Ahh, so the communication is back and forth, between me in Oregon, with some land in White Salmon I mention — his mother’s stomping grounds and Robert’s as well, as sort of an unusual glue — and he in Japan. Another long one from me, to him, and here is his measured and kind response, and I won’t fill in all the contextual asides:

Hey Paul,

Hope you’re doing OK. I’ve spent parts of the last few days going through some of the links you sent, as well as following down the rabbit holes of other links on those pages. Some fascinating stuff to read, a welcome change from the corporate drivel that comprises the majority of English reading material available in Japan.

Among the things that really grabbed my attention this time were your review of the documentary “The People vs Agent Orange,” the related article “A Spray by any Other Name: Agent Orange or Clear-cut Agent?” “Wrestling the Blind, Chasing Apache Horses, and Unpacking the Vietnam War,” and your interview with David James Duncan. As you wrote in one of those articles, “I easily segue from one massive war crime after massive war crime — the American War Against Vietnam — to a small rural county in Oregon,” I too often connect what on the surface seems to be a completely unrelated thing or idea to another. As a reader, I like to read that kind of style. As a writer, I think it conveys an uninterrupted and natural flow. Maybe I just took too many hallucinogens in my youth! Anyway, here are some thoughts.

You may have mentioned him only once or twice, but I constantly had Henry Miller on my mind while reading your articles. So much so that I dusted off the cover of his The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (which had been sitting untouched on my bookshelf for a good 25 years) and started reading it again with great pleasure. It’s amazing how so little has changed in the U.S. since he wrote that book back in 1940 and ’41. In the midst of ranting about how fucked up and doomed America is/was, he still, like a magician, pulls out a gem of a phrase on almost every page that makes the reader practically double over with laughter. I once worked as a cook for a restaurant owner who had lived in Big Sur in the 1950s, ran a kind of trading post, and would barter with Miller, who was always broke, and would end up giving him bags of groceries for rough draft manuscripts of whatever Miller had pounded out on his typewriter that day. This dude was Irish-American, in his 60s at the time, had a plump and red nose from too much booze, and told great tales that got better with each embellishment. I first met him when I was down to my last $20 and drinking a beer at his bar. When I told him The Colossus of Maroussi was my favorite Miller book, he hired me on the spot. I ended up working for him for about a year and a half. He taught me everything he knew about cooking, a skill that became my main source of income for the next five years as I wandered throughout much of the U.S.

Next up, that documentary “The People vs Agent Orange.” To tell the truth, I hadn’t thought much about Agent Orange for years, not since the use of depleted uranium “bunker busters” in Iraq and the resulting cancers, birth defects, etc. among Iraqi children in the ensuing years. Since about 2005, however, it seems someone I knew well or from a distance has died almost every year from some Agent Orange-connected cancer. Occasionally, I’ve wondered if I’d’ve died myself by now if I’d followed my order to fight in the war. In a sense, military prison saved my life. My job had been guarding B-52 bombers and I know I would’ve been one of the airmen who had to spray the perimeters of Southeast Asian bases with that poison to keep the jungle from encroaching on and overgrowing the fence lines.

I was in other parts of the States when the spraying of Oregon forests began. I was in southern Humboldt County (working for that Irish-American) in 1977-78, but the only helicopters flying above the forests then were the ones doing surveillance on the marijuana farmers. They didn’t spray anything; they merely landed on the property and sometimes busted the larger farms, that is, until the farmers starting shooting at them.

The fact that much of the documentary took place so close to where I grew up intrigued me greatly. After reading your review, I had to watch it. It wasn’t easy, but I managed to get my hands on a copy. My wife and I watched it a couple of nights ago. Jesus! What a gut punch! Like so many, my wife was aware of what Agent Orange was and the horrible damage it had done (still does) in Vietnam, but she thought its use was limited to that part of the world and that time. Wrong!

This is indeed an international problem, right up there with the Fukushima disaster (by the way, those poems in that book were quite powerful, too). Even though the Independent Lens program was sponsored by and shown on PBS, the only place I could find that had it available was for Amazon Prime customers. Why is it so limited in availability? Is PBS also intimidated by the corporate power wielders and so won’t distribute it widely? It should be required viewing (and actively discussed) in classrooms worldwide.

