FUKUSHIMA: going on 4 months

     Although we are getting no news in the States that I know of about the nuclear catastrophe in Japan, sites like http://enenews.com/  continue to provide daily updates--because the disaster is not only ongoing, it's getting worse. 
     I know accounts about the situation in Japan, like Radiation near school zone 90 times Chernobyl level; 40 % of Fukushima refugees show internal exposure to radiation; Radioactive whales caught 650 km from Fukushima plant; and mutant rabbit born near Fukushima (VIDEO) or even  Radioactive cesium found in Tokyo tap water, and Radiation in Tokyo 3-4 times level at which Soviets evacuated everyone/Radiation hotspots 500-700 times normal (VIDEO), may be of only incidental interest to those of us in the United States.  
     But what about the following? These are of global concern: 

    BREAKING: More serious than a meltdown — Japan Gov’t now raising possibility that fuel had a “melt through” at all 3 reactors, June 7

     Gov’t report suggests situation “far worse” than meltdown — It "is the worst possibility in a nuclear accident”, June 8

     Fukushima already at Chernobyl levels-continues to release significant amounts of radiation, according to  Robert Alvarez, former senior policy adviser to the U.S. Secretary of Energy, June 11.
     And how about these? It's right here in our own communities:

     EPA: Radioactive Iodine-131 levels in PA & MA rainwater “exceed maximum contaminant level permitted in drinking water”, March 29
     U.S. radiation levels soar 20 times from Japan fallout; Idaho highest, 100 times above normal, April 7 
     Video: Radioactivity in Seattle: Nowhere to Run: Hot radioactive particles in Seattle at 50 percent of levels seen in Tokyo — Latches onto lung tissue (VIDEO), June 8

     Very high concentrations of hot particles in Pacific NW during April, May--includes plutonium and americum (AUDIO), June 29 

Memories of MUM - Message from Hiroshima Peace Park

    Today I will be one of those speaking at Hiroshima's Peace Park as we dedicate the memorial to my mother, Barbara Reynolds, for her humanitarian help to survivors of the first two nuclear bombs dropped on people.
     Here is the English translation of what I will be saying. (Japanese follows.)

     Honored guests, hibakusha (nuclear bomb survivors), members of the World Friendship Center, friends, and family:
     We consider it a privilege to meet with you today. My husband Jerry and I have come from California and my nephew Tony, one of Barbara's grandsons, has come from Texas. We also represent my brothers, Barbara's sons Tim and Ted Reynolds, her other eight grandchildren, (8 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandsons) who, although they were unfortunately unable to attend, send their greetings.
     We are here at the invitation of the Monument Committee to unveil a monument to my mother, who would have been 96 years old today. To me, it is amazing that the hibakusha of the nuclear bomb dropped by Americans would erect a monument to an American woman at their Ground Zero. I am so humbled by your forgiveness and desire to do this.
     Many people whose lives have been touched by my mother's life call her a saint, even a "national treasure."  But my mother would have been the first to say she was just an imperfect human being.     
     In September, 1964, my mother was 49 years old, reeling from the pain of divorce. My father had married another woman. My brother Ted had just gotten married. I had gone back to the United States. So she was alone. A friend of hers, a Buddhist priest, gave her permission to come to the temple on Mt. Rokko to spend time alone in meditation, fasting, and prayer. There, for a week, she lamented her failure to hold her marriage together and with loud cries to heaven questioned her purpose for living.
     My mother believed in the God who is above all other gods. This God is not the work of our hands; we are the work of His hands. He has created us in His own image. She knew Him as Creator and powerful controller of the universe.
     But until that week she did not know Him as a personal, living heavenly Father. At the end of that week, the heavenly Father spoke to her heart and told her that He loved her and forgave her. Her tears turned to tears of joy and peace. Then He revealed to my mother that His purpose for her was to take His love back to Hiroshima and show the hibakusha how much He loves them by serving them.
     Years before, my father had been part of a team sent by the American government to study the effects of radiation on Hiroshima hibakusha--to draw their blood and measure their height and weight and photograph them. But no one had asked them, "What was it like to experience an atomic bomb?" No one had listened to them or cried with them. Now, in obedience to her heavenly Father, my mother went back to Hiroshima, despite her sense of personal shame, to listen to them and serve them, to be God's hands and feet and voice. Out of her humility and obedience bloomed the World Friendship Center.
     She was not only a voice from the heavenly Father to the hibakusha. Hibakusha told her they considered her a voice for Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the world. She took that responsibility very seriously. And as she came to know them, they taught her the value of each life. She came to respect the brave, suffering, patient survivors of the first two nuclear bombs dropped on human beings. She began to identify with them and hurt for them. And so she said, "I, too, am a hibakusha." She wanted to accurately convey to the world their message, "No more Hiroshimas!" to urge everyone on the planet to choose peace and prevent the horror and catastrophe of Hiroshima from happening to anyone else, ever.
     Since 1945, starting in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the number of people exposed to the poison of radiation has grown through Chernobyl, Three-Mile Island and now Fukushima. Radiation does not distinguish between war and peace. Radiation from nuclear weapons keeps killing after the war is over, even affecting DNA and thus hurting later generations. Radiation from nuclear reactors causes increased numbers of lethal cancers in those who live near them, whether there are accidents in the reactors or not. We are here to assure all radiation-exposed people anywhere that we will not forget your distress. We will pass your message on from generation to generation: "No More Hiroshimas! No More Nagasakis! No more Fukushimas!"
     As you unveil this monument, my mother is just a symbol. She is a symbol of love, pointing to the source of love, the heavenly Father. She is a symbol of hope because anyone of us who humbles himself to listen to the "still, small voice" of our Heavenly Father can make a mighty difference.
     Thank you for honoring my mother in this way.

