PRACTICES FOR GOODNESS
HEAVEN is every expanding goodness! Hell is “stagnation”. According to many visionaries we can think ourselves into heaven or hell. We all have free choices, living in America; but I like some of Japanese heritage practices like Karate that puts thoughts into directing our physical body energy and five senses.
Last year when my granddaughters started lessons at the Pacific Shito-ryu Dojo, I walked with them to observe one of their first lessons. Lucas, 12-yrs-old, entered at the same time as us, but bowed his head as he entered - giving respect for the room holding the practice. Then he immediately got the wide broom and started walking over and back across the room to sweep it clean. As he completed the process, I walked over to him and asked, “How come you are sweeping the room? Is that your job?”
He looked at me, kind of surprised to be hearing such a question, “No.”
I again asked, “Then why do you do it?”
“I don’t know, he responded and then walked over to get ready for the warm-ups for that session of practice.
Later, the girls told me he was a black-belt student and had been practicing since before he was eight year of age.
Two years of twice weekly lessons and tournaments have now been completed and I am impressed with the learning of respect and responsibility that is generated.
The girls are showing us thoughtful choices and not just going along with all the choices of the popular kids at their Junior High and High School activities.
Highly valuing research with education, I have thoughts about why it is valuable to share my Japanese Heritage values with maintaining a Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Washington for the next 100 years or more.
An important outcome of Japanese history and the 200 year Edo Period from 1600AD to 1800AD is the bringing of Cultural Arts like the Martial Arts to a researched science. The masters in the arts and cultural activities, researched and published the experiences of the five senses that created the best results.
Just so those reading this blog understand, our household has plenty of daily nagging about cleaning their room and doing their chores. Of course we are all striving to expand our goodness!
![Meeting Rev. Andrews, Floyd S...]()
Meeting Rev. Andrews, Floyd Schmoe,
Gordon Hirabayashi
Seattle’s MOHAI (Museum of History and Industry) in collaboration with Seattle’s JACL (JAPANESE AMERICAN CITIZENS LEAGUE) debuted the PRIDE AND SHAME exhibit early in 1970, chaired by Tomio Moriguchi, owner of SeaAsia and Uwajimaya Asian Market. It was also in commemoration of the 1970 Osaka World’s Fair. The title was from the 1965 CBS documentary The Nisei: The Pride and the Shame. Professor Min Masuda of University of Washington Psychiatry was one of the organizers.
Shortly after the opening of the MOHAI exhibit, Professor Masuda - with Professor Frank Miyamoto, Chair of U of WA Sociology and Rich Berner, who created the Suzzallo library archives in the 1940s formulated a grant to start a Japanese Collection documenting the Japanese American Experience in the Pacific Northwest.
I was shown two boxes with historical records and left to keep track of my own hours and find and collect documentation of the Japanese Experience of the Pacific Northwest. Karyl Winn was hired at the same time to head Special Collections so she and I learned what to do together. My husband, Sam, bought me a tape recorder and suggested I find out who some of the community leaders were and do some interviewing. Some of those tapes have been translated and digitized. They can be found at Archives West on-line.
At that time Sam and I lived on 23rd Ave. E, in Seattle’s Capitol Hill district. I had a 6-yr-old and 3-year-old so I arranged baby sitting and had to be home before school was out on the days I chose to do my work. I decided to start with the churches and became friends with Reverend Emery Andrews of the Japanese Baptist Church. He was known to have moved his own family to Twin Falls, ID to be near his parishioners incarcerated from 1942 to 1946 in Minidoka. He also made several trips in their “Blue Box” Ford Van, bringing requested items from the church gymnasium storage of items left behind when everyone left Seattle with only what they could carry.
On this day in 1970, Rev. Andrews had arranged a meeting with Floyd Schmoe. We were invited to lunch at the Schmoe home in Juanita on the east side of Lake Washington. At that time, there was no internet and I had very little idea of who Schmoe was.