I finally resorted to using a VPN and accessing a couple of pirate sites. Even among those sites, it seemed a dead end. Just as I was about to give up, however, I found one place that actually had a pretty good quality file that I was able to download. I plan to make a few DVD copies and distribute them among a couple of academics I’m still in touch with. Being retired seven years now and having not kept up any correspondence with most of my former colleagues since the pandemic started, I don’t have many contacts anymore, but still this is information that needs to have a wider audience. It was sad to learn that the French court threw out Tran To Nga’s lawsuit.

You kicked off the “Wrestling the Blind” story with Robert Bly asking you when you first saw yourself as strong as or stronger than your old man. The complicated relationship I had with my dad was in my thoughts the whole time I was engaged with the story (which is a beautiful one, by the way). My dad was a World War II hero who piloted a P-38 in over 70 combat missions out of England. How he survived was a miracle. After the war, he and his brother and dad started a lumber mill and redwood logging business in Humboldt County. For the next 25 years, he was heavily involved in the American Legion (and helping to destroy almost all the old growth redwoods!). Although not political by nature, he followed his family’s guidance and always voted Republican and hung out mainly with other loggers and John Birch Society types. I had an idyllic childhood in the redwoods and spent most of my time fishing, playing baseball, and doing all the things country boys love to do. Until my parents divorce put an end to all that. The script was set. I was destined to rebel against whatever he had hoped for my life. When I became a conscientious objector (from within the military, to boot) to the Vietnam debacle, my actions, thoughts, and appearance all constituted an affront to everything he’d considered sacred in life. Of course, all this stuff takes up a good portion of the first half of my book, but that story of your trip in the desert with your dad was almost like looking into a mirror of my relationship with my dad. Particularly the parts about how you two bonded over wrestling. In my case, we bonded over basketball, or I should say he was proud of my skills (I made the all-county team my senior year) and even though we could never get on the same page about political shit, we could always communicate meaningfully about sports.

Another one: by the time I hit 15, my dad didn’t know me, either. I still had a couple of years to go before my hair hit shoulder length, but some of my buddies were growing their hair out at that age and Dad’s comments were always about how they were turning into girls and sissies, the inference being he didn’t want to see me with long hair. Like you, I didn’t consider until way too many years too late that my dad’s reluctance to talk about his war experiences might’ve been his version of PTSD. And the first time I really noticed his vulnerability was on a rare trip home from Japan (escorting some Japanese students on an American homestay program). His hairline had receded greatly (he was in his 70s by then), his eyes appeared softer and kind of milky, and his handshake had become weak. You wanna hear something ironic? He died at the age of 89 on June 6th, D-Day, the one day of the year (in his 30s and 40s) when he’d actually mention casually that he’d flown with the invasion of Normandy and also a few days later with an escort squadron flying cover as Churchill crossed the English Channel.

I admired the way you ended that story — “Bly was right. The moment the war lifted from my heart, I saw my old man. Just a guy waiting for daylight, waiting for fish.”

Lastly, it was great to read your interview with David James Duncan. That was done quite a long time ago (2008). To me, your questions had a bit of a provocative ring to them, as if you were demanding definitive answers to complex questions about life, activism, and the future of our planet and humankind’s place on it. DJD sounded like someone on the verge of Buddha-hood (or maybe a character out of a Hermann Hesse novel), what with his calm acceptance of everything and the insanity surrounding him. The image I got reminded me of that cartoon showing a searcher of the truth struggling to scale a mountain to find the Buddha and finally at the summit sees him and gasps, “Oh Great One, please tell me, what is the answer to mankind’s struggle to find meaning in life?” The Buddha peers down at him, points a finger at the opposite direction, and replies, “My friend, you’ve climbed the wrong mountain. The Buddha you seek is over there on that other mountain.”

Do I have a weird interpretation of what I see and read, or what? Anyway, here are a few DJD quotes from that interview that made me smile.

“There is no reason for amazement: surely one always knew that cultures decay, and that life’s end is death.”

“Mother Teresa spoke with the heart of a wild salmon when she said, ‘God doesn’t ask us to win. He only asks us to try.’ I’m in the business of trying. I leave the scorecard to the Scorekeeper.”

“When small things are done with great love, it is not a flawed you or me who does them: it’s just love. I have no faith in any kind of political party, left, right, or centrist. I have boundless faith in love. The only spiritually responsible way I know to be a citizen, artist, or activist in times like ours is by doing a daily and nightly, faith-driven skein of small things, each of them done with all the love I can muster.”

