Beached Ship of State

[Philadelphia, 4/30/14]

Leaving Fort Chaffee in 1975, I landed in Tacoma. It was there I became familiar with Jimmy Snuka, Slick Watts, The Brady Bunch, Donny and Marie Osmond, KC and the Sunshine Band, Shirley Temple, Fonzie and Leave it to Beaver. Our tiny black and white TV Americanized me. At school, a kid laughed when he saw me singing, with everybody else, Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence.” Hello, darkness my old friend… When it was my turn to serve in the school cafeteria, I became Arnold from Happy Days. The only other Orientals on TV were that couple in the Calgon commercial. “It’s an ancient Chinese secret.”

A Japanese-American teacher at McKinley Elementary took me and my little brother to see the Ice Capades at the Seattle Coliseum. At the time, I couldn’t appreciate fully this tremendous maternal gesture. Miss Dogen could see what us horribly dressed kids were missing. After just a year in Tacoma, we moved abruptly away. I’m still sorry I never got a chance to say goodbye to Miss Dogen. Thank you, ma’am, for being so kind.

After two months in Houston, we returned to the Pacific Northwest. For the next two years, we lived in Salem, Oregon. I never lost my attachment to my first American home, however. Even now, I can rattle off the names of so many Sonics, Seahawks and Mariners from decades ago. Corporate teams employing mercenaries anchor US communities. I even rooted for Seattle Slew, the horse. I painted Gus Williams and Marvin Webster. Though contemptuous of American elections, I’d vote for Geno Smith for eternal dictator. The US deserves no less.

My Tacoma experience was mostly embarrassing or pitiful. I have no nostalgia for that time. Plus, I have no desire to live there again. Perhaps my continued identification with that region is an attempt to show I’m actually capable of sustained loyalty, at least to my boyhood self. If I just made you fart from laughter, I’m sorry. Screw Tacoma.