Nothing like having teenagers around to liven up our rainy week here in the Pacific Northwest.
Yes, she turned 16 and now I don't have to drive her to 6am Drill Team practices 4 mornings a week and pick her up after school. But yes we have to negotiate for the use of my car.
Mom is constantly reminding, "You can't go stay overnight or have anyone over unless your room is clean! Take out the garbage! Time to take out the recycling...."
Mostly, we are proud of watching them learning to find who they are and want to be; trusting both good and faulty decisions are part of learning.
I'm grateful to be close by and enjoy the activities!!!
![HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEA!]()
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEA!
Last night I went to Bea's 60th b-day celebration. She's from Hungary and a lot of her dance group friends were there. Her husband, who is also from Hungary, put together the music and lighting. My picture shows just women, but plenty of the men participated in the round dances. Lots of food! Loved it.
Our Japanese ethnic gatherings are much more subdued. But now I'm remembering my father-in-law. He enjoyed his parties in the "old days". He often got up and danced and sang, to the embarrassment of all his kids and wife.
After last night, I have a new appreciation for our parents and their dance parties. Sam and I got up and danced the jitter bug at our neighbors wedding one time. That wasn't someting we did much. When we first married, we used to have banquets at the end of the bowling season with dancing. Too many of us Japanese heritage individuals continue to worry too much about sticking out, "the nail that sticks out gets pounded down?"
Now that I'm 84-yrs, I might be willing to try looking a little stupid and doing more dancing???
This is one of the most inspiring interviews I've heard in a while. As explained in the beginning, Tom Brady opens up about not having been a naturally gifted athlete, but was naturally gifted with the will and determination to achieve all his record breaking feats.
Why I pass this on to my grandchildren and others is because Tom Brady is famous and most of us admire some or many parts of his accomplishments. I like being inspired to accomplish my own small goals.
I have no desire to be like Tom. I just want to be inspired. His life is not balanced as evidenced by his not having time for his marriage partners. I'm just using this example to have fun in my life! I like watching football and I like being inspired.
![I'm in the second row above t...]()
I'm in the second row above the D in FORWARD.
Yesterday, I had the privilege of spending the afternoon at the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma, Washington. It’s located on Pacific Avenue next to the old Union Station. I remember Thanksgiving weekend 1955, I arrived on the train from Ontario, Oregon.
Our Japanese immigrant parents regularly organized youth conferences and sports activities to enable us to meet other young Nisei. My grandpa and parents often gossiped about the wayward children who dated or married someone outside the Japanese community (of course discrimination played a role).
Thanksgiving 1955, I was 16, living in Ontario, an eastern Oregon farming community with about 5,000 population.
The annual Japanese Methodist Northwest Youth conference- held every Thanksgiving weekend- drew about 100 youths from Spokane, Tacoma, Portland, Seattle and Ontario. The previous year, my friends came back from Spokane with pictures, wrote letters and talked about the cute guys they met.
The 1955 conference was scheduled for Tacoma. I was excited to attend. My family was poor, so I believe our church must have paid my way.
I borrowed a suitcase and packed my only party dress. I wore my one Pendleton skirt, cashmere sweater with matching socks and saddle shoes. My friend Margaret, Reverend Fujimore and I boarded the Union Pacific passenger train in Ontario and headed west. Six hundred miles later, we got off at Tacoma on Puget Sound.
Margaret and I were assigned to the Shintani house with Patti Warashima from Spokane. The latter is now a famous Seattle sculptor and taught at the University of Washington art department. Roger Shimomura did the conference graphics and became a nationally-known artist. He retired as a University of Kansas professor.
Margaret later became a national JACL queen. She drew a lot of attention from the boys. She is currently a high-end San Francisco fashion designer.
I don’t remember the religious messages, but I do remember Frank from Tacoma, along with Spencer and Gary from Spokane. For most of the three days, we noticed each other and played coy but ended up exchanging addresses and corresponding for a while after the conference.
After completing my nursing studies in Oregon, I moved to Seattle to enroll at the University of Washington. I was hired by the UW’s Library Special Collection in 1970 to document the Nikkei experiences in the Pacific Northwest.
I found similar social experiences spanning the generations in my own family. There are photos from the 1930 Young People’s Christian Conference. My dad, Sago Miyamoto, is in one of the pictures from a Tacoma gathering. Hana Masuda, wife of Dr. Min Masuda, PhD, who began the Japanese Collection in 1970, told me stories of the fun she had at these church conferences.
Going forward to 1980, our daughter, Lynette, is in one of the photos of the GYOP (Group of Young People) conference hosted by the Seattle Methodist church. Many young delegates made the reverse trip from my 1955 trip in 1980 - to Ontario from Seattle.
Each young people’s conference was highlighted with social events. Non-Methodist local youths came to the skating parties and the Saturday night dance after the concluding banquet.
At the dances, the guys were on one side of the church gymnasium and the girls on the other. Mostly, we girls sat and waited for the guys to come all the way across the room to ask us to dance. Glenn Miller’s “In The Mood” or Eddie Fisher’s “Dungaree Doll” were the most popular songs then. Once in a while, two girls would get up and dance on their own.
I met and danced with Chuck Kato at the 1957 Portland conference. Forty years later, in the 1990s, Chuck helped start our Japanese Cultural and Community Center’s (JCCCW) Omoide (Memories) project and writing group. The group is still documenting and preserving stories of our heritage values for the children of the future. You are welcome to join us. We meet every 3rd Saturday of each month.
Spritual settings remains a strong cornerstone for creating community and connections. I am thankful for bringing back memories for a fulfilling life!
![LOVE IS THE REASON WE AR...]()
LOVE IS THE REASON WE ARE HERE
The reason I’m choosing to learn from Robert E Grant is because I’m dealing with a situation this last few weeks that I don’t like. As Grant describes, the happenings could be understood with music and mathematic ratios. The major third octave is “love” and the inverse is “heart break”.
A dramatic story is being enacted in that my good friend has been kidnapped. None of her friends or piano students know where she is. There is major heart break involved for some, and maybe I have done all that I can. I can take the music to the next octave and let it go.
LOVE is a big word. Everyone deserves love. I like the definition that takes out the emotion and gives me the feeling of being spiritually centered. According to Grant, there are rules and geometry that can accept this criminal activity as practice in life lessons. I can send healing energy into the universe for the benefit of all that are involved.
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