Memories of Okinawa

The summer of 1980 was the first of 6 that we would spend in the enchanted land we called “home”. One thing you learn as the child of a military person is that they are really into playing mind games. What I mean is – when you do something bad, the way to make up is to do something good. Kind of a tit for tat mentality. Well, early in the summer of 1980 we were planning this trip to the “states” just me, my brother, and my sister. The parents were seeing visions of a couple weeks of “alone time”.

We went to Koza early in the summer and, this time was a little different. The girls, remember they were quite a lot older than we were, helped us to celebrate the ending of the school year and the beginning of the wonderful Okinawan summer. This night was the first, not the last, that I would drink a little too much. I drank so much that night my brother and the two of them had to push me up on the bus for the long ride home on the proverbial “last bus”. When we got to the bus stop where we get off, as the story went, my brother rolled me off the bus and somehow got me seated on the bench. He couldn’t carry me the two or so miles down the hill to the house so he was faced with calling the old man.

The old man had to get dressed and come pick us, or more accurately, to pick me up. I was in no condition to walk down that hill. I got grounded pretty quick and long for that episode. So, the games begin (I gotta make up the military way to decrease the terms of the grounding). First, I announce that I would quit smoking and would start training to run the Kinser 10K coming up in July. Now, the old man had always wanted athletic son, so he immediately agreed to my new endeavors. I started running 10 to 15 K every day. It was kinda, sorta like I wasn’t grounded. Running got me out of the house. Really couldn’t and wouldn’t do anything to get in trouble for, but it did provide at least a little solace.

I placed third the day of the run in my age group 16 to 18. I ran against quite a few Marines and still placed third. Dad was beyond proud. Took lots of pictures that day and actually lifted the grounding on the condition ……. (Oh, yeah!).

We, a couple weeks later, boarded a plane for our trip to the States. Layover in Hawaii – what a hoot! On to Dallas/Fort Worth, Drive to Oklahoma with a couple geezers to see some more geezers. Drive to Lousiana to stay with the first geezers for a week, then Back to DFW, board a plane don’t remember the trip back at all except for my baby sister losing her stuffed elephant (elefie). That was a very sad day.

The trip was a trip!

The school year is sorta winding down. At Kubasaki High the rainy season is in full swing. One has not lived unless one has made the trek from the 200 Building across the field to pass by the 100 building on the left and the auditorium and the cafeteria on the right, across the teachers parking lot (4 rows of cars), down the little (often muddy and slick) hill to the quonset huts a.k.a the 600s in the pouring monsoonal rains day after day after day.

Us smoking area folks never used umbrellas, they were not “cool”. So you could always tell when one of us entered the classroom cuz we were always drenched head to toe.  My homeroom was in the 600s area.  From there, I would walk to the 200s for a class, then at some point back to the 600s.  I wasn’t expecting the monsoons, as I wasn’t on island long enough to know what would come, so my schedule wasn’t worked out with this in mind (at the time I wish it had been).

The rain during the monsoon season was relentless.  It rained, and rained, and rained, and rained, then just as it started to clear, it rained some more.  The rainy season seemed to last forever.  All hours of the day and the night (I miss it today).  We learned to get around during the rainy season using umbrellas, because we did actually go out to the entertainment venues of Naha, Koza, the skating rink, and to the seawall even during this time.  It was an awesome experience to sit in the cave and watch the rain fall outside and listen to the ocean ebb and flow.  All this rain didn’t phase the Okinawans in the least.  They still went about their daily lives as if the sun were out.

The one thing I remember most about the rainy season was whenever you went into a store there was a little umbrella stand right inside the door.  Once you reached the awning over the door you would shake the water off your umbrella, walk into the store and simply drop your umbrella into the stand.  No locks, but, your umbrella was always there when you got ready to leave (Try that in this country – the US).  I never lost an umbrella in an umbrella stand in the 5 rainy seasons that I endured on island.

The rainy season brought the color out in the trees and on the ground.  The hibiscus would begin to bloom, the palm bushes and trees would flower new bright green leaves.  We had both right in the front yard and the springtime colors were amazing.   The rainy season must have been smaller than in other years, because water rationing would get started during this year about midway through the summer.  Let me tell you, water rationing is not a joke on Okinawa!

So, now it’s deep winter on Okinawa. That really means it’s a little better to wear long sleeves and jeans after dark. I had passed the driving test at the Kadena Driver’s Ed center and was ready to exercise my “on-base” driving privileges. They make sure that you do understand it is a privilege when you take drivers ed.

