My brother wants me to write down what we know about our family and how it came to be. Naturally, I only know what I was told about the early years and I haven't any idea how much is truth or exaggeration. So, without further ado...
How my mom and dad hooked up - What *I* was told, what I figured out through creative snooping and what I presume to be truth after years of hearing stories.
My dad is from Lincoln City, Oregon and graduated from Taft High School a year early and promptly joined the Navy when he was 17... by lying about his age when he enlisted! Sure... he could have gone to college, he was class president and all, but no. He wanted to hang around on a big boat and see the world... I assume. Eventually he was assigned to a submarine(?) that was stationed in Japan for a bit. I'm guessing they docked somewhere near Osaka since that is where mom was from.
I have no idea how they actually met, only that they went out on ONE date before he went back to sea. She didn't speak much English and I doubt that he spoke much Japanese at that time, cause let's face it... In the 50's, Americans didn't bother learning languages if they didn't have to. Even now they just talk louder English because they think that makes it easier for non-English speaking people to understand what they're saying o.O (I witnessed this first-hand in France in 1976 and I believe it's still holds true).
So dad went back out to sea and most of the guys were a little grumpy because it was Christmas time and they were not with their families. My mom sent him a Christmas card and I guess he thought that was a pretty nice thing to do, so when the sub went back to port, he asked her to marry him. I'm sure there was much more involved in this decision but hey... they never told me the entire story!
Mom was the baby of the family and did not have to do anything related to upkeep and feeding of the household. We're talking SPOILED here. I'm told that she couldn't even boil water for tea. She had also never really traveled anywhere mostly because it wasn't as easy to go places then as it is now. Being the baby, she was allowed to get away with just about anything, so when she sprung this 'marrying a gaijin' thing on her dad he just went along with it.
Mom and dad had a traditional Japanese wedding as well as an American one officiated by the chaplain of the ship. I'm not sure where they lived while waiting for all the paperwork to go through the hoops so that she could come to the states when dad got his orders. She once told me that during that first year or so, I almost had a big brother or sister who would have been born in Japan but she miscarried while running around in the country on the back of a motor scooter. Yeah. My parents were practically hippies... or as hippy as you can be in the mid-50's. In 1957 or '58 (maybe?) dad got orders to go to the LA area and mom made the trip to Los Angeles on a ship, where she spent most of the journey in her cabin, sick as a dog.
Next time... Learning to be American
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