Japanese-Americans

My first encounter with an American of Japanese ancestry was at the local Silvermart as a child. Sent to the store to pickup things for my Mother, I noticed the beauty of the fruits and vegetables in the produce dept. The man who arranged and maintained this was Japanese-American, called a "greengrocer" at that time, as I recall. Unfortunately he would vanish at the same time as the Japanese orphans who lived over the hill and attended the local elementary school.

One traumatic event that happened when all these children were taken to an interment camp was that one of the children had to leave his dog behind, and this became one of the dramatic happenings of my youth. My family couldn't take the animal for him, and thus we became part of the search group to place him. Meanwhile I was able to get to know the boy through his grief. We did find someone and my hope is that the dog was reunited with the boy after the war (but that would be highly unlikely).

The last time I had the pleasure of knowing someone of Japanese ancestry was at sea. Turns out that one of my shipmates had been in an internment camp and was willing to share stories with me about this (stories which, for the most part, had not been told here-to-fore in the media.) And so we would sit in mess hall late at night and he would open up to me, the unbelievable heat and cold in the desert barracks they lived in, how barren and uncomfortable it was, how exceedingly difficult for his parents, siblings and neighbors.

After I got back to L.A. I looked him up. We had talked about small boats earlier and he was interested in a sail. I was crewing on a double ender which had a smaller version available to me for day sailing. We went down to Yacht Haven in San Pedro, hoisted the sails and made our way toward the main channel. Problem was that I didn't notice that storm flags were flying and when we sailed out beyond the shelter of a wharf we took a knock down ... very close to one of the California Bear freighters which was coming down the channel. It was embarrassing to have to accept a tow by a stinkpot Chris Craft in order to get back to the slip. Unfortunately the ill fated sail concluded our communication with each other. Too bad. I hope he and my schoolmate from earlier on have had a better time of their lives.