ごらいひんのみなさま、被爆者の皆様, ワールド・フレンドシップ・センターの皆様, お友達、またご家族の皆様、今日は、皆さんとご一緒に除幕式に参加できて、大変嬉しく思います。

主人のジェリーと私は、カリフォルニアから、また、バーバラの孫にあたる甥のトニーはテキサスから参りました。私の兄弟で、バーバラの息子にあたるティムとテッド、そしてバーバラの残り8名の孫たちは、残念ながら、今日伺うことが出来ませんでしたので、彼らに代わってご挨拶申し上げます。

本日は、生きていれば９６歳になる母の記念碑の除幕式に、記念碑委員会のお招きをうけて、参りました。アメリカ人が投下した原爆で被爆者となられた方々が、その爆心地にアメリカ人女性の記念碑を建てて下さるということは、驚くべきことです。皆様のお許しの気持ちと、このような記念碑を建てて下さろうというお志にひたすら頭が下がる思いです。

母の生涯に影響を受けた方々はよく、母を聖人であったと、さらには「国の宝であったと仰います。しかし、それに対しては、母自身が真っ先に、「私は只の、至らぬ人間ですよ」と申したことでしょう。

1964年の9月、当時49歳の母は、離婚の辛さの真っ只中におりました。私の父は既に別の女性と結婚しておりました。兄のテッドは結婚したばかりで、私はアメリカに戻っておりました。つまり、母は一人ぼっちでした。母の友人で、僧侶であった方が、六甲山のお寺に母を招いてくださり、そこで瞑想、断食そしてお祈りで時を過ごすようにと配慮して下さいました。そこで一週間、母は結婚の失敗を嘆き、自らの生きる目的とは何か、大声で泣きながら天に問ういかけたのでした。

                                                         

母はもともと他の神神々の上に立つ主なる神様を信じていました。この神様は、私たちの手によって創られた神ではありません。私たちがこの神様の手によって創られたのです。神様は、私たちを神自身の姿形に創られました。母は、この神を、創造主であり、宇宙を支配する強きものとして知っていました。でも、六甲山での一週間を過ごすまで、母は、その偉い神様が、私たちのずっと身近で生きている父なる神様であるということを知りませんでした。その一週間の終わりに、この天にまします父なる神様は、母の心の中に語りかけ、母を愛されていると、そして母を許すと言われました。母の涙は喜びと平安の涙に変わりました。そして、神様は、その時、母が受けた愛を広島へ届け、被爆者の皆さんにお仕えすることで、神の愛を皆さんに示すことが、母の生きる目的であると啓示されました。

それより何年も以前に、アメリカ政府は、広島の被爆者放射能被害の研究のため血液検査、身体測定、写真撮影を行うチームを送りましたが、私の父はそのひとりでした。でも、そのチームの誰一人として、被爆者の方々に「原爆とはどんな経験でしたか」と尋ねる者はありませんでした。誰一人、被爆者の話を聞いたり、一緒に泣いたりする者はありませんでした。一方、天にまします父なる神様に忠実であろうとした母は、広島に戻り、自らの恥をかなぐり捨て、被爆者のお話に耳を傾け、神様の手や足や声となってお仕えしました。そんな母の謙虚で従順な働きからワールド・フレンドシップ・センターが生まれました。

母の働きは単なる天の神様から被爆者へのメッセージに終わりませんでした。被爆者の方々は母の働きを広島・長崎からの世界へ向けてのメッセージだと言ってくださいました。母はその責任をとても真剣に受け止めました。そして母がお一人お一人と知り合っていくにつれ、被爆者の方々は、人の命の価値ということを母に教えてくださいました。母は、人類に対して投下された最初の二つの原子爆弾に被爆しながらも、勇敢に、苦しみながらも生き抜いている方々を尊敬するようになりました。被爆者の方々に共感し、痛みを分かち合うようになりました。そして、母は言いました。「私もヒバクシャです。」と。母は、「ノーモアヒロシマ」という被爆者のメッセージを世界中に確実に広げようとし、地球上の総べての人々が平和を選択し、広島の恐怖と惨事を二度と誰にも味あわせないようにと呼びかけようとしました。