“I trust my hands more than my mind. My hands are enlivened by my lungs and heartbeat and by the Earth and by Spirit directly. Only indirectly are they guided by the mind. My aging hands have done so much cool stuff it staggers my mind.”

“He (Cesar Chavez) didn’t demonize those who caused this suffering. His life of love and service is the opposite of a World Bank project or a papal decree or a government program. It was grass roots love. Love from the ground up, not the top down. Love with the mud of the fields all over it.”

Duncan’s novel The Brothers K is one of my all-time favorites. It has many parallels with family and other people in my life, as well as my own experiences — Seventh Day Adventist parent, conscientious objection to the Vietnam War, baseball, a father who was a logger, siblings who traveled entirely different life roads, and the town of Camas (which is on the Columbia River, not that far from White Salmon, Washington, where my mother grew up), and much more. When I finish The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, that’s the next book I plan to reread.

So, all in all, thank you Paul for giving me much to think about and providing a bit of literary enjoyment to balance out all the other shit that’s happening around us. If you’ve actually read this far, thanks for that, too. You take care, OK?

Robert

I think Robert knows that this review of his work will not be some bullshit LA Times crap or Kirkus reviews milquetoast. The memoir is his life, his concerted effort to get from pre-birth to now, in Japan, and then finding meaning in a journey which is always galvanized by his love of and interest in his mother’s life, who was still in the USA while Robert made his way to Japan, doing part-time work as an English Teacher, and then eventually language school fulltime work, and then teaching for a college, a deanship, getting an advanced degree and becoming now retired, emeritus.

Ahh, as a battler and endless communicator and ranting fool, I hit Robert with another email, and here, again, his thoughtful response:

Hi Paul,

Thanks for letting me know the book arrived in one piece, and thanks for all the recent links. My aging body and mind don’t move very quickly these days, so I’ve taken my time in checking out some of your media recommendations. At this stage of the game, I don’t want to burden myself with information overload. I’m afraid Japan’s stick-its-head-in-the-sand approach to the world has rubbed off a bit on me.

What I have read has given me a better indication of why most of my American friends, contacts, and relatives (not that many left in all three categories) seem so frustrated and filled with rage these days. Much of that, it seems to me, comes from a deep disappointment in “the system” and a feeling of having been deceived by everything they’d been inculcated into believing was sacred — American exceptionalism, the so-called American Dream, the righteousness of capitalism, the sanctity of Christianity, the worship of Ronald Reagan, John Wayne, and Babe Ruth, and on and on. Everything, in fact, that Mark Twain and Henry Miller spat on in their different times.

Granted, on this side of the pond there has also been a rapid increase in violence, murders, alcoholism, suicide, and depression in the last few years, but it’s nothing to compare with the States. I still feel relatively safe whenever I leave the house. Of course, that might be different if I were living in Tokyo or Osaka, but here in Kyushu things are relatively calm. Okinawa, Taiwan, and all the potential for the start of World War III are not that far away and in the back of people’s minds, but for the most part people don’t talk about it much. It’s the ol’ “see no evil” approach (until it affects someone directly, that is).

One thing that caught my attention while reading your own and other recommended stuff is the issue of “sensitivity editors/readers” and the related issue of book banning in Florida and other red states. I’d seen a little bit about this here and there over the past couple of years, but nothing in detail. Your substack article sent me on a search and I was amazed at what a big issue this is becoming. The danger here is the tendency for this kind of thing to catch fire with all sides on the political spectrum. Again, I refer to Henry Miller and his reasons for leaving the States to live abroad in the 1930s, George Carlin’s later rants on the idiocies of American culture and political thought, and Groucho Marx’s quote on group behavior: “I’d never want to be a member of a group that would have me as a member. They must be crazy.” Or something along those lines. If nothing else, that about sums up my philosophy of shying away from any religious or political affiliation. Somehow, I’ve managed to make it this far in life without relying too much on group-think or support. I plan to do my best to continue forward (limping, of course, and assisted by my trusty cane) in the same manner. Of course, I’ll always listen to and think about what others believe and rationalize about their own behavior, but I’m not going to be signing up for their activities anytime soon.

