I'll start with the San Antonio Spurs beating the Oklahoma City Thunder last night, a tense finish, because the game at the end was much closer than the score of 111-103. Want to see emotions? Watch how Victor Wembanyama reacted. The Spurs now play the New York Knicks beginning Wednesday. First team to win four games becomes the NBA champion.That was only a game. In Laos, five gold miners were rescued yesterday. However, two remain missing.
Moving on to my topic of the day, we had dinner with another couple in the dining room of 15 Craigside last night. As this was our first meal together, we shared what we all did to get us here. That made me further reflect on my life, especially, what turned out to be three 27-year periods leading to what I am today.
- My mother said on 7December1941 she held me in her arms and pointed to all the smoke coming for afar. I certainly don't recall anything, but I apparently saw the damage from the Japanese air attack on Pearl Harbor.
- World War II ended when I was five years old, all spent in the village of Kakaako, a lower middle-class area of mostly Japanese ethnicity. Aerial photo in those days. Note. No tall buildings.
The first 27-year period took me from 1945 to 1972, my educational years.
- Pohukaina Elementary, Central Intermediate (now called Princess Ruth Ke'elikōlani Middle School--Hawaii is in this transition phase of renaming various public places to more closely reflect the local past) and McKinley High School.
- While there is at this no time no active effort, there has been a push to again call my alma mater by the original name, Honolulu High School.
- The Hawaiian community is especially vexed that that President William McKinley was responsible for the unlawful annexation of the Hawaiian Kingdom. He was actually planning to visit Hawaii when he was assassinated in 1901.
- My high school first opened in 1865 as the Fort Street (a downtown street name and original location) English Day School, and in 1895, changed to Honolulu High School and moved to the former residence of Princess Ruth Ke'elikōlani. Remember above the re-naming of my intermediate school?
- So anyway, was moved again in 1907 to the present located, and renamed President William High School, in honor of the 25th U.S. President.
- At McKinley High School as a sophomore, I was an average student in an average class. Here they placed you in a social studies/English class of people with around the same verbal comprehension test result taken in the 8th grade. Almost everyone growing up in Kakaako had terrible verbal scores, for reading was not an important matter.
- Before our departure, my gang from childhood, perhaps eight of us, walked to McKinley High School, which was around a mile away. The person farthest away picked up the next to the final one who was closest to the school, and we were tardy to our home room more times than not. At that school, this meant you had to spend an hour in detention at the end of the school day. Also tarnished your record. No one cared much, including me. Such is life.
- My family moved to Kalihi some time that year, and I had to catch a public bus to school.
- More than anything else, this cut off my ties to my gang, and I never got late to school again in my life, even during my days later as a professor at the University of Hawaii.
- But more so, something crucial happened, my whole life changed. Here is a past posting that says:
- Lost my "gang," and the re-invention of myself began a lifetime of delusion and fantasy. My memory is weak and details are missing, but there are no actual exaggerations and everything is true as best as I can remember.
- I had an older brother who was studying for an advanced civil engineering degree at the University of Michigan. Perhaps he was the prime motivator.
- But with average grades, no activities and from a poor family, I suddenly decided that I wanted to do better than him, and instead go to the California Institute of Technology or Stanford.
- Keep in mind that with a sophomore class size of 850, in those days no one went straight from high school to a college on the mainland. Even my brother got an initial engineering degree from the University of Hawaii.
- What in the world was I thinking? Today, this makes no sense to me.
- But in less than two years I had to build a record to convince those schools to accept me, with a full scholarship.
- Impossible!!!
- So what happened?
- I could not do much in my sophomore year, but my grades significantly improved.
- I was placed in the top English/Social Studies class for my junior year.
- I remember the teacher being Mildred Kosaki. She had just with her husband returned from Minnesota, where her husband Richard earned a PhD in political science. She was a key factor in my efforts, and later, her husband, too. This was about her only year of teaching, for she went on to the private sector as a community planner, and later served on the board of Hawaiian Electric Company. Richard became vice-chancellor at the University of Hawaii.
- My math teacher, a Mr. Pang, I remember, because I got a perfect score in a comprehensive math exam, which apparently was phenomenal.
- My science teacher, Sueko Horikawa was also influential, and in another comp test, in physics, I also got a perfect score, and later was selected for the Bausch and Lomb Medal, for being the top science student.
- But early in this junior year I took a practice college board exam, and did well in math, but confirmed my 8th grade verbal score being in the bottom 10% because I scored in the high 200s. Yet, incredibly enough, was not deterred.
- Two key things happened in this junior year.
- I had not ever in my life run for any office, not even in a classroom. But I decided that the best way to acquire many activities was to become vice-president of the senior class. By pure luck, I ran against three females, and they somehow neutralized each other, and I was elected Veep.
- One obvious advantage I had was that I had broken my wrist in a class basketball game, and was wearing a cast. I was photographed with this injury showing in the Daily Pinion, and I'm sure I got a lot of votes because they were sorry for me.
- More importantly, many junior students then in high school mostly worked during the summer in one of the pineapple canneries. I couldn't because of my broken wrist.
- My senior year was amazing.
- During the summer before, because I couldn't work, I decided to improve my verbal score on the real college board test by essentially memorizing much of the Scholastic Aptitude Test book. Still remember the color: red and blue. Immensely helped because my under 300 score improved to around 650, placing me close to the 90th percentile. I almost reached 800 on the math portion.
- I submitted an essay and a poem in national competitions, and both got published in national anthologies.
- As Veep of the senior class, I was chairman of various committees, and one in particular was commencement, so I arranged to have Richard Kosaki give the graduation address. This was unusual, for in the past, those giving this talk were elderly and more distinguished. Kosaki had not yet even gotten tenure at the University Hawaii. I much later ended up joining the Manoa Campus, and in one assignment, worked for him when he had become assistant-chancellor.
- I needed some athletic activity, had some friends on the tennis team, and never before having played this sport, tried out.
- The coach, a Mr. Okamura or Okamoto, saw some potential in me.
- With the team, I played the next 668 out of 700 days.
- Became third singles, and had the best record for the team.
- Couldn't as a team beat Punahou (they gave scholarships), but won over Iolani, Kamehameha, Mid-Pac and Roosevelt, the prime contenders.
- In my senior year, fell behind 6-0 against Punahou player, but won the next two games and match.
- There were half a dozen other bits of accomplishments, and one had to do with pumpkin pies, which you can read: HOW TO LUCK OUT AND GET INTO STANFORD.
- Well, I got admitted to both Cal Tech and Stanford, but selected Stanford because the former only provided a small scholarship while the latter not only waived tuition fees, but added full room and board, plus a part-time job working in the rare book room of the library, a planned ploy I suspect, for no one came into that room, and I could study for two hours, Monday through Friday nights.
This posting seems long enough for one day, so I'll continue this story tomorrow or some time in the future. I still have my early work period and PhD years to cover in this first 47-year period.
The sixth typhoon of the season in the Orient, Jangmi, with gusts of 110 MPH, brought considerable rain to Naha, Okinawa today and will next roll over Amami Island. Early projections indicated that there would be a weakening to tropical storm strength before reaching the Tokyo coastline area. However, the storm eye is now traveling a little faster and might now approach the ocean space east of Tokyo before Wednesday, June 3.
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