Now, just what the h#ll is a kid that lives off-post going to do with an on-post drivers license? In the beginning, not very much. Dad kinda liked to exude the aura of being anal about his family following the rules. Over time, like always, things would change.

Dad would let us load up in the car and he drove us down to the Camp Kinser Gate where he would hand over the car and walk back to the house. Now, me, my brother, and my sister would drive all the way across Camp Kinser and park the car at the last building on the left, walk out the gate and go to the skating rink. Dad always made sure he told me – Do no take this car off the base. After skating we would load up for the drive back, usually with a few more people so we could go down to the seawall to hang out for the balance of the night. You’ll here more about some of those nights later.

We would also accompany Mom and Dad to Kadena USO and every once in a while he would let us drive the car or the van and we would go to the bowling alley or the cafeteria. This business of Dad driving to the gate didn’t last very long maybe 30 days or so, deep inside he was kinda lazy and didn’t particularly like walking back to the house. So he sits me down and impresses the importance of obeying the traffic laws so I wouldn’t get caught going in and out the gate to the Base. Now, here we go. He’s really done it now.

Not only do I drive back and forth across Kinser on Friday and Saturday nights, we also start taking the car to our seawall parties. There was this one night, that really sticks out in my memory. Even Dad laughed about this night many, many times. One of his rules for me was that I was not to drink any alcohol when I had the car. He and I both knew that wasn’t going to fly at all. We had already caught the disease and there was no turning back at this point.

So, after a night of skating we all came back to the house. There was me, my brother, Steve Sawyer, Joe Waters, and probably some other folks. We tell my parents that we are going to the seawall. Well, we did, sort of.

There was this other seawall about a mile or two from the house and we all wanted to go to that one instead, so we did. It’s about 2 AM and we are all gettin’ pretty drunk at the seawall. Actually, we’re gettin really drunk. Music is blasting and we are really having a good time. Then I started the car and was playing around and driving around. You can’t tell a 16 year old drunk kid that this would be a mistake, though.

At this other seawall there was a serious obstacle to deal with. Between the road and the wall itself there was what we affectionately called a benjo. A benjo is a ditch that, as I would find out, car tires fit into quite nicely. As I was driving the car, it fell into this ditch and wasted the drivers side as it scraped the seawall coming to a stop.

OK, now I’m in trouble. Not only have I driven that car to a place that I was not supposed to be, I am also drinking, and I’ve wasted Dad’s prize posession, crap. There were enough people there that if we had some sort of leader we could have picked up the car and moved it, but, none of us were in any shape to become a leader that night, way too much drinkin’. We tried, but were unable to move that car, it was really wedged in that ditch.

Now the funny part. I had to take this long walk to the house and tell the old man. All the way to the house, I’m sweatin’. I get to the house to find the old man awake and, thankfully, almost as drunk as we were. I tell him what has happened. He yelled at me for a minute or two, then we loaded up in his HiAce van to go get the car. Dad was definitely a dude that was able to operate even under enormous pressure. We get to the car and at first, he just shakes his head. All our friends were very concerned, ’til dad grabbed a beer and started crackin’ jokes with the guys. He finishes his beer, and gathers all of us into a little huddle where he started to unfold his plan of getting the car out of the ditch. There wasn’t a lot of room around the drivers side to be able to pick up the car, so we did a little at a time and kept placing boards under the tires to hold them up.

All in all it took about ten minutes to free the front wheel and ten more for the back. We got the car free. Now, dad has the audacity to tell me to follow him to the house, so we wouldn’t get caught. I don’t know how following him would keep us from getting caught, he was as drunk as the rest of us. I did obey, though. We say bye to the guys, they left too to go back to Maki Housing.

We get to the house and Dad lectures me over the sheer number of rules that I broke and, once again, tries to verbally become anal about his family not breaking the rules. After an hour or so we bed down for the night. The next day we all woke up and started moving around, Dad approaches and we go together out to look at the damaged car. By this time, he has figured out where we are in our relationship and has decided that I had already been punished enough if I would only promise him that I would try not to waste any more cars, which I did. I still can’t believe that I never got punished for that. I don’t think he could bring himself to punish me for something he coulda or woulda done at least once in his life. Thank God that Dad was a drinker!

He laughed about that night many times and told all three of his kids how much he enjoyed growing up with us. He’s not around anymore, and I miss him terribly. I do have all these memories to keep, but, this one was just the beginning.