I love photography. Anyone who knows me knows that about me. I started out as a complete novice, knowing only that if I pointed the box and pushed the switch I got some results. I had nothing to compare the results against, until I figured out there were professional photographers who did this for money. When I looked at their work I had nothing to measure it against, except to note that they were most of them pleasing to look at. I still had no measure to sort out why that was.
I once said that I have always had a rich inner life, and by that I meant that I have spent much of my life in contemplation and preoccupation with my thoughts. To be clear, I am an introvert with strong ties to the realm of the mind and soul. Some who know me have questioned that I am an introvert because they experience me as socially skilled and very much out there.
I ‘m going to tell you about this photograph, but first I’m going take a slight sidebar.
Learning the use of shutter speeds and aperture settings, the weight of highlights and shadows, or placing your primary subject composed aesthetically, are all well and good – they can often aid in the artistic use of camera and lens – but what must come before any of this is the passion for looking, the desire to see, the dance that allows you to enter into the realm of your subject, to be one with her, to unite with beauty. When one enters this world of the inner, nothing is the same, ever after. Which is truly who we are, if we would but find ourselves.
I have looked through the viewfinder of a camera since I was six years old coming back in February 1945 from three years in a prison camp in Southeastern Colorado for persons of Japanese ancestry. That was a mistake made by our government in a moment of hysteria and prejudice, but at the time it was what it was.
It is a little-known fact that toilets are magnetized and attract and swallow up iPhones. This is confirmed by scientific evidence compiled by this researcher in his own home. This has been colleague reviewed and scientifically confirmed by research conducted by other reliable sources in real time. The data is conclusive, all toilets have a powerful magnetic field surrounding them.
This story had its origins in an email in 2013 sent by Nina to Gordon with an idea for a writing project she had in mind. Nina is a retired teacher having spent years teaching dependents of U.S. military personnel in Okinawa and Japan, and later with middle school children in the U.S. Continue reading
Humor: sudden, inexplicable whim or notion. The quality of being laughable or comical; drollery; farcicality; jocularity; ludicrousness; ridiculousness; wittiness; zaniness.
When I initially thought of this question, two jobs came to mind, my first job ever which was working for the family from age eight on, and my last employment from which I retired.
I was eight when I first learned to drive our tractor, a second-hand Case, a huge monster of a machine on which I was so tiny I had to jump up and land on the clutch to shift gears. Mainly I drove it pulling a trailer as workers loaded boxes of peaches as we hauled fruit out of the orchards. Later around age ten we traded the Case in for a new Ford tractor, much smaller and more to my size, but as powerful as the old tractor. Now I could just use my leg muscles to operate the clutch, and shifting gears was world’s easier. Then Mom and Dad purchased a used WWII military personnel carrier and had it modified to work out on our farm: the carriage on back was removed leaving the bare frame of the truck, and a semi-trailer hitch was welded onto the back of the frame. Onto that hitch was affixed a semi-trailer, and now the semi-tractor-trailer was our vehicle to haul fruit out of the orchards, and transport it into town to the fruit exchange where we sold our crops.
My dear friend from high school, Celia Nina Wolpe, and I are working on a joint writing project about our lives during WWII. It is a memoir-infused novel about our two families and what in particular our mothers did to ensure our childhoods during that difficult and trying time. In our actual lives we didn’t meet until later when we were in high school, but for the purpose of our story, on the advice of our first editor, we initially met in the second grade at the age of eight. We live near each other, and in a short time become fast friends.
I was born on January 25th, 1938 to Yoriko Ann Nagai and Ben Noriaki Nagai. My birth certificate was formally filed on the 10th of February, 1938 listing my name as Gordon Noriaki Nagai. A subsequent addendum to my birth certificate was filed on the 28th of April, 1942, changing my name to Gordon Hideaki Nagai.
In high school I participated in two team sports, football and track and field, and did well in both. Because of my size, in football I was on the junior varsity team, what we called the B team. At age 14 I was 5’6” tall, and 120 lbs. soaking wet. I was fast, and coach had me in the backfield as a running back. Then we were called half-backs. We didn’t do particularly well as a team, and never came close to winning the league, but we did have some memorable good games to our credit.
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