gotohealth's Blog

The picture is still clear in my mind, 70 years later. I am standing in the outside stair-well that leads into the church basement. The sun is shining, but I feel cold and the confirmation that I am not favored as I look through the door window while the rest of the kids are starting a meeting inside.  

 

It was 1955, I was 16, a junior in high school, part of my own ethnic group of 12 or 15 of us who were the Japanese/Methodist Youth Fellowship (MYF), in Ontario, Oregon, population 5000. After the WWII unjust mass “rejection of Japanese in America”, we continued to socialize within our own Japanese community. There was also a Buddhist church and Japanese Community Hall. Ontario’s Mayor, unlike other Idaho/Oregon communities near the Minidoka incarceration, was receptive of 800 or so Japanese choosing Ontario to start over.

 

Jane had been elected president and I was her church friend, so that was likely why I had been elected vice-president. Then, Jane’s family moved back to their West Coast Watsonville, CA, homestead, and a few of the kids were objecting to my being moved up to the presidency. Reverend Fujimori’s son was part of the group.

 

I was five years older than my sister and the rest of my seven cousins, living in Ontario, were even younger. My mom had depression and was sick all the time. My father was not a social climber and we were very very poor. I worked all my free time, clerking at my uncle’s grocery store and gave my money to Dad. I had also skipped fourth grade and was younger than my high school classmates.

 

Jane was just plain nice and my same age, but she was a sophomore and lived way out on their farm. Telephone service was a party line with a central operator monitoring calls. Therefore, I had no one sharing with me about how to dress, style my hair nor have social adequacy girl talks. 

 

On this one Sunday afternoon, the MYF meeting was convened in the basement of the Methodist church and as the meeting got started, Reverend took me aside, escorted me out the door saying, “Wait out here!” and closed the door. I could slightly hear Reverend scolding the group, telling them about Robert’s Rules of Order, how they needed to accept the fact that I had been elected to the position and how they should be courteous.  

 

The recollection still generates some tenseness in my neck and shoulders, but college dorm living with experiences in a sorority, a great marriage, raising children and grandchildren, a successful home-business, friends and writing; waters my  “roots and heritage values” for a great life.

 

The deeper “inner child” regularly needs loving and acceptance every day as I seek and continue my path of contentment and fulfillment, choosing OMOIDE writing and CONNECTIONS!