All Entries in the "Featured Peeks" Category
Nisei Christmas
“Men speak of them well or ill; they themselves are silent.”
– Stephen Vincent Benet, Ode to Walt Whitman
One Yuletide near Granada, Colorado in 1943, two soldiers sat in a dark cafe watching the snow come down. Snow was still a marvel to these California boy transplants who would be shipping out for Italy in a few days. There was no visible sun in the sky and the windows of the cafe looked as if they hadn’t been washed since the First World War concluded some 25 years ago. One of the soldiers, Private Thomas Okamoto, would go on to be one of the most decorated fighting men in the European Theater. The other, also decorated, would serve for two years in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and see action at Salerno Bay, at Naples, at Cassino, and at Anzio. His name was Kiyoshi Nakamura. He was killed by a German sniper near Saverne, France in early 1945.
It was June of 1944, in Rome, that Nakamura met my uncle Clifford, and shared the following story. He wrote it down soon afterwards, in an attempt to keep it all straight. Perhaps a survivor could make sense of it.
We were staring out the window onto the soggy Colorado street. The flakes melted when they hit the frozen ground. Private Okamoto was talking about his uncle’s strawberry garden back in California. He didn’t know if it was still there. Yes, we were afraid to go to war and we were afraid for our families behind barbed wire at Granada. Both of us had parents detained.
A tall, thin rancher stumbled into the cafe, ordered coffee and sent a bone chilling stare in our direction. It wasn’t a hostile look, more one of astonishment, of lassitude. He turned tiredly away from us and asked the walls and ceilings what the world had become.
Then, without warning, he approached our table. We thought he must be drunk.
“Looks like snow,” he said. “How long you been in?”
Private Okamoto answered him, followed by a crisp sir. He motioned at the chair as if asking it to dance, then sat down.
“I’ve heard a lot of you pups were joining up,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean to stare but you two are the first I’ve seen in uniform. Where they sending you?”
“Italy, sir,” I answered, “for the time being. Then Berlin.”
“You won’t see much of this damned snow until way past Rome. Where are you boys from?”
“Santa Ana, California, sir. We are only here to visit our families at Granada. They were relocated over a year ago,” I answered. “We brought them Christmas presents.”
“My name is Walters, Frank Walters,” he said, describing a cold, wet Christmas at Cambrai, in France in 1917. “I was at Belleau Wood as well, and with the Brits at Chateau-Thierry after the Germans broke through in 1918. I survived. A lot of them didn’t.
“And now our government is involved with another war with Germany…and this time with those bastards, the Japanese,” said Walters, catching himself. He looked at the floor.
“You got a lot of family interned at Granada?” he mumbled into his chest.
“Most of them,” I frowned. “The others, a cousin and Private Okamoto’s brother are in the army. We are Japanese-Americans, you know.”
“I know,” breathed Walters. “Good farmers. Good neighbors. I don’t think they deserve what they’re getting. The country’s in a panic and some are up to no good.”
“After Pearl Harbor it’s not hard to believe,” said Okamoto.
Walters returned to his previous state, not saying anything for a few minutes, just staring out the window and then to the door as if expecting a visitor.
“How old are you boys?” he asked, returning to the present.
“I’m 19 and Kiyoshi is 20,” said Okamoto.
“The same age as my Tommy,” said Walters. “He was lost when the West Virginia went down at Pearl Harbor.”
We sat there in shock. After three days visiting a deplorable Granada and 14 weeks training to kill Germans, and perhaps even Japanese, we thought we’d reached a certain sense of numbness. Now we were sitting here with a World War I vet who had lost a son to the Imperial Navy, to young men his age who looked like us.
“My name is Tommy,” offered Okamoto, stumbling over his words in some attempt to ease the pain that all were feeling by now.
“You’re all Tommy,” said Walters, tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. “We were once children too and it was the same Christmas, but different. Germans and Japanese and English and French all wrapped up like the dark gifts of bitter winter. It’s insane,” he moved his head methodically from side to side. “They put your families in camps and yet you volunteer to fight.”
