Sandy
Japan 1952
Japan 1952
We lived on a military base, part of the American occupation of Japan after WW II.1956
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It’s the end of the summer, about time to leave Hawaii. When we lived in Hawaii, it was not a State. It became a state on August 21, 1959.
The arrival of Scott
Scott newly born, around Sept 1956. Sandy is 12 years old.
11th Birthday
Few American children today have such an open face. At the same time, this social life that my mother loved, was beginning to unravel the family.
1955 Hawaii
The 3 of us, grouped together in the yard of our home at Hickam AFB, Honolulu. Sandy is 11 years old now.
1954
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In Hawaii, I remember we spent a lot of time on the beach and in the water. As the picture shows, she was my security.
1954 Japan
Sandy here is in 4th or 5th grade.
1953-54 Japan
I have other pictures with the Japanese nanny. My faint recollection is that my mother lived was living a life without hard work, problems or worries on this closed military base. She had servants for the children, and a busy social agenda. Sandy was getting old enough to look after her brothers, something she did for the next 10 years. Many of my childhood memories are of Sandy, and not of my mother.
Sandy with Grandmother Rhea 1945
Here she is about one year with her grandmother, I think in the State of Nebraska.
Sandy 1946-47
Still in Nebraska, where dad was stationed at an Air Force base for flight training.
Around 1949-50
In California with grandmother Rhea and Bob, at “the Cabin.” Located in “Little Green Valley” in California.
1950
Still in southern California, before my birth outside of San Francisco.
1951
This is probably the summer before I was born, when the family was moving to Novato, California, where I was born.
1951-52
In Novato California, I’m about 6 months old in early 1952.
1952 Novato
In Novato California, I think dad is already in Japan. I am about one year old, and soon we will take a boat to Japan via Hawaii. Apparently, flying was not an option.
Sandy is in 3rd grade, 8 years old.
Early 1953 en route to Japan
This is a stopover in Hawaii. Elsewhere I have pictures of our time on the boat.
1953 Becoming a Japanese girl
Although we lived on a US military base, we had some connection with local Japanese culture.
1953 our home in Tokyo
We lived in “Grant Heights quarters #400”.
1957 Arriving in McLean
After leaving California, the next stop in a US state is McLean, Virginia. The McLean Virginia of 1957 and the McLean Virginia of 2018 are two different worlds. To illustrate, across the road from our house was a farm. There was no DC “beltway”. A large wooded area existed between our home and McLean High School (where Sandy and I both graduated HS). Where there was farms and woods, there are houses on a 1/4 acre plot. Because of the beltway and DC expansion, what used to be “deep rural” is now part of the greater DC area.
8th Grade
8th Grade in McLean, and Dalmation Drive.
Our childhood leaves a lifelong imprint on our characters.