Horton Deakins's Blog, page 22

That sharp dropoff wasn't on the map

Buddists following the Eightfold Path

I'll never forget these two guys who were out to do me a good deed that day.  In Buddhism, salvation (Nirvana) is claimed to be achieved via one's good works.  These fellows found an excellent opportunity in this foolish American who ran off the road.

This beautiful area is close to scenic Lake Towada, a volcanic crater lake, and the road leads (in the other direction, up the hill) to the Tsuta onsen ryokan.  An onsen is a hot-spring bath, and a ryokan is a traditional Japanese inn.  I had just come from the ryokan, although I did not stay at this one–just drove by to see it.  On the way down the hill, driving on the left side of the road, as all who drive in Japan do, I glanced down at my road map in the passenger seat.  I took my eyes off the road for only a moment and slid off the road with two wheels.  I was lucky I didn't flip over.  This road, like most in Japan, had no shoulder, and in this case there was a sharp drop-off of about six feet (two meters).

I hadn't seen another vehicle for some time, so I grabbed my water jug, put on my coat, and started jogging down the hill to find the nearest service station, which turned out to be several kilometers away.  Then it started to rain.  These young Japanese men were going up the hill to the ryokan and turned around to help me.  They took me to the service station and tried to get their auto club to help, but they had to go to plan B. They purchased a tow cable, but they would not let me reimburse them.  They even refused my offer to buy them food or a drink.

Unfortunately, they were unable to pull my car off the ledge.

Towada tour bus

No vehicles, then, all of a sudden, people everywhere.  I think this busload of people must have been staying at the ryokan.  Everyone wanted to "supervise" my rescue.  After a bit, the passengers re-boarded the bus and went about their way.

At the service station we had met a heavy-equipment driver with his Komatsu earth-moving equipment.  He had promised to come up the hill to pull my car back onto the road, and now he had finally arrived.

Road grader to the rescue

In this shot you can see how the wheels on the right side (the driver's side) of my car were not even touching the road.  The ditch was deeper than it looked.  When the grader finally pulled my car free, it rolled into the yellow monster and got a nice dent in it's right-front fender, just above the parking light.  The driver didn't mind taking my offer of 5000 yen (about $35), so no fast track to Nirvana for him.  You can't tell much about him in this photo, but the other two gentlemen (never caught their names) have now been immortalized in my blog.  Domo arigato gozaimashita, tomodachi!

It's all about the food

Sushi in the Eigth Gate City

Well, not everything is about food, but I wanted to share some more of my Japan photos, and today they start with food.  I'm about 34 years old in this photo, and it was so long ago that, if I didn't know it was me, I wouldn't recognize myself.  The restaurant was located in the city of Hachinohe, Japan (pronounced hah-chee-noh-hay), which means it was the eighth of the "gate" cities in the north of Japan.  The table was one of those short ones where you sit on a cushion on the floor.

Sushi close-up

Here's a better look at the sushi I was about to eat.  Looks pretty much what you can find in America today, doesn't it?  Plastic, fake greens and everything.  One thing I'll say, though–they typically don't give you fake wasabi in Japan.  Here, the wasabi is mostly powdered horseradish colored green and rehydrated for serving.

3-D menu

Every good restaurant in Japan has to have depictions of their dishes in a display window visible from the outside.  It all looks very real, very appetizing, but it's all plastic, just like the green stuff on the sushi plate, but much more carefully crafted.

Kabettsu

This field of cabbage is both green and real.  It wasn't a whole lot bigger than what you can see here, but it was still a commercial operation.  You can see one of the workers in the back stacking up the produce boxes.  This little field was nested into the city of Misawa, where I lived.

 

Uchikake -- Wedding kimono

See, not everything is about food.  Check out this Japanese wedding kimono, or uchikake.  I picked it up for a song (and about $120 American) at a used kimono sale.  The Japanese usually don't care much for used stuff, but since these things (at the time) could go for thousands of dollars, a rental market existed for those who couldn't afford to buy them.  After several weddings, they cycled the gowns out to resellers who primarily targeted Americans.  These things sported lots of hand-done embroidery.