“What are we to do?,” said Okamoto. “Honor must override or anger, our fear.”
“Honor,” answered Walters, gathering his emotions. “You boys had better drop back a few notches on the honor thing and hold on to a little common sense when you get over there,” he said. The Germans are entrenched all the way up the peninsula. It’ll be no picnic.”
Walters smiled a shell shocked smile and changed the subject to the wine he had drank and the women he had met in France during his war. He then took us totally off guard and asked us to write him a letter saying that it would get to him in Lamar without an address.
“Just send it to Frank Walters,” he said.
We told him we’d send him a postcard from Naples and asked him to watch out for our families if he could.
“I’ll do that,” he said, getting up and disappearing into the snowstorm.
– Kevin Haley
Georgia Special Election Runoff To Define Senate Parameters
Current senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue are some real peaches past their time.
Loeffler the Carpetbagger was appointed not elected, and is not even from Georgia. She faces Rev. Raphael Warnock, who grew up in the projects of Atlanta.
Sonny Perdue, the former governor, now insider trader with egg on his face, is just another rich Republican whose family ties bought him a job. Sonny refused to debate Jon Ossoff, his Democratic opponent who destroyed him in previous contests.
We don’t suggest that Loeffler and Perdue are rotten. We just feel that they would better serve society if they would simply stay home and count their money and leave government to someone with some integrity.
Looking and listening to these two Republican throwbacks alone should convince anyone with an IQ over 200 to quit the GOP for good.
– Kashmir Horseshoe, Fallen Away Republican First Class
Official Sipping Phase Bumped Up
Regulation cocktail hour for December has been moved up an hour to accommodate the increase in traffic expected on the bridge and the Boot Hill Ferry over the river and through the woods to some such fantasy destination.
After the Twelfth Month festivities and Solstice the more traditional cocktail hour my once again resume. There will be no exceptions. This shift is in no way intending to interrupt naps, disturb quiet time, discourage afternoon delight or pay the wages of sin. We are sorry for any inconvenience caused by the change of holiday agenda.
Thanksgiving To Be Celebrated on Mondays Next Year
(Washington) The federal government has decided to make Thanksgiving a Monday holiday in keeping with its concept of uniformity. The holiday, in which citizens give thanks for the year’s blessings, has been celebrated on Thursday since its fantasy inception in 1623. Now it appears that it will join so many Fourth of Julys and Labor Days as a Monday notation on the calendar. Thursday celebrations appear destined for the scrap heap.
In 1789 George Washington issued a general proclamation for a day of thanks. That same year the Episcopal Church announced that the first Thursday in November would be a regular holiday, “unless another day be appointed by civil authorities”. In 1855 soon-to-be Confederate Virginia adopted the custom of a Thanksgiving Day. Ironically enough it was Unionist, Abraham Lincoln who proclaimed Thanksgiving as the last Thursday of the month in 1863. In 1941 Congress ruled that the fourth Thursday would be observed as a legal holiday. In Canada the holiday is celebrated in October unless the Blue Jays get into the World Series.
“It’s that part about civil authorities that fouls up the muffins,” said one traditionalist who feels this country needs all the culture it can get.
“Why fool with a good thing like Thanksgiving. Aren’t there more pressing social issues to deal with here?” he spat.
Persons wishing to continue the Thursday celebration have been hereby informed that they are doing so outside the law.
“These rogue turkey day revelers must be brought to heel,” said Congressman Oral Noise, who first penned the proposal. “The next thing you know they’ll want to celebrate the Fourth of July on the fourth of July. Bunch of damn communists!”
Sources here feel that the population will put up a fight in the early rounds but succumb to the homogenized version of Thanksgiving before long.
“We’ll indoctrinate the school children first and then frighten the elderly into submission,” said Noise. “And if we have further problems we’ll put a tariff on pumpkin pie.”
