Surfing with a Ukulele...
Last weekend, I happened to be hanging out at a friend’s store (Adrift Tahoe) on the beach at Lake Tahoe. One of the guys, Frank, was playing his guitar and I was having coffee and listening. I was quite content to just sit and listen. I remarked how nice it sounded. He stopped playing, jumped up, ran into the store and came back out with a ukulele. He handed it to me. First, I stared at it. Frank then showed me how to hold it, how to strum it, and how to place my fingers al
My Adoptive Mother Was Really Nice, but ...
I’ve already hinted that my adoptive father, Jack, was a very bad man. My Japanese adoptive mother was quiet and kind. Her father was a Buddhist priest and she was raised in a temple near Hiroshima. She went to college in Tokyo. In Tokyo, she met Jack. How or why she married Jack in her early 20’s, I don’t know. All I know is that she was more or less an oppressed military housewife, undoubtedly not how she had seen her life unfolding. She foresaw much more for me. My adopti
