Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Go Blow


      More Letters From Paradise
              Go Blow

Here in Honolulu we have a rich mix of ethnic people. But by far, the largest group of people are the Japanese. Their culture flourishes in our city. Signs in Japanese are everywhere. We have Japanese families living in our building. And, over time, I turn around, there is another new Japanese restaurant. I thought I had seen it all about Japanese culture until I saw an article in our paper about "Fukiya," written by Nancy Arcayna.

Fukiya it turns out is an indoor sport using blowpipes to fire darts at targets. Popular in Japan, with more than 40,000 participants,there are only only about 100 in Hawaii.

The focus of the sport is using abdominal breathing. First, the pipes are lowered while taking a really deep breath, and then the pipe is raised while aiming, and the air exhaled drives the dart to the target, some 20 feet away. Masters of the sport can propel a dart from a distance of about 32 feet! Lessons are free for first-timers. Fees range from $7.00 for a drop-in and $6.00 if you join the association. I would bet you any sum of money that the sport began in ancient Japan with the ninja assassins. What better way to kill, with a poison dart from some distance?

       Aloha
       Grant

My Buddy


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          My Old Buddy

His name is George Hennig, and we first met in 1965. We were both teachers working in  two separate school districts, only five miles apart. Teachers had been granted the right by the Michigan Legislature, to bargain for salaries. Teachers all across the state joined the Michigan Education Association. George was Monroe County President, and I was president of my school.

George had been in the Airborne 508, part of the 82nd Division. And I had been in the Navy. We found we had a lot in common: sailing,fishing,hunting,and beer.

Teaching salaries were miserably low. I was making $4500 dollars, with no benefits at all. George wasn't making much more. He is a journeyman carpenter, and worked his butt off roofing houses during the summer. I became Justice of the Peace, and worked for the State inspecting bees. The average salary in the county was $7,000 a year. Teachers wanted a $7,000 starting salary. When the schools in both of our districts failed to meet this figure, George resigned, and so did I. He found a job in another district near Detroit's Metro Airport. At his urging I followed after him. We stayed in that district until our retirement.

Those years were not all tea and roses. We went six years without a contract. Picketing,letters to the editor had no effect.There were problems too in neighboring school districts. Teachers in one district  refused to teach without a contract. The judge  ordered teachers to report to work, or go to jail. Some of the male teachers refused to do so, and were photographed, finger printed, and were sent to jail. They now had a record as a felon. When the dust died down, the returning teachers were reassigned to different buildings and assignments.
In our school district another teacher and I were suspended. But that is another story.

This story is supposed to be about George, but so much of our friendship was all bound up in those difficult years of labor strife. Let me turn now to better affairs.

With a better and brighter financial future, he was able to buy a sailboat. It was a far cry from his little seven foot rowboat. I also bought a smaller sailboat.

We sailed on the Western end of Lake Erie. The lake is the shallowest of the Great Lakes, and also the most mean for sailing. The weather can change suddenly. Our end of the lake contains a few islands. It was there that Commodore Perry defeated the British fleet in the War of 1812. The American ships were built right there. Fantastic effort. Hell of a story.

We had a friend Ron Martin, who owned an old wooden Trojan power boat. We went to South Bass Island to a place called Put-in-Bay. This place is famous for sailers to go and raise hell. I brought along an electric roaster,turkey, stuffing, and potatoes which were mashed with a beer bottle. The dockside dinner that summer is a great memory for both of us.

I should also write about our fishing together. First in his little wood rowboat, and later in his big boat. Once we caught 30 pounds of lake perch from the little boat, in really rough seas. We took most all of the fish we ever caught to Matthews Bait shop, where women standing in rubber boots, with rubber aprons, cut fillets for ten cents a pound!

Sometimes while fishing for perch, we would each hold two fishing rods with a spreader having two hooks. And often caught a fish on each of the four hooks.  

I remember one time while George and I were hunting rabbits, we came across a cache of antique bottles. While we were digging in the pile of bottles, George said suddenly,"Look there goes a rabbit!" We didn't get any rabbits that day, as we filled the pocket of our hunting coats with antique bottles.

Life changed for George when his wife Peggy left him, and all his children moved away, leaving an empty house. Sometime he and I would sit at the kitchen table and play our  dulcimers. This is a folk instrument often shaped like a violin, and is played by strumming the strings. Its origin is in the hills of Appalachia. There is also a dulcimer played with small hammers.

