Ojichan and Obachan lived with us, as did my great-grandmother. I remember her as a very old lady who required a lot of attention. She mostly stayed in bed in the bedroom that adjoined the kitchen. Ojichan also was pretty old and he died during the B.R. days. I remember him taking me on his lap and bouncing me on his knee often. But I guess the most vivid memory of his existence is his funeral and the party that followed.
I remember asking Mom why Ojichan was sleeping in the box. Her reply was that he was very tired and was going to go on a long, long sleep. Made sense to me, but for a long time I wondered when he was going to wake up again.
Lots of neighbors and friends came over that day to the funeral party held at the house. Lots of women preparing vegetables, and a couple of chickens were flopping all over the place, literally with their heads chopped off. It's kind of a perverse way to remember somebody -- by his funeral and the chickens running around without heads.
(A word about the old Buddhist custom of "shojin" -- the custom of abstaining from eating food of animal origin -- is in order. It could be that the aforementioned feast came after the traditional 49 days of abstinence. Or it could be that shojin wasn't observed in my grandfather's case. No big deal.
When I first paid attention to the custom, it wasn't until I was out of college. Since then I've always thought it was engraved in stone. That is, until I attended a bon service where the bonsan explained the origins of shojin. It's a natural thing that kind of got blown out of proportion. In Japan's prehistoric days, when a person died, the family naturally was grieved and just didn't feel like going out to hunt or fish. So they made do with what they could find around the house (or whatever it was they lived in). This became the custom of shojin.
I remember thinking that I should "never, never eat meat because it represents the dead person's body!"
OUR SPECIAL CHRISTMAS TREE
My grandparents used to attend the Hilo Hongwanji Church. Dad went there too until he converted to Christianity in the Army. They had some sort of preschool program at the church, or maybe it was a summer fun program. Can't remember for sure.
I went there once (I believe on a trial basis). There was the usual song-singing, ring-around-the rosy, London Bridge is falling down, and similar kiddie-type activities. We also took afternoon naps (just couldn't get away from them). I think it was on one of the special Japanese culture days that we all received gifts of seedling pines. Now that I think of it, that was a pretty nifty gift and I've often wondered why nobody does that anymore. We took the tree home and planted it in a little rectangular garden beside the house. Dad once told me they used to raise koi there, but decided to fill the pool up and use it as a garden.
The tree became part of the landscape, and grew, and grew, and grew.
In fact, it grew there until I was in the sixth grade. By 1955, the tree was pretty big and I recall Dad telling us he was going to cut it down and bring it home to use as our Christmas tree (by this time we had moved to our new home at 25 Ekaha Street, just below the Kaumana area in Hilo). Quite frankly, it was exciting to help Dad bring the tree into the house. It was so fresh and it smelled so good, and it was like we were bringing an old friend home. Alas, it was indeed a big tree--too big for our living room, in fact. So Dad had to haul it back out and down to his office where the ceiling was higher. Best Christmas tree his office ever had!
I've often wondered whether we did the right thing by cutting down the tree. After all, it was practically a gift from God and had grown along with me though the years. I don't know all the particulars or the reasons why Dad did it; actually, I don't care. It looked great in his office.
NEVER DIG UP A CAT MOUND
Hilo, like any other city or town in the world, had its share of dogs and cats running all around the place. If there's anything I learned about cats during my B.R. days, it was never to fool around with the mound of dirt put together by a cat. You probably already know what's coming, but don't get ahead of me.
I was playing soldier one day, running up and down the front stairs when I saw this cat scratching around in the dirt on the side of the lawn that abutted the back end of Yogi Store (next to our "haole" guava tree). Like an Army Ranger, I sneaked up to the cat and grenaded it out of existence with a rubber ball.
There was this tempting dirt mound that beckoned me like a piece of sweet candy. Couldn't resist. Had to stick my fingers into the pile. My fingers plunged into what felt like soft, squishy warm bananas. Didn't smell like bananas, though. Not even rotten bananas.
You know what it smelled like. And you know exactly what it was. They say in the books that cats hid their "doings" so that animals that prey on them won't know they're around. Well, the cat did his duty and I learned a lesson. And I'm sure that as I stood there gagging, wiping the gooey stuff on the grass, that little bugger was hiding behind a tree, watching me, chuckling nasty little cat chuckles.
BON DANCES
Every once a year, there'd be bon dances and bazaars at the Hongwanji. And invariably, Obachan would dress me up in a kimono, stick a pair of geta on my feet, and take me to the festivities. Embarrassing as hell. Here was this kid with fair complexion (I swear my first couple of years living on the mainland had ruined my tanning cells for all time), looking like a hapa-haole wearing a kimono.