After the early 1970 morning of organizing breakfast, school, preschool and babysitting; driving “Snow White” our Malibu sedan, I picked up Reverend Andrews at the Baptist Church in Seattle, on Broadway. I drove south on Rainier Avenue and got on to I-90 and through the Mount Baker Tunnel. Half way across the Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Floating Bridge the car engine started to sputter and came to a stop. The gas meter was embarrassingly at zero. Coincidentally, there was a police car following me. In those days they carried a can with gas in their trunk. He pulled up behind me, gave me some gas and sent me on across the bridge.
It was easy to find a gas station on Mercer Island. We made it to the Schmoe home by noon with no further difficulties and had a delicious lunch fixed by Floyd’s then new wife, Tomiko, whom he had met when building houses in Hiroshima to help recovery from the WWII atomic disaster. I considered it a friendly info gathering lunch and didn’t think of taping the session.
his immeasurable service to the Japanese community as a Friend’s Pacifist during WWII and with projects like HOUSES FOR HIROSHIMA after the war. He is remembered for earning Japan’s highest civilian honor and being nominated for Nobel Peace Prize three times.
Schmoe’s daughter Esther was married to Gordon Hirabayshi. Gordon is known for fighting Executive Order 9066, the forced removal and incarceration of all those with as little as 1/16th Japanese Heritage, all the way to the Supreme Court and winning. He was also honored with a post-humous award of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. My mother, who was my babysitter, said, “Gordon was in my fifth grade class at Thomas Grade School.” One year when I met Gordon, he remembered my mom and said, “I remember, we had to get up in front of the class and give a demonstration. Your mom showed us how to wash rice.”
I was able to visit Floyd at the Ida Culver House, in 2001, shortly before he died at age 105. He was still enthusiastic about life and most encouraging about my leaving a legacy of the Japanese American experience!
![Debut at age 9 - Final Concert...]()
Debut at age 9 - Final Concert at age 91
If you want to know about the history of Michi Hirata North, google https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/classical-music/
Michi is a “best friend” and has been for over 50 years. What I’m able to show her is the life of being an ordinary person. She was with me when something broke off my car and we had to ride in the cab with the AAA driver to the service station. Michi was with me when we took Auntie Masami to lunch and to the SuperMall, where Masami had a seizure, stiffening and falling strait backward as we were in the cashier line. We waited for the ambulance to take Auntie to the hospital, but I had to take Michi home for her late afternoon piano student lessons. Auntie recovered from that incident and lived several more years.
Having lunch last week, Michi and I had a good laugh. One of the things we have in common is that we have always saved the boxes of various omiage - hostess gifts and presents. Both of us could imagine that one day the box would be just the size we needed to wrap a gift we wanted to give someone!
Both of our husbands considered these boxes stupid. Both of us, remembered how mad we were when Sam and Murray decided it was time to clean a closet. In our first house, Sam and I had an attic and I remember the boxes, at least 10 or 15 of them landing on the stairs and tumbling down to the front door as he threw them out.
Michi also loves purses and she remembers that Murray threw one out that had something valuable to her inside and how mad she was.
Such is life for even a concert pianist and I am excited to hear her live concert at Town Hall next Sunday afternoon.
![HAPPY EASTER IN HEAVEN!]()
HAPPY EASTER IN HEAVEN!
Fred, my brother-in-law, was 94 years old and passed this week. The three remaining sibblings were there to bid him farewell to this human world! Fred now has the peace that he sought.
We gather and celebrate birth with joy. It is said that death brings equal joy and celebration with a gathering of friends and relatives.
I'm sitting here with a smile because the "real Fred" no longer has human thoughts and is retired from his physical body CEO position.
Fred had a cute smile and was noticed by all the girls. It was fun to go for a ride in his plane. He loved taking care of the women in his life and enjoyed meeting his friends at McDonalds and Burger King the last several years. Fred liked to read and when we got together, we often had these deep conversations about life.
Thanks Fred for paying for the wedding reception at the Moore Hotel in Ontario, OR, when Sam and I married. We were all poor in those days so that was a big deal.
Thanks Fred for being part of my human life,
Dee
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PRACTICES FOR GOODNESS