You mentioned earlier that you’d like to do a Zoom chat. Sure thing. I can’t promise any usable quotes (the ol’ noodle seems to switch on and off these days at a pace I can’t control — somewhat like a pitcher who has control of his pitches one day and can’t find the strike zone the next day). Probably more than trying to share political philosophies, I think it’d be more fun to simply share stories from the different places and eras we’ve experienced and survived. I’ve got a few things to take care of over the next couple weeks (e.g., I have to try to change internet providers as my current website has no security certificate and is deemed “not secure” — not that a lot of people drop by, but the browser warning probably scares off 90 percent of those few curious visitors), but any time after that would be fine. There’s a 16- or 17-hour time difference, so we’d have to take that into consideration.

Take care, Paul. Try to get some rest from time to time. We ain’t spring chickens anymore. I’m amazed at how you can keep up such a rigorous writing pace. That’s all for now.

I sent Robert a long list of open ended questions, and we’ll see how he receives them. The interesting part of the book is Robert’s second trip there heading to Iran (Turkey) and Afghanistan, and he ended up in India, too. His so-called around the world walkabout and flowing love of learning about people, keeping an open mind, asking questions, and shutting up to hear others’ biographies.

Here, a slice from Robert’s journey, when he is about to head back to the USA:

I usually visited Rolf in the evenings. We’d prepare a dinner of rice with raisins and lamb meat, then retire to the top of the bus to smoke some hashish, watch the stars, and discuss life. One night, I told him about my journey from Paris to Afghanistan and the various adventures I’d had.

“So what have all these experiences taught you? You seem to me to be more of an observer of men than an active participant in their affairs,” Rolf said.

“I suppose you’re right about that,” I said. “The one political stand I made landed me in jail and I’ve spent a good portion of my life since then trying to rationalize what I did. This journey I’ve taken has carried me halfway around the world in search of something I can’t put a name on. I know I don’t care much for capitalism. I have an attraction for some form of socialism, but I can’t commit myself to what I don’t understand. Idealistically, it seems the best answer to man’s inability to live together peacefully, but socialism, too, has a history of violence and upheaval. It’s all pretty hard to figure out. What do you think?”

Rolf considered my question for a moment, scratched his head, then said, “Socialism, communism, Marxism, all these ‘isms’ have no soul. They’re connected only in terms of class struggle and a fight for equality in the production and consumption of material goods. In that sense, they’re not so different from capitalism. What about the spiritual struggle? Islamic Marxism? It’s a joke! It’s just another form of cultural imperialism that would force people to conform to a standardized way of thinking and behaving. “Democracy, individual freedom, human rights? Also a bunch of rubbish that can never be inflicted upon impoverished nations and peoples. What do uneducated peoples know about such things? They think only about where the next meal comes from. It doesn’t matter what form of government they live under. It seems to me, there’s only one reality and that’s mankind’s inability to organize itself. I think we have to accept man’s weaknesses, his greed, his stupidity. And love him for it all. No one can possibly know what the answers to life are until after we die. It’s like the preacher said, ‘All is vanity and a striving after wind.’

“You can’t save the world alone or through any ideology or ‘ism.’ That’s the only truth I know. Oh sure, you can chase after a spiritual path. Become a Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist if you must. But you won’t find any answers there, either. I’ve tried. The world’s religions are just a bunch of exclusivist groups, too. Stick with science, knowledge, the art of survival. Study languages, communicate, make life interesting for yourself, that’s what I try to do. Here, go on, have another hit off the pipe. Concentrate on the moment, look at the stars, appreciate what is here and now. If you’re meant to find any answers, they’ll come to you in due time.”

What prescient and profound advice for the beaten-down young man, Robert, a babe in the woods who was put through the ringer by the military and the judicial forces. I have a feeling these words from Rolf, whether they are sort of silly to me, are deeply embedded in his consciousness.

After the second trip through Europe and Asia, he ended up working in the USA, cooking, even on oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. All of that in condensed form is covered in the book.

While memoir is an amazing form, not a pure autobiography, that is, more of an enlightened journey, a walkabout, a talk with the writer’s own ego and intellect and self/muse, Robert attempts to reconstruct those days, those moments, the dialogue, his thoughts, other’s thoughts. We are with him, and in many cases it feels like a journalistic recalling of events. Again, this man coveres his great grandfather, the journeys there in the Norris Family, Pennsylvannia Dutch, and into the New America, the tough life of hard work and his mother’s own emancipation from a sexist and closed world for women to venture into male territory.