Practically everybody else was wearing one too, with just one major exception -- every kid that I knew at the bon dance was in regular clothes. They'd look at me in a way that seemed to say, "So how come you're such a nerd?"
What added to the insecurity was the fact that I didn't have any pants on under the kimono. Only my bibs.
DRIVING ME OUT OF MY MIND
Hilo Hospital used to be called Hilo Memorial Hospital. I saw it quite a lot from the outside, and a couple of times from the inside. Dad used to take me there occasionally to wait for him in the car while he made his rounds.
We'd park in front of the hospital and I'd watch him walk up to the front door and disappear inside. A few seconds later, he'd appear in the windowed left walkway on the second (or sometimes third) floor, where he'd turn and wave to me. Once in a while, he'd fool me and appear in the right walkway before entering a different wing of the hospital.
It was a little boring in the car, and his rounds sometimes dragged on for a half-hour or longer. So I had to get a little creative. And like most other kids, I often let my imagination take control of my actions. I used to pretend I was driving the car. The steering wheel was too big for my comfort, so I used to use the chrome horn "wheel" instead. I could just imagine myself driving out into the street and running over all those toads that used to frequent Hilo's streets, especially after a rain.
And of course, I'd punctuate my driving with genuine driving sounds. Vroom, vroom . . . Bee-e-ep . . . Er-r-r-r . . . and like that. It made the experience real, and the wait bearable.
One day, while in the midst of a pretend driving session, I looked up to see a man watching me through the car window. "Are you a small man?" he asked as I dropped my hands from the steering wheel and tried to look nonchalant. "No," I replied (brilliant conversationalist). He turned away laughing. I never again made believe I was driving the car. Somehow that little incident took all the fun out of it. "Are you a small man?" Dumb question. Why do adults always asking kids dumb questions like that?
One day, for some reason or another, I was crying in the morning and was going to be late for kindergarten. After grabbing my schoolbag, I ran out the door sniffling and wiping away the tears. As I rounded the corner and passed Taniguchi Store, I passed an old lady who stared at me and asked, "Are you crying?" No, I put salt in my eyes. No, I'm practicing my "sad face."
Of course I was crying. But of course, being a brilliant conversationalist, I put on the brakes, looked at her and said, "No."
My schoolbags were in the same category as my sleeping bags, by the way. My kindergarten one was made of blue denim and later, during my Riverside Days, I used to have those fancy store-bought ones made of expensive material, with lots of pockets and buckles and handles. Invariably, I usually had the most colorful schoolbag in class -- maroon or red or green or bright blue.
The rest of my kindergarten buddies all had khaki bags with a long khaki strap that they slung over their shoulders. As I said before, I felt out of place. But Mom, bless her heart, always wanted me to look as sharp as the worldly "small man" I was.
AN ODD PLACE TO DO IT
I don't think I was prone to sleepwalking, but one never knows for sure. We've all had dreams when we were kids of going to the bathroom, then waking up to find ourselves soaking wet.
Here's a twist on that. One night I dreamt just that, and woke up to the sound of someone saying "WHAT are you DOING!" Well, I surely was putting out a fire, but I wasn't in bed and I wasn't in the bathroom. I was standing over a wastebasket in our living room, doing it there. A psychologist would have a field day with me. Strange.
I KILL THE LANGUAGE
"Itadaki-masu." Please excuse me while I eat. As long as I can remember, we always used to preface our meal with this phrase. Mom was a stickler on Japanese good manners (I guess she picked it up from her Mom) and made us say that before we ate. Didn't bother me at all. Every time I said it, I would pretend I was saying "Eat a duck if you must."
"Ogochiso-sama." The food was delicious. We had to say this when we were done eating. Good manners again. I didn't mind. It always sounded like "Oh good, she's sewing some."
"Arigato-gozai-masu." Thanks a lot. "Never forget to say please and thank you," Mom used to say. Impeccable manners. I didn't mind. I used to think I was saying "Alligator goes high in March."
"Oyasumi-na-sai." I'm going to sleep now. Guess this was to let everyone know you were going nightie-night and not worry about you if they looked up and you were gone. Manners again. I didn't mind. It sounded like "Oh yeah, sue me outside."
With this wonderful insight into the Japanese language, is it any wonder that I just squeaked by when I entered Japanese School in the second grade. To this day, this language game has continued to provide me with hours of fun. Sometimes a phrase would strike me as funny and I would start to chuckle out loud. People around me probably would chuckle to themselves as they watched me chuckle to myself. And they probably still do. But I didn't care, and I still don't. They don't know what they're missing.