Maybe he lives in the Klondike. You have to be extra tough to live there.
KlondikeGeoff, I’m delighted you’re here. I’d love to hear about your life experiences!
Geoff, it is great to see you again! Looking forward to your continued contributions.
What do you think about the new place? We’re all still kicking the tires, looking at the engine, checking out the paperwork that was included in the glove box … How do you like it?
Ha, my first date was in high school. Different times, I kept being asked if i kissed her. The standard then was never kiss on the first date.
My parents were divorced when I was about four and I stayed with my mother who was a New York City girl who grew up in an orphanage. When the Depression hit, she was laid off as a secretory and then things got tough. My father, one of he first dead-beat dads, was supposed to give us $35 a week, but the most we ever got was $20 a month, which even back then not enough to keep going.
She managed to get a job now and then, but it never lasted long. Many years later I found in her materials a list of all the places we lived, as we kept moving constantly. In the 15 years between ages 5 and 18 when I went in the Army at the tail end of WWII, we liven in 32 different places. In all the boroughs of NYC except Staten Island, Mass, CT, VT and at five, we got on a bus and drove straight through to Calif, where we lived in L.A. Long Beach, and best of all, out on a ranch in Victorville where mom got hired as a housekeeper and cook for a bunch of writers who had all moved from NY. That was the best place ever for a kid,
Then, back East again to VT, then back to NYC. I then knew absolutely that I was country boy, as I hated the cities. It was tough going to a new school every year, but on the other hand, I had seen more than most kids who lived in the same house in which they were born. We finally ended up in a little town in upstate New York which I also really enjoyed. Still no income for the first three years other than the $20 monthly, but then when the draft started she got a job on the draft board, and finally some income. Of course, by then, much of the food was being rationed. So it goes.
Anyway right after graduating high school, I enlisted in the Army. After basic training I ended up in Fairbanks, Alaska which was really a wild and wooly place back then.
After getting discharged. I went to college taking a pre-med curriculum as I always wanted to be a doctor. I had two years of the GI Bill that paid tuition, the dormitory room and $50 a month. Still difficult but that class was 85 percent veterans, so we all scrounged and managed to survive.
The best thing about the army was that you could eat all the food you wanted, and for the first time I was not hungry all the time. Then, back to the meager amount of food we could buy, it was never enough. At the end of the first year, I got a job on a railroad on the section gang. Got all the food I could stick in my craw. as well as some pretty good pay. Only then did I begin to think, what the hell, I only have one more year on the GI Bill and then really no way to pay tuition for the next two years.
So, I sez to meself, no way I can finish pre-med, let alone go to medical school, so I dropped out. Following the previous trip, I got on a Greyhound bus and went straight through to L.A. I found a place to rent in Hawthorn and started looking for work. Finally got a job with North American Aviation, and even bought a used car.
Bu then the Korean War was getting pretty tough, so I reenlisted in the Army After a few months at Fort Ord, I was sent to Texas for medical lab school. After four months there, I was told to report to Ft Lewis in Washington for shipment overseas.
I figured for sure I’d end up in Korea, but that is when my luck turned good and things began to be better. We landed in Yokohama, Japan and eventually I was sent to Kyoto, IMHO one of most beautiful cities in the world. After several months I met a beautiful girl who worked in the same hospital where I was stationed. She would not go out with GIs, and politely refused every offer I made. Then one day in the newspaper I saw an orchestra from the US was coming to Koyo to to give a concert. I took a chance and bought two tickets and asked her if she wold go with me to the concert. To my astonishment, she agreed. I offered to pick her up in a taxi, but she said she would meet me there. It was years later before she told me that all the other GIs asked her to got to a cabaret or bar, so when I asked her to a concert, she guessed that I would probably be safe.
I had traveled all over the area every weekend and marveled at all things to see, So asked her again if she would like to go to a nearby lake which before the war was a big tourist destination. She had a friend who was also dating a friend of mine, so she would only go out on double dates for a while until she realized i was probably harmless.
We would then go to various places alone. She even finally invited me to her home that was way on the other side of the city where I met her mother and sisters. We would go on hikes in the hilly woods behind her house, which then at the edge of Kyoto. I looked at Google Earth not so long ago and searched for her address. The house is now in the middle of a vast tract of houses.
After several months I surprised myself by asking her if she would marry me. In addition to my parents, I had never ever met any guy who was happily married, so swore I would never fall into that trap, but every night as I lay in bed, I got thinking that I really did not want to lave without her when my hitch was up.