George loves to sing, and for many years he sang barbershop music. He even had his own quartet. And as we rode together to school, he would often break into song.

And speaking about riding together to school, we took turns driving our cars, and never were involved in an accident. One time we skidded into a snow bank, and another time the left front wheel of my pickup truck fell off.

 In the spring we would take the back roads with a six pack and look for, and find wild  asparagus. on our way home.

George and Lou have been together some 31 years. And they purchased a mobile home in Florida, where they would live to escape cold Michigan winters. They did not travel to Florida this past winter due to health problems. And as I write this, I will be eighty in August, and George is 89. George remarked when I last saw him, "Who would have thought that we would have lived this long?"

        Aloha
        Grant

Monday, April 4, 2016

Kosher Kilt


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             Kosher Kilt

Just when I think that I have heard it all, there is this great story coming out of Scotland. This is the place where men wear kilts, eat haggis, and make and drink scotch whiskey.

Scots are divided into clans, each one with a distinctive tartan plaid color. They vary in design and color and are very beautiful. Woven of wool, and worn by men around the waist and hanging to the knees. It's best not to ask a Scot what he is wearing under his kilt.

All of the above information is easily found. But I have discovered something new concerning Scottish kilts. There is a Jewish rabbi who was born in Scotland, and recently caused a Jewish kilt to be manufactured. According to Jewish law the kilt had to be made of linen, not wool, as all the others are. The colors are blue and white, the colors of the flag of Israel, and the Star of David woven into the fabric.

This is an excellent example of how the Jewish people have managed to survive for a couple of thousand years. They adapted to the country where they lived, but managed to retain their identity and religion.

If you happen to have any Scottish ancestry, this story should tickle you silly. It does for me. My clan is MacDonald of Glencoe. But if you don't happen to be Scottish, and are Irish instead, take heart, for Irish are only Scots who learned how to swim.  

        Aloha
        Grant

Arkansas Farmer


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           Arkansas Farmer

"My dad never took a dog to the vet." "Why? I asked." "He could always get another one." "And when they were sick, he would hit them in the head with a ball peen hammer." "He couldn't stand to see them suffer." "Told us kids he would use the hammer on us if we didn't behave."

"Saw him beat up a man who was once abusing a horse." "And another time he saw a black man beating his wife, and knocking her to the ground." "He beat him up too, and helped the woman up from the the ground." "He was still beating people up into his late sixties."

This tough Arkansas farmer who only went to the second grade in school, built a school for children of tomato cannery workers. The nearest school was far away, and would require the children to stay at school. The canning factory put four tomates in each can. They were called "Kiser Tomatoes," and were developed by this tough Arkansas farmer. It was a win-win situation. The children went to school for part of the year, the rest of the time they could be picking tomatoes.

        Aloha
        Grant

Fourth Industrial Revolution


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      Fourth Industrial Revolution

Robots are here, performing tasks which once were done by people. A prime example is the use of robots in the manufacturing of automobiles on the assembly line. The White House economic forecast, predicts that occupations that pay less than $20 per hour are likely to be automated into obsolescence. The first ones to be hardest hit are blue-collar workers and the poor.

Corporations and investors are spending billions-$8.5 last year, on artificial intelligence and robots. Why? Simple answer is that robots need no health plan or pensions. And they can be worked for as long as desired. A McKinsey Company forecast stated that 45 percent of workplace activities today could be done by robots. Some professors argue that there will be 50 percent unemployment in thirty years. What is to be done with these people?

The 2016 World Economic Forum calculated technology will likely destroy 7.1 million jobs world-wide by 2020. And only 2.1 million replaced. What is to be done with all the people without employment? And you thought that we only had climate change to worry about. Technology comes with strings attached.

         Aloha
         Grant

Empty


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                Empty

It haunts me still, after watching a BBC film showing the visit by a Canadian photographer to an empty Jewish school in Slovakia.

The school was abandoned by order of the Nazis. And the schoolroom is shown as it was when the students left it in 1942. No one  ever returned.

Bookshelves filled with decaying books. Curling pages covered with Hebrew print, and hanging from the ceiling a single clear lightbulb. Desks covered with dust and neglect.

Why, you may ask was this school building  abandoned and ignored? The answer is simple. This was a Jewish school. There was nothing there to loot. But they were wrong. There was treasure to be found on the shelves of decaying books. The heritage and beauty of a culture the Nazis could not destroy.

      Aloha
      Grant