1945年以降、広島と長崎に始まって、沢山の人々が、チェルノブイリ、スリーマイル島、そして、また福島で、放射能という毒物に曝されています。放射能は戦争と平和の違いを選びません。核兵器の放つ放射能は戦争が終わった後でも人々を殺戮し続けます。DNAを組み替え、従って後の世代まで傷つけます。原子炉からの放射能は、原子炉に事故があろうと無かろうと、近隣の住民の発ガン率を高めます。こうして放射能に曝された方々も原子力利用の被害者なのです。私たちはここに、世界中の総てのヒバクシャに向かって、私たちが彼らの苦しみを決して忘れないということを誓います。私たちは、あなた方のメッセージをこれからの世代に伝えます。「ノーモア広島！」「ノーモア原発！」ノーモア福島!

この記念碑の除幕にあたり、母は象徴そのものです。母は愛の象徴として、愛の根源である、天にまします神様を指し示しています。母は、謙虚に天の父なる神様の「静かな小さな声」に耳を傾ける者は、とても大きな仕事を成し遂げることができるという希望の象徴なのです。

本日は、母を讃えるこのような式典を開いて下さって、心から感謝申し上げます。ありがとうございました。

I've been edited

    I've been edited. My smugly memorized passage now reads, 

今日は、皆さんとご一緒に集まることが出来除幕式（じょまくしき）に参加（さんか）できて、大変うれしいです嬉（うれ）しく思（おも）います。

       Last night Michiko, my long-suffering contact person with the Monument Committee responded to the Japanese translation of my upcoming speech, "We think there is nothing wrong in [H's] translation, but we, the Committee,  took  the liberty of revising it and added some words to make it easier for the audience to understand or to suit the Japanese custom." 

     She attached an edited version of the speech which consisted of passages like this: 

                                                          

母はもともと万の他（ほか）の神神々（かみがみ）の上に立つ天主主（しゅ）なる神様（かみさま）を信じていました。この天主様神様（かみさま）は、私たちの手によって創られた神ではありません。私たちがこの天主様神様の手によって創られたのです。天主様神様（かみさま）は、私たちを神自身の姿形に創られました。 

     She added tactfully, "Just one point I am not sure. Near the end of your remark, you wrote: She is a symbol of hope because anyone of us who humbles himself to listen to the "still, small voice" of our Heavenly Father can make a mighty difference.  H's translation was  “…に耳を傾ける者は、とても大きな違いを生み出せる希望があるからです。=because there is hope that anyone can…” And  one of our committee members insisted that it should be changed into “ 違いを生み出せる仕事を成し遂げることができると信じておりました”  But this means that Barbara believed that anyone could make a mighty difference…This is not what you said.  Literally, you said “…に耳を傾ける者は、とても大きな仕事を成し遂げることができるという希望の象徴なのです。希望（きぼう）=hope　象徴（しょうちょう）=symbol　 I think word by word translation is better, but I don’t know.  It’s up to you, you can take whichever you like."

     I woke at five this morning (before a call from a free-lance writer in Japan would have wakened us anyway thirty minutes later) in mid-panic over my need to compare and choose between three translations of my sentence above (among other things). It's all straightened out now. I found a local Japanese woman who graciously let me read my romaji version (which took 13 minutes) as she followed along in the kanji/kana version. She caught and had me correct many minor errors. Then she read it aloud to me so I could hear the flow and emphasis. That was so helpful! She said it was very formal in style and impressive in content (both thanks to the Monument Committee). I owe her a box of See's chocolates!

     I'm still feeling confident about the speech--but a lot less cocky.

My secret fear

今日は、皆さんと一緒に集まることが出来て、大変うれしいです。

     I have been invited to speak at the dedication of my mother's memorial. Fifteen minutes, including translation, they said. (They also said they expected my talk to be the highlight of the hour-long ceremony. To pull this off, I have to forget I know that.)
     I wrote out what I would like to say. I had it translated and intend to read it in Japanese (which means I have the full 15 minutes). The sentence at the top of this post, which I am including in my opening, is a speech I had to memorize when we first moved to Japan. (I was seven.) I thought it was the longest, hardest thing I'd ever struggled to learn. I didn't understand the individual words then. Now I know it means,

"Today, everyone with together gathering thing possible, very happy."