Inside view of wedding kimono

I have no clue of what the inside material was made, but it looks rich.  It would be interesting to find out what the original price was for this kimono.  For now, it sits folded in a drawer, seldom seeing daylight over the past twenty-two years.

 

Before there was Sea World …

… there was Marineland.

Located on the tip of the Palos Verdes Peninsula in Los Angeles County, Marineland of the Pacific  opened to the public in August of 1954.  I don't know when Marineland closed, but I'm guessing that it happened before Sea World opened.  (UPDATE:  Sea world was established in the mid 1960′s in Mission Bay, San Diego, and Marineland closed in 1987, so both were open for more than two decades.)

Diver feeding fish at Marineland of the Pacific

Dad took these photos in black & white on our 1956 trip to Los Angeles.   We met up with his half brother and paid a visit to Marineland.  His brother's name was Paul, but most people knew him as "Monty," and he was quite a character.  He worked as a color editor in the movie industry, and rumor had it that he worked on The Ten Commandments. Some say he even did the special effects for the parting of the Red Sea, but his name doesn't appear in the credits anywhere, for anything, as best I can tell.

 

Shark

You may not be able to tell from these photos, but back in 1956 this place was da bomb!

Me, fascinated with fish

That's the back of my head in the center of the photo.  Mom's giving me a ride around the aquarium.  We're flanked by two of my sisters, and my dad's half-brother is at the left edge of the frame.  If you think he looks like he could be sixty, that's because he was.

This particular vacation also marked my first trip to Disneyland (pretty much everyone's first trip to Disneyland, since it first opened that year), but, as you can tell, I've already got my "E" ticket.  For those of you who don't know, for many years Disneyland sold books of tickets for their rides and attractions, each ticket sporting a letter code of A, B, C, D, or E.  The "E" tickets were for the most desireable rides, and they were priced accordingly.

Main pool at Marineland

This is, by far, the best of these photos. Uncle Paul, AKA "Monty," is looking straight back at the camera.  My three sisters are standing to his right, and it's quite obvious that something very interesting is going on in the water — well, interesting to everyone except my uncle.

I'm guessing that Dad took these photos before he sprained his ankle at the beach.  He hurt himself pretty badly, and he still had to drive our stick-shift car all the way back to Oklahoma.

Declaration of Independence — Part V

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and  unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on  the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an  Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit  instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms  of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us  in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death,  desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in  the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country,  to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our  frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of  all ages, sexes and conditions.

 

Additional Big Cedar Waterfalls

Declaration of Independence — part IV

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on  the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the  Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise;  the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for  Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the  conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing  Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and  payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people,  and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

More Big Cedar

This fog reminded me of the Smoky Mountains

Spring-fed stream

Waterfall

Waterfall

Waterfall

 

Another waterfall view

 

Wooly Bully?

Wooly mammoth

Nope.  Not a wooly bully, but a wooly mammoth.  And he's all decorated-up for Christmas in the lobby of the Big Cedar Lodge resort.

Big Cedar

Back door of Worman House

Back of registration building

 

The Declaration of Independence — part III

–Such has been the patient  sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former  Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries  and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.  To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in  their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to  attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those  people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and  formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the  depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

A rose by any other name … but in November?

Here are a few more photos from Big Cedar Lodge, starting with rose bushes.  Thanksgiving day the temperature got into the low sixties, but last year at the same time it was snowing.

Roses

 

Another waterfall

 

Carp pond

There were a number of large carp and catfish in this pond.  One catfish, we were told, was estimated at 27 pounds.  In cold weather they would normally hide in the depths, but this day they were congregating at the surface, waiting for someone to drop a quarter into the fish-food dispenser and scatter the surface with treats.

Reflections on a carp pond