I watched the news Friday morning in bizarre fascination not realizing what it was I was seeing. The video showed a sort of Technicolor sludge oozing its way across something. It had flames. Was it lava? I could not tell. I had no sense of scale. Then the voices started talking again. It was a tsunami. There was a massive earthquake. 8.9 magnitude. Tsunami? Where?? What is that long white thing?
OH MY F@
#KING GOD!!! THAT'S A TRACTOR-TRAILER TRUCK!!!
This is where?
JAPAN!! NO! The horror started to set in.
Then it got worse for me. Hachinohe was hit hard.
You see, I used to live in Japan. Misawa, to be precise. I had many friends in Hachinohe.
It has been almost entirely wiped out.
----
The London Evening Standard
Japan disaster: We are all terrified. There is no road map and we have no idea where we go from here"... Fridges and furniture litter the pavement. Rubble and twisted metal lie everywhere. Then my translator Minoru Yokoo starts shouting, "what's that? Oh shit, oh!" ..."
----
Are the bars I hung out at still there? Coffee shop? Barber? The highschool kid, Tadanobu Hoshi, I used to teach English conversation to? His mother was a great cook. How is the Buddhist monastery where my "punk rock monk" friend lived? The bar that cute girl named Eri Sato and her mother ran in the neighboring town of
Hashikami?
With cars on the roofs of three story buildings I can only fear the worst. I have so many memories. Japan has always been a sort of second home for me. Out of places other than the USA that I would choose to live, it would be Japan.
God help them. I wish I could go there. I have my own shovels and hammers.
I feel so inadequate and helpless.
Hachinohe is
5630 miles away and the devastation hits so very close to home, for me.
The weather forecast is that the wind will be blowing westerly tomorrow. This is bad. Radioactive snow. Let's pray that the winds continue to blow the
radiation from the Sendai reactor out to sea - to the east.
UPDATEHow you can help:
CLICK HEREBeware of scams:
CLICK HERE
