Memories of Okinawa

Sometime in late 1978 we moved from several different locations, dad from Garland Texas – Mom and my brother and sister from Albany Georgia – and finally me from Zwolle Louisiana (Where?), to Omaha Nebraska in preperation of moving overseas to Okinawa. We were all excited for many reasons. None of us had ever been outside the US, except for Dad, and we were all looking forward to the coming experience.

In June 1979, right after we all got out of school, we boarded a plane (Braniff) at Eppley Airfield, Omaha for a flight to Minneapolis/St. Paul. For us kids this was our very first experience in a plane. My butt puckered when that thing lifted off the ground, scared me half to death. When we arrived at MSP we changed planes (Northwest Air Lines) for a flight to Seattle. In Seattle, we changed again to another Northwest flight to Tokyo. On the flight to Tokyo we sat near an Okinawan lady on her way to visit relatives and she was adament in her opinion on the separation of Okinawa and Japan. “Okinawa and Japan are different” she said expressively. I really didn’t understand why at the time, but I understood later. Our plane in Seattle was delayed and we arrived at Narita Airport far too late to catch our connecting flight to Naha, Okinawa. The airline transported us to downtown Tokyo where we stayed at the Tokyu Hotel. We were all full of wonder and delight as everything was so different from the life that we had left behind. The streets were so different, the vehicles were completely different, everyone spoke in a language that none of us understood. We had dinner that night at the restaurant in the hotel, on the top floor, and I remember it was extremely expensive even way back then. We really didn’t do anything that night except eat and sleep, all courtesy of Northwest Airlines.

The next day we woke and readied for the final leg of the journey – the flight to our new home. We checked out of the Tokyu Hotel and were driven to Haneda Airport to catch our flight to Okinawa. Upon arrival in Okinawa the most vivid memory that I have is of Dad renting a car. You see, he had been there before and sort of already knew his way around. We departed the airport and were all amazed at how close the ocean (East China Sea) was to the highway. The images remain surreal to me to this day. We drove from the Airport in Naha to the Okinawa Hilton, of course dad did get lost a couple of times and the Okinawans were as friendly as any people on earth. The locals were very quick to offer directions and try to converse with this crazy American man who spoke absolutely none of their language. I remember that we ended up following this Okinawan man who led us up the hill to the hotel. Our home for the next three months would be rooms 351 (parents) and 353 (kids). The front desk folks tought us the Japanese words for our room numbers san-go-ichi and san-go-san. When we would arrive at the hotel the three of us would race to be able to use our new words to retrieve those room keys from behind the desk.