Frankly Speaking- December 7

He was born in the late 1930’s. I’m not sure why his parents traveled to his grand parent’s home that year. But there he was, December 7, 1941. As fate would have it following the events of the day he was not allowed to return to his home. He was stranded.

He was born in the San Francisco Bay area. His parents were Japanese. Considering the United States treatment of ethnic Japanese (including natural born U.S. citizens) during World War II, maybe it could have been worse.

He began his education while in Japan. As he recalled to me, every morning they gathered to salute the Emperor (kind of a Japanese Pledge of Allegiance). On this particular day the sound of an aircraft flying over caught his attention and he turned to look up. The teacher leading the gathering saw his attention directed skyward and began to give him a lecture about saluting the enemy airplane.

The date was August 6, 1945; the time was just past 8:00am; the school he attended was just outside of Hiroshima.

I worked with him for 15 years and he passed this on once and in no greater detail than I’ve given in this writing. Funny, when he told me of this event in his life I was speechless. I had no questions to ask and I needed no clarification.