The Occupation made it extremely difficult to get permission. The application had to be submitted to the Supreme Commander in Tokyo, which was Gen. MacArthur when I started and Gen. Ridgeway when we finally finished. She had to submit family history, get medical exams and several other things. In my job I had a jeep, driver and interpreter at my disposal, and even then it to almost six months to complete the application.
Finally, I got the OK. We had to go down to the American embassy in Kobe where we were married by the Vice Counsel. After all that long process, he read the papers giving us permission, and then said, “Raise your right hands. Do you swear all of this information is accurate and true?” We said “yes” and he said “OK.” I asked “OK what?” and he told us we were married.That was it. What a surprise after all we had done. Anyway when we got back, her family gave us a huge wedding party.
From here on am going to refer to her as K.
Then as we were married, we were allowed to live off the base and we found a really nice little house to rent. We lived there for another six months or so and then I was told I was ready for discharge. I had signed up for three years, but due to the war, Truman extended it several months.
To show had bad it was in Korea, I was based in what was a 250-bed hospital, but we had over 2,000 patients. Most were in an annex that was once an art gallery. The whole main floor was full of double deck beds. Only soldiers with leg or other serious wounds got the lower bunk. They were all young kids who had no idea what the heck we were trying to do in Korea.
So, finally we took the old choo-choo train back to Tokyo which took eight hours, and now the bullet train does in it in about three hours. We took a taxi to Yokohama and got on the same old WWII Liberty ship that we took to get there. K was seasick all the way across which took13 days. There was a very long wait for a Japanese citizen to immigrate to the U.S., but she came in under the WWII War Brides Act.
We landed in Seattle and after a couple days of sightseeing, we took a bus down to Salinas where my car was in storage. We then drove all the way across the country on Rout 66, then northeast to PA and across to NYC where my mother lived. K stayed there while I went down to NJ to get discharged. She was astonished at5 how hhuge the United States was.
Back then it took three years of residency to become an American citizen. Being Japanese, K studded really hard and then aced the exam and got her citizenship.
From then on my luck continued to be good. We have three great kids and of course now I am retired. K is “only” 91, and looks about 40.
Of course, she grew up like I did, as the war in Japan left the civilians in dire straits and food was scarce, so now K isn’t very happy about the pandemic either. Doubt if we will outlive it, but who knows?. Hr sister in Japan is now 98 and still going strong.
Life ended up being pretty good. and I am very grateful.The times today are so different from what our generation went through that it sometimes is difficult to understand.
Thank you for your wonderful story.
Yes, thank you for that; really interesting to read. And congratulations on the excellent long marriage!
Is it all right if I ask, did K and your mother get along right away?
Oh, I love that story. My Daddy was of your generation.
You sound a lot like him.
I’m pulling for you and K to get thru the pandemic.
Good luck.
Thanks for the great story. I loved it.
Yes, they did. She liked K more than me. 
But she unfortunately died at the age of 58. Hard life did it I suspect. My father and grandfather both lived to 89, so I am the oldest one in our family tree…
Lovely, lovely story, KlondikeGeoff. May you post here many more years.
Great story, KlondikeGeoff!! By the way, my dad is 93, so you’re still a whippersnapper compared to some. But he isn’t a member of this board, so your record is still safe.
Tell K this bit of advice from a Covid survivor: Don’t be too polite to cough, really loud and really hard and deep. My pflegm sp? was wicked thick and hard to pull out from the deepest depths of my lungs, and if I had coughed like a genteel elderly lady I’d be dead.
Wonderful story, KlondikeGeoff. Thanks very much for sharing!
This has turned out to be a really interesting thread.
Geoff, my grandmother may be your age, but mentally, she doesn’t have the capability anymore of holding conversations, so it’s fascinating to hear whatever you have to say.
Do you think your attitude towards life has changed much in the last decade?
As someone once said about elderly celebrities not being selected for the DeathPool “The problem with choosing them is that, at their age, they’ve got very very good at keeping on living.”
Glad to see you are still hanging in there Klondide Geoff.
As for me, I’m sixty-five, and I’ve spent a little over thirty-one percent of my life here on the Dope.
Whew!
Yes it has, I am grumpier and frustrated with the younger generations. Isn’t that a surprise?
As for me, I’m sixty-five, and I’ve spent a little over thirty-one percent of my life here on the Dope.
You mean 24/7?
No, of course not! LOL But sometimes it feels like it.
I am a 99’er though.
KlondikeGeoff, thank you so much for sharing your story–or part of it, anyway. I’m sure there’s a lot more to it. What an interesting life you’ve led. May all your further adventures be happy!