WHATCHA READIN'?

Those who occasionally check this site have noticed that I have been stuck in a “Spot” – blogwise. Perhaps it’s a combination of busyness, distractions, ennui, and neglect; perhaps it’s because I’m out of the habit of posting weekly (or is it weakly?). Mostly it’s a form of writer’s block since I haven’t felt that anything I have been doing lately has been worthy of comment, so I have sort of been protecting my readers from sharing my somewhat ho-hum drift in the doldrums.

Desperate to change the current posting to anything else, I am once again resorting to an old standby, the current book report. Even so, I don’t intend to include detailed anecdotal annotations. Let it be enough that this is the collection of books which is currently at hand by the recliner, at bedside, on the desk, the bookcase, or the studio table, or elsewhere that I am currently reading or have just finished but have not yet put away. If you are not a reader, feel free to skip this edition. I’m merely trying to generate a restart before I end up in a prolonged slough of despond.

OK, Here we go in the order I found them in the aforementioned locations.

MOBY-DUCK; The true story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists, and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them. Donovan Hohn. [Viking/The Penguin Group; New York, 2011] I heard an interview with this author on PBS and I requested the book from the local library the same day.

GOOD POEMS. Selected and Introduced by Garrison Keillor (As heard on The Writer’s Workshop, a PBS feature) 2002. I just read a few at a time.

THE PASSION; Christ’s Journey to the Resurrection. Devotions for Every Day of the Year. [Integrity Publishers; Brentwood, TN, 2004] This is set up in a "page-a-day" format, but I'm reading it by the sections in which it is organized. Christ's last week and Passion is explored through the brief writings of significant thinkers and historical individuals.

THE FIRE THAT CONSUMES; A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment. 3rd Edition. Edward William Fudge. [Cascade Books; Eugene OR, 2011] A friend just hand delivered this one to my doorstep and I’m only a couple of riveting chapters into it so far. If you like to consider challenging and eminently current issues, the dialogue between the positions of eternal conscious torment versus annihilation make this an essential study and I suspect that this revised edition will become a mandatory read in the debate.

THE GOOD EARTH. Pearl Buck. 1931. This is my current “Re-read the Classics” selection; it is a Reader’s Digest World’s Best Reading Edition. As always this is a fascinating story on the rewards of hard work and the dangers of losing one's way enroute.

THE WHOLE SHEBANG; A State-of-the-Universe(s) Report. Timothy Ferris. [Simon Schuster; New York, 1997] If you enjoy astronomy or cosmology, read Timothy Ferris’s “Coming of Age in the Milky Way” before tackling this tome.

LIGHT ON SNOW. Anita Shreve. [Little Brown & Co.; New York, 2004] In this tale a widower and his young daughter discover a newborn in the snow. I’m enjoying most of Shreve’s novels as she can tell a story well, but be selective among her works.

THE DOUBLE-JACK MURDERS; A Sheriff Bo Tully Mystery. Patrick McManus. [Simon Schuster; New Your, 2009] This third in a series is written with a double dash of his usual tongue-in-cheek humor.

HAIKU; Seasons of Japanese Poetry. Johanna Brownell, ed. [Castle Books; Edison NJ, 2001] I seem to be on a recent poetry kick. I've always had an appreciation for haiku as a special form and always had fun when my students had a chance to compose their own haiku. (Re. my revival in poetry, see “Good Poems” above; also I just returned the Complete Works of Carl Sandberg to the library. Didn’t read it all, but liked what I did read again.)

THE PLEASURES OF PAINTING OUTDOORS; A Diary of the Thirteen Paintings in John Stobart’s Worldscape. John Stobart. [North Light Press; Cincinnati, 1993. (Aside: I tend to buy a lot of books – this one included – at Goodwill. Watch out, however, for their prices have increased a lot recently and the bargain factor is gone.)

THE CASE FOR THE REAL JESUS; A Journalist’s Investigation of Current Attacks on the Identity of Jesus.Lee Strobel. [Zondervan; Grand Rapids MI, 2007] Another in this fine series.

THE NEW OXFORD ANNOTATED APOCRYPHA (NRSV); The Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books of the Old Testament. Bruce Metzgar and Roland Murphy, eds. [Oxford University Press; New York, 1991. Great background detail included to explain these peripheral texts.

OVER THE EDGE; DEATH IN THE GRAND CANYON; Gripping Accounts of All Known Fatal Mishaps in the Most Famous of the World’s Seven Natural Wonders. Revised. Michael Ghighieri and Thomas Meyers. [Puma Press; Flagstaff, 2001] Intriguing and bone chilling stories of accidental and deliberate death in a fascinating environment.

THE LITTLE TREASURY OF GOLF. J.P.Resnick, ed. [Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers; New York, 1996] More golf stories and anecdotes by famous golfers and other recognized writers and celebrities. This will give your favorite duffer an attitude adjustment!

BURIED LIES; True Tales and Tall Stories from the PGA Tour. Peter Jacobsen. [G.P.Putnam’s Sons; New York, 1993] Jacobsen is a famous, thus familiar golf Pro and TV Commentator; He is from the Portland, Oregon, area, so he is often seen in the local “sports” news or in others forms of entertainment and promotion. The book was a good read, and although it is a little dated, I knew most of the golfers with whom Jacobsen played and enjoyed his humorous way of writing their shared adventures.

Tha-tha-tha- that’s All, Folks!

JIMMY MAKINO, AN AUTHENTIC WWII HERO

One special highlight of our recent trip to California was the chance to meet and spend several hours with Jimmy Makino at the Japanese-American Heritage Museum in downtown Los Angeles. Betty had spoken with him by telephone in her research of another hero and friend of ours, Nori Sekino, who had been Jimmy Makino's Sergent when they both were serving in World War II. In fact, Jimmy explained that Nori was responsible for Jimmy's being appointed to the rank of Buck Sergeant on his twenty-first birthday. Today he is alert and intriguing at ninety years old and serves as a volunteer docent at the museum.

My regular readers will recall my fascination and appreciation of the Japanese-American soldiers who served valiantly in the Italian and French battles and so impressively distinguished themselves. Among other remarkable achievements and honors, they were the most highly decorated units in military history and had the highest rate of casualties ever suffered by a US military unit in any war. Many of these gallant soldiers were recruited out of the Internment Camps where over 120,000 US citizens of Japanese ethnicity were held in isolated, desert camps behind barbed wire. Behind Jimmy is a photograph (on an upstairs wall of the internment exhibit in the museum) which shows some of the 3,000 men who were formed into the famous 442nd Regimental Combat Team - the "Go For Broke" soldiers. Jimmy (and Nori) belonged to this group of heros!
Our visit was partly to continue Betty's research into the life and history of Nori, but it gave us the opportunity to spend invaluable and priceless time listening to Jimmy's story too - his career serving under Nori, their days of training at Camp Shelby, the transfer to Europe, the treatment and indignities they endured, and a few stories of the combat experiences they shared. I am awed at having had the honor of speaking with and thanking a member of the 442nd RCT. I will never forget that day.

Finally, the statue shown below is a replica of the theme statues in the Japanese-American Memorial Park near the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. where several large images of the golden cranes entangled in barbed wire represent the indignities of the Internment so many endured. It reminds us that loyal citizens have served nobly under great hardships in desperate times, sometimes quite unjustly, but that the greater spirit of good people will always eventually overcome bias and bigotry. And we learned it from the "Ganbar" hearts of some of our finest people who "made the best of it" .