MY FAVORITE SONG: A Profound Mystery

A Profound Mystery is not a song. Tried You Tube and found one video on the subject. However, not worth your while to click on it. No dictionary even defines Profound Mystery, but that is because it only does this for an individual word. Appropriately enough, as this is Sunday, most of the reference to this term comes from religious sources.

God is a Profound Mystery. So is the Big Bang. Experts dally around the term, but no one can pin down the reality or unreality.

Similarly, I don't know why my favorite song is Wakare No Isochidori. It is distinctly possible that of the 7.6 billion people living on Planet Earth, I am the only person who has it as #1. WNI is the only song that was written and first popular in Hawaii, then gained some fame in Japan. When? Not sure, but probably in the 1930's.

Here is a quote from a posting of a decade ago, when I traveled from Sapporo to Wakkanai, the northern most city on Japan:

I was listening to some Japanese music on my iPod on the return trip back to Sapporo, and just about the point closest to Utashinai (on the map, 12 miles right of Takikawa), Wakare No Isochidori (parting song) came on, and for no explainable reason, tears came to my eyes. This is the only song written by someone from Hawaii that became popular in Japan. The songwriter, Francis Zanami, was born around the time of the birth of Kenjiro's son--my father. Hear the Misora Hibari version by clicking on her name. Another version by Nakamura Mitsuko. And a male rendition followed by his really old Columbia 78. And an instrumental. This can go on an on, for it was a very popular song.

(Interesting that none of those above videos is now made available on You Tube.) Utashinai was the original home of Kenjiro Takahashi, my father's father. Maybe tears came to my eyes because I had chosen not to stop there. That photo to the left was taken when I did return last year.

Zanami's life itself was eerie, for at a relatively young age, he was the leader of the Hawaii Shochiku Orchestra. He is third from the right in the top row from this photo, and the primary voice of this Club Nisei version could be that female to the right, Doris Taketa. He died at either the age of 34 from kidney failure, or 44 of a heart attack.

According to Rev. Hoshu Matsubayashi (born in Olaa, Hawaii):

One of the eight kinds of suffering in Buddhist teaching is: "separation from a loved one." The sentiment of this suffering was expressed in a Japanese popular song, "Wakare no Isochidori (Departure of Beach Plovers)." The song is about separation from a loved one in Hawaii. A line from the song is "Although I know the meeting is the beginning of the separation, the memory remains cherished in my heart..."

Wakare No Isochidori is a sad song, evoking a long journey, homesickness and hope. It still brings tears to my eyes, and I don't know why. Perhaps I identify with it because it represents my past life and the future.

A NEXT COVID SUBVARIANT?

By now most know that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant infectious agent, now accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 cases. Very few are aware that a new one, BA.4.6, is sneaking in and steadily rising, now accounting for 13% of sequenced samples . However, as BA.4.6 has emerged from BA.4, while there is uncertainty, the scientific sense is that the latest bivalent booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 should also be effective for this next threat. One concern is that Evusheld--the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID prevention in immunocompromised individuals--is not effective against BA.4.6. Here is a reference as to what this means. A series of two injections is involved. Evusheld was developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and is a t ixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab . More recently, Los Angeles County reported on subvariant BA.2.75.2 . which Tony Fauci termed suspicious and troublesome. This strain has also been spreading in

Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

Before I get into my third, and final, part of this cruise series, let me start with some more newsworthy topics. Thursday was my pandemic day for years. Thus, every so often I return to bring you up to date on the latest developments. All these subvariants derived from that Omicron variant, and each quickly became dominant, with slightly different symptoms. One of these will shock you. There has been a significant decline in the lost of taste and smell. From two-thirds of early patients to now only 10-20% show these symptoms. JN.1, now the dominant subvariant, results in mostly mild symptoms. However, once JN.1 infects some, there seem to be longer-lasting symptoms. Clearly, the latest booster helps prevent contracting Covid. A competing subvariant, BA.2.86, also known as Pirola , a month ago made a run, but JN.1 prevailed. No variant in particular, but research has shown that some of you will begin to lose hair for several months. This is caused by stress more than anythi

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These are held every five years, and there have only been

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