This is not anti-memoir, for sure, and this search for his identity throughout his life is compelling, and this piece, this big tome is surely a Mother’s Day gift, an act of love, a tribute to his mother’s deep cut into his life. Her imprint on him and his words. This woman vaulted above the strictures of American, Lutheran, Catholic, misogyny.

Here, a quick look at anti-memoir: from Yiyun Li, author of Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life

A memoirist is always trying to connect with the reader and to make sure that the reader reads the memoir – reads the subject of the memoir, that is, the author – in the right way, on the writer’s terms. That’s what makes me hesitate to want to write a memoir or to call what I have written a memoir. I think if a writer does not set out to challenge herself in her work, her foundation is a little off.

Is that what you mean when you say, ‘One cannot be an adept writer of one’s life’? Because you’d have to start by admitting that there is no such thing as a consistent and stable ‘I’?

That’s a crucial point – if you write without questioning your own life, without questioning your ‘I’, the book that you write is not going to be one we can trust. But if you write while questioning yourself – constantly questioning that ‘I’ – that book will reflect many of the conflicts you experience. That makes it a very messy tale, much messier than a memoir with a neat arc. But, you see, you can’t pretend your life is a ‘neat’ story or even a ‘good’ story – life isn’t a good story. If you try to make it into one, you are simplifying too many things. (source)

You as the reader will get stepping stones, big lily pads from which to travel with Robert on his life, the ups and downs, sweeping thoughts, focused intrigue, all the trials and tribulations, and his own life in Japan, the struggle there, language and culture crashing like an earthquake basalt tipping over.

He comes to love a woman, her family, the home that is Japan, and his mother comes to Japan and becomes both enamored of and engaged in the language, learning, an open hand to understanding her own life throught the lens of where her son embarked, disembarked and then set down roots.

Robert’s stand against fighting, against killing, against using a weapon was remarkable in his time or in fact during any time in history:

When Harold Bing was in Winchester Prison, there was one wing for male criminal prisoners, one for women and two for conscientious objectors. The conditions for COs were exactly the same as those for criminal prisoners, but COs did succeed in getting prisons to offer a vegetarian diet. Vegetarianism was common among COs, as it had an obvious affinity, particularly with humanitarian pacifism. CO prisoners were allowed a very limited number of censored letters, though one of the COs interviewed by IWM said ‘filling the notepaper was quite an art’ because there was nothing to say after months or years in prison. They had no calendars, no newspapers, and few visits – those visits they did receive were through a grille. They were limited to a few books from the prison library at infrequent intervals, but after a while COs were allowed to have books sent in under the condition that they donate them to the prison library once finished with them. Later CO prisoners were impressed to find prison libraries stocked with titles by William Morris, Sidney and Beatrice Webb and other writers of the left. Here, Bing recalls the constrained and degrading conditions of prison life. (source)

It might not be difficult for Robert living in Japan, a culture before he showed up that has been militaristic to the max, imperial to the max, and now, the country is building up military once again, another flavor of the Nazism of Ukraine and UK and USA, and alas, they, Japanese, do not all agree, but it is a country that seems cemented over in terms of defying the powers that be. Robert takes a country one person at a time. Here, the nutshell of Japan’s march to war:

Japan is undergoing the most significant changes to its security strategy since the end of World War II. In late 2022, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government approved three policy documents—the National Security Strategy (NSS), the National Defense Strategy and the Defense Buildup Program—that propose a significant expansion of Japan’s military capabilities and a major increase in military spending over five years. The documents enable important modifications of the senshu boei (exclusively defence-oriented policy) that Japan has followed since 1946, not least allowing Japan to participate far more actively in collective self-defence with the United States and to substantially increase its ability to project force beyond its borders.

And to be THAT Japan, the vassal of the West, USA, in its hate toward China, what terrible times, really, and that is a question I posed Robert, who is in his 70s, has had medical issues for years, and seems to be happy and content with not rocking boats and rattling cages. You’ll see again, people are people, wherever he ventures. That is his chi.

Without further ado, here’s the interview, in his words, unadulturated:

1. What do you miss most about your mother?

Her smile, which could light up a room, her infectious giggle, her stories, and the warmth of her hugs.

