The other night I was listening to KCRW
and a relatively groovy new Japanese song came on. At this ever
advancing age, it doesn't take much, so I was transported back in
time... to my 9th birthday, on the ranch in Yreka.
It was a time, when the adults would
gladly let us roam freely, and we spend hours making dams in the
creek, only coming back when my grandmother rang a big old bell
retrieved from an old school house somewhere.
I know someone had made a cake, and
there were presents. But 9 year old boys don't remember much of that,
but I do remember one thing... I got a small transistor radio. It
was made with – plastic – and was bright blue. Anybody who knows
me, and has suffered my visits know that I listen to the radio... its
a sickness, especially wit the invention of the internet, headphones
and my IPad. And so there I was listening to KCRW, listening to a
Japanese song and I remembered my first musical obsession – you
know the kind, you listen to a song a million and 1/2 times and still
need to hear it more.
The song was a hit being played
everywhere: Sukiyaki- sung by Kyu Sakamoto. This was a hit, in a way
few others had been, as it was sung in Japanese. It was also in the
era when Japanese food was just becoming in”, tho not sushi yet.
But you always went out and “had”sukiyaki, I wasn't ever a
picky eater – only rejecting out right liver and onions and the
worst of all, and still to this day... lima beans.
Grandma was kind and
never ever made them when I was there, tho my parents did for some
unreasonable reason... I am sure it was passive aggression. As a new
grandparent, who survived raising an amazing son, I know there were
moments when you thought “this is good for you”. Even when it
wasn't for either of us. It wasn't until marrying a Brazilian that I
learned that beans were not from a can and sweet, and were actually
ok.
But I digress...
In those days – Grandma had a party
line, you could listen to the county station all day. My uncle, a ham
radio operator, showed me early on that as soon as the sun went down
you could listen to the whole world. It was AM only... but amazing...
so there was Sukiyaki played on KGO, or KGW, and the best... XERB,
the huge powerful station, so powerful and so full of itself it
broadcast just across the border from México, thousands of miles
away, by a cool guy named Wolfman Jack....
Later on, after my next radio, I began
to keep a log – and would write down the call letters and names of
the stations I got, and where they from from... with notes, like "it
must be in Canada, its French". Little did I know that my
budding research career began with a small little radio.
It was my first love with technology –
like I said it was blue plastic, plastic being something new and
exotic. No one thought about the consequences at the time, in those
days you went to the beach and all you found were sea shells. And of
course it was “Made in Japan”. I can still smell the plastic, as
I slept with it under my pillow, tuned low... and I listened to music
and news, and conversations in different accents...
After my birthday, we went back home to
San Jose, and I was enrolled in swimming lessons.” liked water, and
being a chubby kid, I really had little to know concern as a 9 year
old kid about what I looked like, but there was one thing... that
scared the shit out of me... the deep end.
Tho the water was clear, and so
chlorinated it made your teeth white, that feeling of eternity you
get when you look under water towards the far end and see no end was
terrifying. Of course the swim instructor had to get us to the deep
end, I know now that that was the point, so we wouldn't drown if you
were on the Andre Doria, so you could paddle around and save people,
but I being a sissy boy, would have none of it.
All I could do was survive, thru shear
panic. And so I did. I can swim, and I don't mind clear water no
mater how deep as long as I can see the bottom, but looking out into
infinity when snorkeling still gives me the heebie-jeebies.
But I digress.
The radio, which went with me
everywhere. Was sitting on the back seat, when we went to swim
lessons. When we came back it wasn't. In those days you parked the
car – in this case a light blue and white Chevy four door, with the
windows rolled down. No AC, so things got really hot, and besides it
was the summer of 1963... crime hadn't been invented yet, along with
seat belts, or signs in parking lots reminding people to keep your
valuables locked. I know the parents locked the doors of the house
when we left, but I also remember them being unlocked most of the
time. Like I said, crime hadn't been invented yet, even in suburban
California.
So when we came back from traumatic
swim lessons, it was gone.
I was devastated, and being a card
carrying sissy boy cried for days. Not sure what happened, I don't
remember a new radio, I remember next starting 3rd grade,
and being madly in love with Miss Riggs. I remember t the day JFK was
shot, as I was at the water fountain, I was a hyper active kid and
always sharpening my pencil and getting a drink, when the principal
came over the loudspeaker and told us that the president was dead,
and that school was out... I remember Miss Riggs bursting
into tears and we all were silent, and how we all walked
down Foxworthy Avenue a couple of hundred kids
in silence...
Yet still there was Sukiyaki... even
tho the rest of week was devoted to JFK's funeral and all the mess
around Lee Harvey Oswald. There was that song...
So, during this goofy time here in
Brasil, I guess it was soothing to find it online and load it into my
ITunes thingy.
I leave you here with it, in hopes it
too takes you back, to that time before crime...
