Got my tonsils out that summer. Lost my "Santa virginity," and then my tonsils. What a year. Dad told me I had to go to the hospital to have a T & A. Now, if I'd been told that today, T & A means something a little different than a "tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy." Today, T & A means "tits and ass." But be that as it may, I didn't know the adult version at the time, so T & A sounded a little foreboding.

No problem, Mom and Dad told me -- after the operation, you can have all the ice cream you can eat (guess that's the standard pre-T & A operation pacifier).

I spent a night at the hospital in anticipation of the fun scheduled for the following day. Early in the morning, I was jabbed with a couple of needles, then rolled into the operating room. They must have hit me with a sedative because I really didn't care what was happening -- even when I saw a large knife on a tray.

Dad stuck his head in, pulled down his mask to say hello, then whisked off to another operating room where he was going to work. Someone plopped the ether mask over my face and told me to blow hard, while counting to ten.

I think I reached four. But I tell you what I saw. I remember it vividly. It was like four pictures in my head. In the upper right hand corner, there were numbers. First 1, then 2, then 3, then 4, etc. In the upper left hand corner, there was a big cloud.

It had a puffy face with puffy cheeks, which were blowing in time to my own blowing. In the lower right hand corner, there was this spiral that was spinning like a vortex, pulling me deeper and deeper inside. In the lower left-hand corner was a dim, hazy picture of Dad that kept on fading out.

Then, black. I woke up God knows how long after, and found myself in a ward with a bunch of screaming kids. I sat up. And barfed up a stomachful of blood. As I sat there in shock, I started to cry, until I realized that someone had set my throat on fire and that crying only made it hurt more.

A nurse came over and changed my nightgown and sheets, then made me comfy as I sat there in my post-operative nausea.

Then, sure enough, just like Mom and Dad said, the nurse asked me if I wanted any ice cream. Big deal. The problem was that the last thing in the world I wanted to do was eat anything -- including cool ice cream. The only thing I wanted was to go back to sleep until the hurt was gone. I think I managed to eat a little bit of ice cream before I was discharged later that evening. All the ice cream I could eat? What a joke.

It hurt for about a week, but I think I milked the pity and compassion out of Mom for longer than that. It's nice to be pampered.

Oh, I forgot. Second grade is when I started going to Japanese school. Before I start in on stories about Japanese school a little later on, let me say this: Even though it was a complete waste of time, and even though I came to hate it more and more, I made some friends I'll never forget. I guess that made it all worthwhile.

That first year in Japanese school was more or less practice. I think I entered the first grade quite late in the year, because I had to repeat the first grade the next year when I was in the third grade. Got that?

Actually, that initial experience wasn't too bad. We had a nice lady teacher who taught us how to rise and greet adults who entered the classroom. We all had "marble composition" books which we held sideways to write our a-i-u-e-os. And, we had our "Masao Toh Toshiko" texts. Then, from the next year on, everything fell apart for me; I started to dislike going to Japanese school.

While most of my friends were playing organized baseball and joining the Cub Scouts, there I was hauling my butt to Japanese school every day when school let out. While my friends were shooting marbles in the dirt after school, I was practicing my Japanese calligraphy in a room with 40 other obedient kids. It got to be quite a drag, real fast.

We'll talk about Japanese school a little later on, in depth.

Brother Eric was born in 1952. Dad trucked Dayle, Audrey and me down to the hospital, where we all looked up and waited for Mom to stick her head out the window and wave to us.

Mrs. Deverill was our third-grade teacher (another Portuguese -- two in a row). She was a mean-looking lady who actually was quite soft-spoken. I liked her. In fact, I guess I liked all my elementary school teachers.

Anyway, toward the end of second grade, we all started talking about which third-grade teacher we were going to get. The other teacher was Mrs. Wessel. We used to call them "Mrs. Devil and Mrs. Weasel." The outgoing third-graders used to pull our legs and tell us that it didn't make any difference who you got.

Both the Devil and the Weasel were terrible, they told us. As usual, we believed them -- after all, they were older than we were.

Third grade is when I won second place in that Easter egg decorating contest I told you about earlier. For some reason, I mostly remember things connected with this table that was in the back of the room. That's where the Easter eggs were displayed.

The table was also the place where we put our CARE package donations. This is an interesting story. Mrs. Deverill told us we were going to have a CARE drive. Everyone was to bring something that could go into a CARE package that would be given to needy people in needy places.

I told Mom about it that night. After thinking it over for a while, she said it would be nice to send soap to the needy people. I didn't argue; it made sense to me. So I brought three or four bars of Camay soap to school the next day. Most of the kids brought canned goods -- vienna sausages, soup, corned beef, packaged spaghetti, you name it.

A few other kids brought soap, but they brought Ivory soap. Cheap Ivory soap. My Camay was expensive, and it was perfumed. Some of the kids (mostly the girls) looked at me in awe as I laid that "upper-class" toilette item on the table. The rest of the kids (mostly boys) snickered.