2. What do you believe have been the most transitional and emblematic changes in your character as you have become an ex-pat of Japan?

I’ve become much more accepting and patient. Too many times, especially in my early years in Japan, I would react to things people around me did or said based on my limited and direct interpretations of Japanese into English in my head. Without having the cultural advantage of knowledge of nuances in intonation, idiomatic language, sarcasm, gestures, and even levels of politeness, there were often huge differences in what was really being conveyed and what I thought was being conveyed. I committed many cultural faux-pas.

Eventually, I learned to pay attention to how native speakers interacted with one another. I tried as much as possible to copy what they said and did in certain situations. The concept of wa, or harmony, is indispensable to the functioning of Japanese society. Individualism is accepted but not necessarily encouraged. When you think about it historically, it’s easy to understand. I mean, you’ve got a country with 120 million people crammed into the space of California, and probably 70 percent of that land space is mountainous and uninhabitable. People in most cities are piled one on top of another like sardines in a can. In order to survive, they have to be able to put up with a lot. In that sense, I’m lucky that we live in a somewhat rural area with plenty of space and greenery.

When I finally got around to noticing in detail how Japanese really communicated on a daily basis in public and in private, as well as trying to accept things as they were instead of judging, I found my own life improved and I had a lot less stress, despite still not understanding 100 percent of everything that was going on.

3. What does it mean to you to be a conscientious objector?

That’s a bit of a loaded question, wouldn’t you say? If I tried to answer it with some kind of philosophical or religious tenet, I’d probably come across as a self-righteous and condescending asshole.

To me, it’s really just a matter of common sense. I’ve never felt the need to align myself with one particular group or way of thought in order to express the importance of nonviolence. I’m not against the idea of using force to protect myself or others, but just the idea of violence, whether verbal or physical, let alone killing, especially in the name of one’s government or tribe, makes me sick to my stomach.

In one form or another, I think we’re all conscientious objectors at heart. In retrospect, most people come to see wars as senseless and insane. It’s never a matter of one side being more righteous than another. Even today, we see a tendency to point fingers at perceived perpetrators of criminal acts and claim the superiority of what our government tells us is reality and truth. In the case of what’s going on in Ukraine, I think we should do what we can to provide support to those young men refusing to kill on either side, Russian or Ukrainian.

4. What key lesson in your early years, post prison, up to way before Japan, did you gain as both personal philosophy and a way to move forward with your life?

My journeys across the U.S. and Europe in 1973 and around the world in 1977 resulted in my having less fear of the unknown and more trust in total strangers. From the moment I first stuck out my thumb while hitchhiking on the highway leading out of my hometown, I had nothing but positive experiences. This newfound faith was in a sense akin to Bob Dylan’s line in that song “Like a Rolling Stone”: “When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.” By throwing away any worry of not having to follow a plan and basically casting my fate to the wind, I opened myself up to experiences, places, and people that would ultimately lead me to a multitude of adventures, opportunities, discoveries, friendships, and an appreciation for living life in the moment.

5. What if you had not gotten called up for overseas duty but were still in the Air Force? Would you be a much different man, thinker, and person if none of that happened to you? Explain.

I’ve never been one to dwell on “what if” situations. I’ve always tried to move on and deal with the consequences, good or bad, of whatever fork in the road I’ve chosen. At any rate, I probably wouldn’t have naively entered the Air Force if there hadn’t been a war going on or an eventual draft notice coming with my name on it. I can’t imagine myself as still being in the Air Force. As I see it now, that was simply one path I traveled early on in life that led to the next path. I’ve come to accept all the paths I’ve walked as necessary and natural in the arc of my life story.

6. Truly, Japanese culture-people-history is so much different than the history of your birth country and your mom’s place of birth and death. A few contrasts you think would be worthy of prominence in this interview?

I’ve lived in Japan for so long now that I hardly ever think in terms of comparisons or differences between the countries. Besides, even if I tried to make comparisons, they would be outdated as the images I have in my brain about the States are mainly from the 1960s and 1970s. I’m stuck in a time warp. What I have noticed about Japan is no different from observations I made on my journeys through other countries in the 1970s. People everywhere go about their daily lives in much the same way. They’re concerned with putting food on the table, health, family, and all the rituals of working, celebrating, grieving, showing appreciation, getting high, entertaining, and taking care of one another. If you are open to them, they’ll open their arms to you.

