It has been a pretty good run for the United States Navy in the big harbor south of Yokohama. Commodore Perry arrived there in 1853 in his flagship USS Powhattan, and was fairly abrupt with the Takugawa Shogun’s people, insisting on presenting gifts to the irrelevant Emperor. Perry’s visit, under the cannons that bristled from […]

  The politics of this day are small ones, and of little import to the wide world, though once they did. The professional association to which I belong holds one of it’s two annual events today, at the Crowne Plaza in Mr. Tyson’s Corners in Northern Virginia.   It used to be a Holiday Inn, […]

King Christian X of Denmark   The Secret Service was gone by four, as was the security detail from the Arlington Police Force.   I had been checking in on them every couple hours with mild curiosity as they loitered across the alley from our glittering new building and the down-at-the heels former government glass […]

The Pope is in town, carrying his campaign of tough love to the American branch of his sometimes fractious flock. I am not going to try to get to the stadium downtown tomorrow, though I have to pass by during the day, and will be on my toes.   They called the Holy Father the […]

 de-FIB-ulator Hand-held Lie Detector (TG286L) $38.00   It is tax day, and the anniversary of the morning after Mr. Lincoln’s bad night at Ford’s Theater and RMS Titanic’s plunge into the icy waters southeast of Newfoundland.   Normally, I would wander off with you to explore the back bedroom of Peterson’s Boarding House, which is a sobering […]

I was Sunday-edgy all afternoon. Amazing how fast the weekend goes, even though I hunkered down in self-enforced isolation in the small town that is Big Pink. The invisible Girlfriend was more invisible than usual, and the weather had turned from balmy to chill, belying the brilliant green of the blossoms.   They were precisely […]

  As Police Inspector under Marshall Law, Tom had the keys to the warehouses on Yokosuka Base. That meant that he had access to just about anything he wanted in the way of the old materials of war.   That didn’t just include the K-Rations. It included thousands of confiscated weapons, and piles of swords. […]

Kiko on lap at Club Grand Shima, 1950 I was in the new office in Ballston, trying to avoid work. It was hard to make out the scrawl at the top of the note. The typing was regular, with occasional strikeouts, since it was done on a real manual machine. But the e-mail address had […]

US Army Nisei Translator, 1946   I have to take a break today. I am in the middle of talking to Al’s widow B., who is on the West Coast. Al was a nisei, a first generation American, who served in Army CID in Tokyo when Tom was down in Yokosuka. He gave me a […]

Arrivals USS George Washington (CVN-73) departed Norfolk Naval Station amid scattered rain and dense fog on 07 April, en route to its new home-port of Yokosuka, Japan. A Navy band gave the hundreds of sailors manning the rails a spirited sendoff. The Nimitz-class CVN is making history as the first nuclear-powered carrier based in Japan. There is some […]