That table was also the place where we had our practice neighborhood store. We were told to bring empty product packages so we could practice making change and learn how a real store is run.

We had a whole bunch of different stuff to "buy." Most of it was cheap stuff (we had a lot of bread wrappers filled with paper), most of it was common.

Not Craig's. Craig brought an empty ham can. Again the awestruck looks and snickers ("You mean they're rich enough to eat ham?") as I laid my contribution down on the table.

How about a couple of third-grade horror stories?

First, Ainsley Ah Sing. One of the nicest guys around -- also one of the bravest. In third grade, he picked up a gross, hairy spider and let it crawl all over his arms, into his shirt sleeve and out his collar.

We watched in fascination as he guided it down to his wrist, around his hand and back up to his elbow, twisting and turning his arm so it stayed right-side up. Then, we watched as he let the spider creep up his face -- UP HIS FACE! -- over his mouth, across his nose, between his eyes, up the forehead and into his hair -- INTO HIS HAIR!

Yecch.

Then, there was the dreaded "Supplies Closet" where naughty kids were sent to reflect on their current state of being. It seems like someone was sent there at least once a week, but in actuality, it was probably only once a month. Amazingly enough, I never got a ticket to the dreaded supplies closet.

We all took a good look inside at the first opportunity that came along -- nothing special in there, but when the door was closed, it was awfully dark and I could just imagine the boogie-people lurking in the corners.

Richard Crozier and one of the girls were talking up a storm one day in class and were relegated to the dreaded supplies closet -- together, at the same time, forced to face each other in the dark.

Richard was a quiet, unassuming boy, so I know he didn't take advantage of the situation. In fact, being third-graders, none of us boys would have known what to do with a girl who was trapped in dark, cramped quarters with us.

Anyway, they entered the closet with blank, nonchalant expressions on their faces. Ten minutes later, when Mrs. Deverill let them out, they went back to their seats looking quite the same as when they went into the dreaded supplies closet -- perhaps just a wee bit chastised.

But you know, they never told us what went on while they served their sentence in the dreaded supplies closet . . . in the dark . . . face to face . . . pressed against each other . . . for ten minutes . . . alone.

Okay -- fourth grade. Another pretty eventful year. That was the year I challenged my teacher to a fight. Yep, though it's not as bad as it sounds. My fourth-grade teacher was Mrs. Baptiste (another Portuguese, three in a row). I had this neat little pocket knife that I stupidly brought to school one day and was showing off.

Puna Chillingworth (remember him from the schoolbag fight?) was looking at it and didn't want to give it back. I was getting really irritated, hot under the collar, and frustrated that I couldn't get my treasured knife back. I guess Puna and I created a bit of a disturbance, enough to catch Mrs. Baptiste's attention.

She came up behind us and snatched away the pocket knife. I reached to get it back, and when she pulled it back out of reach, I put up my fists and cried out "Leave me alone! You wanna fight? Come on!" or something like that.

Her eyes opened wide as fried eggs and this deafening quiet filled the room. I looked around and my classmates were awe-struck. You mean this meek kid Craig actually was a juvenile delinquent at heart? Think of it -- knife, fists, a challenge.

I started to cry, and was led out of the room by Mrs. Baptiste to the room next to the principal's office. This room was sort of the first-aid room. After I had spent a few reflective minutes there, Mrs. Baptiste took me back to class.

Later, I saw Mrs. Baptiste showing another teacher what looked like my fabulous attack position. Wouldn't you know it, nobody would talk to me for the rest of the day. I guess I looked pissed off and had struck fear into their hearts with my JD tantrum.

The family bought a set of the World Book Encyclopedias that year -- a beautiful white-bound set with black and gold embossed covers. The books called to me, ever so seductively.

What could I do? I read the whole thing -- 20 volumes or so -- from cover to cover. Hey, it was interesting stuff! Took me a couple of months, but I did it.

I remember telling cousin Christine about that during my visit to Sacramento that summer. Apparently it made an impression on her and my cousin Gale, because they told me years later that they were always in awe of my intelligence.

They also recall that when I went to visit them my first Christmas on the mainland, and they took me shopping, I spent a lot of time in the book section. Apparently, the Miyamoto legend grew. Then they found out I was in Mensa, and that put the finishing cap on the legend.

To them, I was an Einstein.

Gawd, all I did was read a few books.

One Sunday night, when Obachan was babysitting us, I opened a can of arare (mochi crunch). Before I knew it, I had eaten the whole thing in one sitting. Now, that's quite a bit of arare for a little kid, but I never gave it a second thought.

Until the next morning. I woke up with a queasy pain in my stomach, jumped out of bed, headed straight for the toilet, and tossed my cookies (or rather, my mochis).

I somehow staggered back to bed with Mom's help. Man, was I out of it. I was so weak that I couldn't even lift my head off the pillow. Dad came in to check me, asking all the pertinent questions: "Does it hurt here? How about here? What did you eat last night? You ate what? You ate how much?"