7. Is there anything you like about the US foreign policy, US government? if not, why, and if so, expand.

I like that the U.S. is often way ahead of most other countries when it comes to helping out in times of a natural disaster. The main thing I don’t like is the U.S. having military bases in almost every country on the planet. I mean, come on! Think of how much good all the money wasted on military expenditures could be used for in battling poverty, disease, crime, pollution, all the things that will probably wipe us out as a species.

8. Being a young man when you grew up and came of age, well, so different than now, as an 18-year-old. Give us some insight into what you think is different now being a young man growing up compared to 1965 to 1975 in your case?

When I was an 18-year-old, we got much of our news from just three different TV news stations. My generation was probably influenced more by the music we listened to, the underground newspapers and magazines we read, and the movies we watched than anything else. I think we had time in those days to digest and discuss the issues that concerned us.

With the advent and ubiquity of today’s social media, news is aimed at and consumed by insulated tribes at a break-neck speed. Memes and 30-second Tik-Tok videos present issues that are gobbled up and replaced within minutes. It sometimes seems as if critical thinking has disappeared. Young people have to contend with too many forms of media demanding their attention 24 hours a day. No one seems to have the concentration or time necessary to read slowly and carefully and think about something that doesn’t reinforce the opinions they’ve already had formed for them.

I’d like to see someone develop an audio or video app that would read stuff like Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States and every ten pages or so take a break with a hip-hop or rap song or whatever music is popular at the moment and then summarize the contents of what was just read and ask you what you thought. That would be cool.

9. What about writing resonates with you, your spirit, your intellect that you can share with say readers who are not wired that way. 

Originally, I came to writing as a means of exploring the confusion I felt about life, family, meaning, everything I didn’t understand in my youthful angst. I can’t say it led to any profound revelations, but it was cathartic. My exposure to young hippie artists, musicians, and poets during my first journey to Europe in 1973 influenced me enough to want to explore a means of expressing myself. At the time, the lives of those people seemed so fulfilling.

I think my mother’s influence played a strong role, too. As far back as I can remember, she was always playing music, writing poetry, painting scenes of nature, and expressing herself in many other ways. Her eyes always lit up when she was involved in something artistic. I guess I ended up just trying to follow her example. Writing has given me great satisfaction in life, and whenever I’m in a state of confusion, frustration, depression, or even excitement, I put pen to paper. At the end of a writing session, I always feel somewhat relieved and even interested in where some of the thoughts and descriptions came from.

Mom used to say, “Try making some lemonade out of the lemons in your life. You might find yourself feeling better.” I think the answer is as simple as that. No harm in trying, and it’s a helluva lot better than drinking yourself to death in order to forget.

10. You know where I stand politically and ethically. Japan is not my cup of tea in terms of the history of hate and mayhem with China, Korea, and in the Pacific, etc. And now, Japan is so aligned with the dirty USA, so I can’t really muster up a great theoretical love of the place. But, you do love your wife, the people who shepherded you and those you have shepherded. Riff with this. 

That’s it right there. The people. Again, maybe this stems from my journeys as a young man, but I found that as long as I was open to others without any preconceived notions based on any country’s history or on the things I’d heard or read about it, people anywhere would be open to me. We should always separate the people of any country from their government’s actions or policies. We shouldn’t judge individuals without trying to communicate with them first.

I’ve shared drinks, meals, pipes of various substances, and time with people from many different countries who had reason to hate me simply because I was American and my generation or my ancestors had been responsible for the suffering of their people. Or even some of them personally. In some cases, it was the other way around.

The fact is we were able to communicate somehow without judgement. At some point, I’d learned how to be a good listener. I didn’t try to force my feelings or beliefs on them, and they didn’t try to force theirs on me. We expressed ourselves — sometimes with the help of interpreters, sometimes not — but what seemed to matter most in those moments of attempts at communication and understanding was the sincerity of the individuals involved. In my case, Japan was never an ultimate planned destination. I could’ve just as easily ended up in Greece or Spain or someplace else. As it turned out, fate intervened and I ended up here. I was lucky things turned out the way they have.

It may sound corny, but I really believe, more now than ever before, that we are all members of one family. I don’t think of myself as an American; rather, I think I’m a world citizen. If the human race can’t ever fully grasp that we’re all connected and dependent on one another, then I’m afraid we’re doomed.

