Some Movements Are Bigger Than Politics
I just read this week's column by Eric Hunter on why he did not attend the Millennium March in Washington, D.C. ("Why I Stayed Home," issue of May 4-10). I understood him to suggest that it was an either/or proposition -- he could either attend the march or be an activist at home. Those were not the choices which led my family to attend. I believe we can all do both.
I went with my family: my partner of 19 years and our 13-year-old son. We witnessed the joy of "The Wedding," a blessing of 1,000 gay and lesbian couples on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. We also witnessed the hate of the "misinformed" and rejoiced in the love of the "informed" ministers from Christian and Jewish faiths who supported the unions.
We marched with 500,000 others to the Capitol with our freinds from PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), Northern Kentucky University's Commonground and COLLAGE, a group for teen-agers who have parents who are either gay or gay supportive. It was an inspiring weekend about courage, community and commitment.
Perhaps past marches were more about political agendas. If that's so, they were probably not the family frenndly event that attracted us this year. When Melissa Etheridge and Martina Navratilova met with families in the Family Pride tent, they did not speak about political activism but about community and caring.
I regret that many people, like Eric, felt that a march in D.C. must be about a clearly political agenda. They should have learned the lesson that I did from the Million Man March for black men. That incredible event was not about politics but personal responsibility, family and spirituality. The same goes for the Millennium March.
Last weekend, my family was visibly a part of a movement bigger than politics. I wish that Eric and everyone else could have experienced it, too.
-- Ernest O. Britton, Cincinnati
Massage Business Needs Therapy
In the article "Ah, There's the Rub" (issue of March 30-April 5), Don Meyer's own words that "there's nothing easier to market than a beautiful woman" reveals the whole business strategy for his so-called massage therapy venture. Marketing beautiful women has nothing to do with the healing art of safe, non-sexual touch which the public now associates with massage and which the medical profession has embraced as part of the healing process. As a licensed therapist, I am offended by his use of the word "therapy" since there is no indication the procedures found within any of his business operations "treat disease, illness or disability," which is how the word is defined in Webster's Dictionary.
And what an underestimate Meyer makes of a man's ability to receive therapeutic touch from a professionally clothed therapist! The goal of a true therapy session is an enhanced sense of well-being and relief of tensions which leave both the client and therapist feeling respect and honor for the privilege of working together. I would challenge Meyer to research the stringent licensing process that Ohio therapists undergo and to offer to his employees the option of the schooling at his expense if his intention is to honestly offer the public massage therapy. One of the first things that would be learned by his employees is that baby oil is not an acceptable topical substance to minimize skin friction during the application of massage techniques.
-- Kathleen Jacobs (Licensed Massage Therapist), Cincinnati
Closing Old Wounds
Reading the Cecil Adams column on the Japanese holdouts from WWII who stayed on in the Pacific islands (Straight Dope, issue of March 9-15) brought back a bolt of old adrenaline: My wife and I "bumped into" Mr. Yokoi two years before his capture! Lezlie and I were teaching in Guam at the height of the Vietnam War (1968 to 1971). We loved hiking into the deep rain forests on the weekends and exploring some rather inaccessible gems like Sigua Falls -- way deep in the spider- and snake-infested highlands. We trekked into Sigua during the rainy season, and that trail even in good weather was thinly traveled.
To get down to the pool and really see the falls, you had to struggle down steep banks and use ropes to slow your sliding. Another couple and we had just stepped out into the open area around the pool -- spectacular 60-foot falls heading into a bubbly and deep and clear bowl surrounded by extremely thick jungle. We looked up and were quite surprised to see a Japanese man, who looked quite surprised to see us. We spoke to him in English, then tried a word or two of Japanese, but he was nodding, backing up, speaking quietly in Japanese and still backing up into the foliage. Then he headed back toward where the cliff wall was totally overgrown and he just vanished in the green stuff -- heading up that vegetation and out of sight. A few weeks later, a few Marines with ropes tried a similar recreational climb and one fell and needed a chopper evacuation.
The surprised Japanese man somehow looked like a soldier. He had a military belt, and the bayonet had no sheath left but just the metal clip. The bayonet was filed down to less than half its original width. The clothing somehow looked like a uniform, too. He was no farmer, and Japanese tourists -- with the high level of animosity that still existed after the WWII occupation by the Japanese -- were never allowed to go to areas like Sigua without plenty of local supervision.
I discussed the encounter with the paper editor of the Guam Daily News and told him it had to be another holdout. Joe Murphy, the editor, said, "No way. The 1963 hurricane must have killed anyone left. And of the two that showed up in the late 1950s, one was shot to death and the other said they had not seen any other Japanese for years."
Yes, one such holdout was killed on the spot in the late '50s and it never even went to trial. Two years later, when Yokoi surfaced publicly, I contacted Murphy and he contacted UPI and our story went around the world -- Murphy indicating I was not crazy. Some details we now know:
1. Pre-war, Yokoi's civilian job was as a tailor. He would occasionally steal material and made his own outfits to replace worn clothing, but he used his uniform as a pattern. Thus the military appearance.
2. Not only did the Bushido code prevent surrender, but the military command had said that this may be a war of attrition, so "hold on and we will be back." Yokoi just followed orders.
3. He hid out in an area which held the military reservoir, and military folks on the weekends would hunt that rather desolate area for deer. So from time to time, Yokoi sees men in military fatigues carrying guns around and thinks "Good lord, 20 years and they are still coming after me!"
4. In the late 1940s, a small group of Japanese holdouts were spotted and arrested at an outdoor movie on a Navy base in Guam. They admitted that they had come several times before, and were big Betty Grable fans.
5. After Yokoi's well-publicized embarrassment, he collected his back pay, which after inflation amounted to about $140 for 28 years. Japanese children across the nation collected a six-figure donation to sustain him, again to his amazement, as he expected to be ostracized.
He visited and tended his own grave site which his family had established and took a year to meditate on Mt. Fuji with Bhuddist monks to get his head back together. Tokyo when he left was mainly two stories high and wood. On his return, there were skyscrapers, subways, chopper pads and even monorails. Buck Rogers would have been impressed.
I wish so much that Lezlie and I could have met him and talked about his own impressions of that brief time when he was discovered. At least, after all those lonely years, he did find peace. He eventually married a woman who was widowed in WWII and had never remarried. Together, they brought closure to open wounds of nearly three decades' length.
-- Larry Mayfield, Cleves