– Melvin B. Toole
Tyrannosaurus Jim Bob Terrorizes Elk Avenue
Caught Between Japanese Horror Films and the Nightmare of Bud Lite Commercials
2020 Continues to Provide Surprises for Crested Butte
(Crested Butte) A monster the size of a mammoth trophy home continues to prowl Elk Avenue this morning, frightening shoppers and disrupting the cosmic flow. Dubbed Tyrannosaurus Jim Bob by local jokesters the lizard-hipped intruder resembles the much-feared carnivore Tyrannosaurus Rex, from bygone days.
Local lizard experts say the monster probably emerged from Lost Lake because that sounds about right and matches up with the Jurassic cross-references “as well as anything else” . Other scientists, on the scene since the dinosaur’s arrival on Monday, say he might have crawled out from local sewers or even from under the melted snow. They blamed residents who often bring back baby lizards as pets from Florida then flush them down the toilet after a few weeks. Either way, the monster is here and everyone wants him out.
When asked why anyone would keep a baby alligator around town for even two weeks the source said she did not know.
“Keep in mind, we’re dealing with a creature with a brain the size of a walnut,” said one deputy sheriff, “and I’m not talking about a government official here. All the years of Free Ski
The giant lizard that has created panic in this normally tranquil burgh has been blamed for the disappearance of countless deer and elk but may have tempered the town’s growing bear problem.
didn’t prepare my department for this kind of duty.”
“What are we going to do if he’s still lurking by Christmas?” asked one parade organizer. “We’ve tried to lure him over Kebler with prehistoric treats. We’ve tried to have him towed away. We’ve even subjected him to hours of The Tamburinda Trio*, but he’s still here.”
In just three days Jim Bob has overshadowed both the World’s Largest Elk and even Princess Vail herself. If the pace continues he will emerge as far more notable than both Pike’s Peak and the Garden of the Clods near the holy city of Colorado Springs.
He’s right up there with the Denver Broncos,” said one stool jockey.
Denver TV news professionals, who at first called the entire episode a hoax, were eaten for breakfast (SUVs an all) by Jim Bob earlier today much to the chagrin of proprietor of Soupcon, who had laid out a substantial brunch for the giant lizard.
“We had a massive feast prepared for the ungrateful freak up Washington Gulch,” according to a spokesman for the eatery. “But I guess when a dinosaur is hungry for fresh meat he will not be denied.”
Already many summer events in the town appear in jeopardy. One source with the Crested Butte Arts Festival has announced plans to combine that event with a quickstep Crested Butte Dinosaur Days celebration featuring Brontosaurus on a stick and the traditional Pterodactyl pie.
“We may have to move our arts and crafts booths over to Sopris or Maroon if he continues his preference for Elk,” she said. “His tail alone could create havoc with our electrical hook-ups and that says nothing of the pooper scooper dilemma.”
Local biologists insist that Jim Bob is simply in town searching for a suitable mate and that if he finds one he will return to the wilderness. Teams are scouring the Petrified Tourist Arches and the Edith Bunker National Forest for signs of a female Tyrannosaurus. So far they have had no luck although one local lady has offered to meet Jim Bob for a drink.
The situation has gone from bad to worse. Just last night Jim Bob was observed attempting to seduce a 65-foot RV over on Teocalli. After about an hour of suggestive traversing, the thing tipped over, instantly ending the romance and terrifying the inmates, an elderly couple from Kansas.
Architectural watchdog, BOZO, has filed a lien on the reptile saying that Jim Bob fails to adhere to building specifications. Authorities, beside themselves over the incident, hope that the dinosaur could get caught up in red tape and thus be forced to comply with the town’s many ordinances.
“Either that or we appeal to his sense of good taste and historical precedence,” said one officer.
Biologists at the Rocky Mountain Flowers and Marmots Laboratory at Gothic insist that the giant lizard is on a mission. They feel it has something to due with the dinosaur soup bones unearthed from a vacant lot adjacent to the Talk of the Town Tavern on Elk.
Most of the region’s cool heads concluded that the animal must be trapped and be sentenced to ten days in the Gunnison Jail plus 40 hours of public service. No time or date has been set for compliance deadlines and the serving of warrants. Just exactly how the who and where cards will be played is still up in the air.
– Kashmir Horseshoe
*said the drunks over at the bar