Concerning that, a George Carlin quote comes to mind. In one routine about how he thought people trying to save the planet was bullshit, he said he thought that the earth didn’t give a shit about us human beings and it’d be just fine after we self destructed. He said, “The planet’ll shake us off like a bad case of fleas.” I think he’s right. In the overall scheme of things, the existence of the human race is really inconsequential.

11. What do you want people to know about your mother — key points — from and after reading the memoir?

Her compassion and her capacity for total and unconditional love. Her courage, curiosity, tenacity, sensitivity, perseverance, insatiable thirst for knowledge and understanding, and dedication to family. Her stubbornness, self-sacrifice, generosity, strength, zest for life, and the joy she gave others simply by being with them. Do you want me to continue? I can go on and on. Good Lord, how I loved that woman!

12. What gives you hope?

Children at play. Children who know they are loved. Parents in the kitchen preparing healthy meals for loved ones.

13. What presents you with the half-empty glass scenario, and if you always see it half full, then riff, discuss.

Watching corporate news programs gives me a bad case of seeing the glass as half empty. Looking at great paintings, reading great literature and poetry, listening to favorite music, hearing children laugh, eating healthy and delicious foods — these things bring back an awareness of the beauty of life and a “glass half full” viewpoint. Mom used to call herself a “cock-eyed optimist.” I think I inherited that characteristic from her.

*****

For those readers who want to get under the skin of a regular guy, who was growing up in California with a strong mother in the 1960s, with a family connected to one another, and then of course, with those so-called ‘black sheep,’ including many skeletons in various closets, following a pathway from naivete to enlightenment, to immersing into an Asia society, to being one with the language and one with his wife’s roots, the reader will find much to explore here. Alcoholism within an uncle’s life , missing in action relatives, divorce (his mom’s), and a legacy of stories and narratives from his mother and her family, the book Robert Norris wrote has an undying commitment to family, his mother, her legacy. His mother is infused in his answers above in the Q & A.

Go to his website, poke around, and email the fellow. It will be worth the time.

And that creek’s rising: Hurricane Katrina, put that great NOL underwater in five minutes:

… If the good Lord’s willing and the creek stays down
I’ll be in your arms time the moon come around
For a taste of love that’s shining in your eyes
If the rooster crows at the crackin’ of the dawn
I’ll be there just as sure as you’re born
If the good Lord’s willing and the creeks don’t rise

… I’ll comb my hair down, brush my teeth
Shine up, slick up, dress up neat
Get everything looking just right
‘Cause I want to look pretty when I see you tonight
Just as sure as the rabbits are a jumping in the hollow
I’ll be there, you can bet your bottom dollar
If the good Lord’s willing and the creeks don’t rise

… If the good Lord’s willing and the creek stays low
I’ll be there a knockin’ at your door
With a hug and a kiss for the one I idolize

… I’ll wear my suit, my Sunday best
I’ll be there lookin’ my best
If the good Lord’s willing and the creeks don’t rise

… I’ll feed the mules and stop the hogs
Feed the cows and chop all the logs
Get all of my working done ’cause tonight we’re gonna have lots of fun
Just as sure as there ever was a preacher man
I’ll be there with a ring for your hand
If the good Lord’s willing and the creek don’t rise

*****

Digging the variations on a theme, that Norris title:

“God Willin’ & The Creek Don’t Rise”

Lyrics, a la Ray LaMontagne

Caroline,

In the mountains the sun sets up in ribbons so high, it’s like I don’t never wanna get old… don’t ever wanna die. We been seein’ steady rain, ’bout to drive us all insane, nearly lost a few head up in the pines. At night, when some of the boys get to talking up their girls back home, you know I tell ’em there ain’t none as fine as mine. I can hear old Chapman sayin’ come morning we’ll break the range, be pushin’ hard now for the plains.

I close my eyes and I can see you… I close my eyes and I can feel you here. God willin’ an the creek don’t rise, I’ll be home again before this time next year. Though I fear this fever won’t break…

-All my love

Finally, the Pentimento in his title goes two ways: In painting, a pentimento is “the presence or emergence of earlier images, forms, or strokes that have been changed and painted over.” But, then, the  etymology is Italian, literally, repentance, correction, from pentire “to repent,” from Latin paenit?re

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Paul Haeder.

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