Good evening, 919 Gang. We had three days in a row where
this space was filled only by words about Don Freeman. That tells you something
about the man.
JOHN FREEMAN writes:
Jack, I couldn’t
possibly or sufficiently or personally thank all those U-Ters who wrote such
nice things about my father – but please know how much I appreciate your
gracious, funny, poignant, heart-rending stories and memories. Well done, all.
Such well-crafted praise from those of us who love the majesty
of words and stories indeed touches my own heart, especially so Nick Canepa’s
Godfatherly tales, Bob Laurence’s “you mean a press agent lied to you?”, David
Elliott’s “ace” and “treasure trail” phrasing and, what a delightful surprise,
Michael Cavna’s “rolling arm flourish” and splendid artwork (he edited Tom
Shales’ stuff in the Wash Post? Wow!) -- plus so many others via email,
Facebook and phone calls. Each one treasured on its own.
Being Canadian and of a certain generation where modesty
was a hallmark and self-aggrandizing was regarded as tacky, Dad tried his
darnedest to avoid the glare of out-sized fame – note his sheepish expression
with Dinah Shore. That was for others gifted with what he regarded as far
greater artistic, comedic, theatric, literary talent and he was more than happy
to paint that portrait. But I’m absolutely certain he would’ve loved all
of it.
As I write this, I can’t help but think that, no, mere
words really aren’t enough. So I’ll stop now. But before I do, as Dad often wrote
in his column, “I seem to have more thoughts about…”
Let me add: Thank you, Jack Reber, for what you do to keep
us all together -- for as long as we live, and in some cases, even longer.
DAVE FELDMAN
writes:
Don
Freeman was the most graceful writer I ever met. We didn’t always agree on
things, although I did like his denigration of cats. One minor disagreement
came when he was ranking sports movies, and I insisted that “Bull Durham” was
one of the best sports films ever made.
“It wasn’t a sports movie,” Don quietly pointed out. “It was a love
story.” I think he was right
When I arrived at the San Diego Union in 1976, several of the writers
over several years told me that Don Freeman was one of the finest writers on
the West Coast. As an assiduous reader of his columns, I could not agree more.
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MICHAEL BURGE writes:
Hiroshima today is a city of nearly 2 million people. It is
home to the Hiroshima Toyo Carp baseball team and Mazda. If you drive a Mazda
6, CX-5 or CX-9, you are probably driving a car assembled in Hiroshima. Mazda
is a division of the Ford Motor Co., which is either highly ironic or a classic
example of globalism bulldozing over cultural divisions, I don’t know which.
But no one goes to Hiroshima to visit the Mazda plant or
see the Hiroshima Toyo Carp play in Mazda Stadium. All right, David Gaddis
Smith, some people go to Hiroshima for baseball, but most people go to visit
the Hiroshima Peace Memorial park and museum, which memorialize the dropping of
the first atomic bomb, which happened 72 years ago yesterday.
The day we visited Hiroshima was similar to the day the
atomic bomb was dropped. Midsummer, sunny, humid. We were there in the
afternoon, however, and the bomb exploded over the heart of the city at 8:15 a.m.,
as people were on their way to work, school, or temple. It was a Monday, and
the bomb incinerated 4.7 square miles of the city, leveling 70 percent of its
buildings. Seventy thousand people were killed in the blast and immediate
firestorm; by year’s end the number of estimated deaths reached 160,000, as
victims died from radiation sickness. The ultimate number of deaths is an
estimated 200,000. One largely untold story is that 20,000 of the killed were
Koreans, many of whom had been brought to the city as forced laborers.
The peace park bills itself as a neutral space dedicated to
the premise that no one anywhere should undergo the pain and trauma that
Hiroshima experienced with the dropping of the A-bomb, and the museum exhibits
are interesting. I found the oral histories compelling and the historical
photographs moving. One news photographer at the time said that when he went
out to shoot pictures of the devastation and death he couldn’t make himself to
click his shutter, because he was so overcome by shock at what he was
witnessing.
The peace park’s message is overtly simple: No More Nuclear
Weapons. The park and museum have served this cause well. Hiroshima city
officials have been very active in the cause of nuclear disarmament.
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| The Hiroshima Memorial Peace Park honors victims of the atomic bomb blast on Aug. 6, 1945. |
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| This is the iconic A-Bomb Dome, the skeletal ruins of the former Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, as seen through the window of a water taxi that runs down the Motoyasu River. |
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| Life in Hiroshima is rather normal in 2017, as shown by these two paddle boarders gliding past the A-Bomb Dome. |
But beneath the museum’s air of moral righteousness creeps
a covert message of victimization. While ostensibly impartial, some of the
exhibits seem to loudly whisper: “Look What They Did to Us.” I did not come
away with the impression that Japan sees itself as accountable for the events
that led up to the dropping of the bomb.
Accountability is a tall challenge for nations, especially
one that wreaked havoc on its neighbors for half a century.
I could find only one mention in the museum of the Rape of
Nanking, and I had to read between the lines to find it, as the massacre was
referred to as the “Nanking incident.” I found only one mention of the
enslavement of foreign nationals throughout the two floors of exhibits. And
some exhibits explain away Japan’s refusal to surrender – which would have
spared them the bomb – by repeatedly saying that the U.S. surrender terms were
unreasonable. “We told them we would not give up our emperor,” the exhibits
say, as if that relieves Japan of all responsibility.
This piece of history – whether the U.S. was justified in
dropping the bomb – is still debated, but one historical point is not debatable:
Japan in the summer of 1945 was finished and in no position to dictate
surrender terms. The battle over Okinawa saw terrible casualties on both sides:
12,000 Americans killed and 50,000 wounded; 150,000 Japanese and Okinawan
deaths. Many of the civilian deaths were by suicide after Okinawans took to
heart Japanese exhortations that U.S. soldiers would rape and kill them. The
U.S. military leadership concluded after Okinawa that an attack on Japan’s main
islands could succeed, but at an unacceptable cost.
This contributed to President Truman’s decision to drop the
first bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, and the second on Nagasaki three days later.
The bombing did not end then, as American B-29s continued dropping conventional
bombs on Japanese cities right up until the day Japan surrendered, Aug. 14,
1945.
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REBER: Happy birthday, Aug. 7, Mr. D.H.
(that’s Don Harrison and Dick Harrington).
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REBER: We were talking
about hip and knee replacements. Chuck Boyd told his story with words and
photos on his blog.
CHUCK BOYD forwards:
P.O. Box 2239
Ramona, CA 92065
U.S.A.
