USS GENERAL W.A. MANN AP-112,sailing from Yokosuka to San Francisco

USS GENERAL W.A. MANN AP-112,sailing from Yokosuka to San Francisco,

photo from Wikipedia.

SAYONARA SONG, DECEMBER 1963 AN AMERICAN WANDERING It was a cloudy morning on the day in December of 1963 when I said goodbye and boarded this huge transport for the trip home. It was a day I will not forget. The vessel arrived in San Francisco ten days later on my 22nd birthday. As all of us might have a tendency to do, this is one of the time frames I use when remembering certain seasons of my lifetime. Perhaps there are those who do not store memories in compartments and open them by simply recalling the month and year we might want to remember either for a few moments or for hours of entertainment and reflection. I did not go straight to the train station or airport, I flagged a cab and found a cheap hotel downtown and spent the next three days unwinding with Canadian Club. When I became bored with my own company, I found nearby bars to frequent. Conversation was cheap and entertaining. It was then that I began writing my poetry again, in spiral notebooks and on bar napkins. Sure, it was good to be back in the USA, but the emotion of returning did not compare with the emotions I experienced from leaving Japan. Leaving a joyful lifestyle where there was love and a lifestyle I enjoyed to return to a land of strangers where the lifestyle was indifferent to my values created an immediate state of despondency, one that has remained, more or less, throughout the ages. Time is of no consequence; time does not heal sorrows. When one day is gone, it is gone in an instant and does not matter if it has been gone for only 24 hours or decades; it is no respecter of persons and their emotions. Time is not a sentimental element; time has no energy or mercy--it is immune to the suffering of one individual or generations. Time and emotions are as distant from the other as is life from death. The above is from a passage in a novel I am writing, AN AMERICAN WANDERING.

MY FIRST REAL ART EXHIBIT IN LATE 1960s

The viewer will note two of the paintings on the right are all about Japan. The one on the far right is a watercolor, the one with the ship's smoke stacks represent the Kiawa Maru anchored or docked in the harbor of Yokohama. It has been there a long time, at least since the end of the occupation. It made a great background for many of the photos I took and has served as the unique backdrop for many tourists' snapshots since then. Things change, thus I wonder if it will continue to remain in the harbor as a reminder of a different era. I hope it remains. Someday, if and when I get back, I would like to go aboard the ship and have dinner, coffee and let my mind relax and return to an era of great enjoyment, 1962 and 1963. There are those who ask why I dwell on the past. It is simple, one will dwell on the pleasant memories one enjoyed. If I loved Japan so much, why didn't I return? As time passes, I find myself asking myself that question more frequently. My only response can be,"Fate." Yes, it was Fate that kept me in America; it was Fate that kept me from returning to Japan. There were other reasons too, reasons I will reveal in an upcoming novel of an autobiographical nature. Each of us has a novel in our mind. Some of us will write that novel while others will deny themselves that pleasure for one reason or another. I must write my novel, it is almost complete and I want to get it between the cover and the back page while I am still around to sign a few copies, hopefully in Yokohama and Tokyo. Exactly when should you expect to see my book on the shelves? Let me say, "within the next year." There are arrangements to be made: finding a translator, finding the right publisher, and scheduling a tour once it is off the presses. I eagerly await the day when my JAL flight leaves San Francisco for Narita.