw Aunt Shiz. Again, Masako said to us she saw Aunt Shiz in that room before she passed through the house. Creepies.
Shortly thereafter, my Hiroshima family surprised my son and I with the many, many vintage photos. Then to add to the heebie-jeebies, Toshiro remarked, “We know Masako saw Aunt Shiz’s spirit in this room shortly before she died while we were looking over our ancestors’ pictures. Aunt Shiz could have passed away two months ago or next year. But she knew you were coming and in her soul, she wanted to come home now with you. She arranged for all this to happen at this time. She is happy now.”
Wow. I felt like if a day’s worth of chicken skin out of Foster Farms was thrown on my arms. Really creepie-crawly.
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Not over yet… We had her official interment into the family crypt a few days later. My other cousin Kiyoshi – another kind hearted person and the man who invented the first EDM device – came with us to the family burial plot, or “ohaka”. The stone ohaka holds the ashes of my grandparents and their deceased children – including my Uncle Suetaro who was killed on Leyte in the Philippines during World War II as a soldier of the Japanese Imperial Army.
As my son was cleaning the ohaka prior to the interment, Kiyoshi said to my son and I, “Suetaro was 24 years old when he was killed. Now, your son is meeting Suetaro for the first time. Your son is 24 years old. It was all planned for by Aunt Shiz. She picked this time to come home and for Takeshi to be here and to meet Suetaro. It was meant to be this way. To help strengthen our ancestral family bonds although an ocean separates us.”
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He was right. Masako and Toshiro are right. Aunt Shiz picked this time to come home. She knew we were going. She decided Takeshi was to come. She made everything happen as they did. My son was very moved and affected by this coming together of family…so much so he cried at our farewell dinner.
Do I believe in spirits and kharma?
Yes.
Masako and Spam Musubi 