     There are three alphabets used in Japanese. Two, called kana, are not formed of letters per se but sounds, consonents with one of five vowels--ah, ee, oo, eh, oh--attached. So you can have kah kee koo keh koh or sah shee soo seh soh. But they have no "k" or "s" by itself. That's why Japanese struggle to pronounce English correctly. They want to put a vowel after every consonent: Disneyland becomes Dee zu ni ra n do." ("N" is the only sound without a vowel attached.)
     My advice to Japanese learning English (or anyone learning any foreign language) is to let go of the words and sounds you are familiar with and mimic exactly what you hear. This means for English you have to stick out your tongue a little when you say "th." Japanese are always embarrassed to do that.
      Anyway, my name would be transliterated "Jeh-shee-ka" in hiragana, the first of these two alphabets. But since my name is a foreign word, it would actually be written in the second alphabet, katakana. Either way, my name would be pronounced the same but in order to be recognized as a foreign word, it would be spelled with alphabet #2.
     The third alphabet is kanji. Kanji are the pictographs from the Chinese. There are thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of kanji. I think I can safely say nobody knows them all. Some are simple pictographs, like three vertical lines for "kawa" (river) or a two-line stick figure of a man (hito). Some are combinations of other pictographs. There is a symbol for animal, for instance, so when you see any kanji with that symbol along the left side, you know it stands for some kind of animal, even if you don't yet know what animal it is.  
     Way before history was written down in most cultures, when it was still being passed from father to son orally, the Chinese captured history in their pictographs. For instance why would the combination of "boat" plus the number "8" over the hollow square meaning "mouth"--eight mouths--form another kanji  for "boat" unless the combination of ideas tells the story of a particular boat which held eight people, that is, Noah's ark?
     Similarly, the Chinese language not only succinctly depicts historical events but divine teaching. "Righteousness" is "lamb cover me." What a powerful summary of the book of Romans! Or really, of the whole Bible.
     The numbers 1-7 (if you play Mah Jongg, they are on the kanji tiles) depict what happened on each of the days of creation. "One" is a single horizontal line; on the first day God created heaven and earth as one undifferentiated entity. "Two" is two horizontal lines; on the second day God separated them. . . "Six" looks like the little man you see on the "Walk" sign at intersections; on the sixth day man was created. And "seven" looks like a figure sitting; on the seventh day God rested.
      Kanji are usually the noun or verb in a sentence, with kana as endings, conjunctions, and all the peripherals. In the sentence above, there are ten kanji. In general, kanji stand out as the more complex characters.
     When I first asked to have my remarks translated, I had Hiroko Shibuya, the translator, write it all out normally, just as it would appear in a newspaper, that is, with kanji interspersed with the simpler kana--but also translating each kanji into the kana equivalent so I had the full manuscript in kana. I thought I could read the kanji I knew and cheat on the ones I didn't know by reading the kana in the parentheses which followed.
     So that's what she did--and it increased the length of my remarks from 1-1/2 pages to 3-1/2 pages! The above sentence now looked like this:

今日(きょう)は、皆（みな）さんと一緒（いっしょ）に集（あつ）まることが出来(でき）て、大変（たいへん）うれしいです。

     At one time I knew about 1,000 kanji, almost enough (1,200) to read a newspaper. Now I think I'm down to around fifty. In my talk I'm going to be using all kinds of words and phrases I don't know in Japanese, like "Monument Committee," "meditation," "controller of the universe," "nuclear energy" and "DNA." (Actually DNA, being a foreign word, is written in katakana, "Dee eh-nu eh-ee."). The text bristled with kanji and that intimidated me.
     So I thought, Since I have the whole thing in kana anyway, I'll eliminate the kanji and just read it in kana, like a first grader. So I cut out all the kanji. The sentence above now read,

きょうは、みなさんと いっしょ に あつまることが できて、たいへん うれしいです。

     This was much easier for me to read but when I tried it aloud I was afraid I'd panic and my mind would go blank. What if I got mixed up and read "neh" instead of "noo"? My mother taught me kana when I was seven or eight as we rode a train up through the middle of Japan to visit friends in Sendai. She used verbal pictures to help me remember each symbol. (I can't really call them letters.) "Neh" is for "nezumi" (mouse) and "neh" looks like a mouse with a curled tail. But I can't take the time, while I'm speaking publicly, to figure it out that way. It needs to flow. I needed a fallback position I couldn't get wrong, wouldn't even have to hesitate on.
     So after reducing it all to kana, I further reduced it to romaji, or anglicized letters, which feels more comfortable in a public setting. Now it reads,

"Kyou wa, minasan to issho ni atsumaru koto ga dekite taihen ureshii desu." 

     I think I can read that fluently and with expression.  Now I am confident, even if I don't understand what I am reading, my Japanese audience probably will.
  I have taken 30 units of Japanese language--reading, writing, and speaking--at  International Christian University, a top bilingual college in Tokyo. But that was half a century ago. All I have left is really good pronunciation--which gets me into trouble because it makes people think I have an extensive vocabulary and accurate grammar behind it.
     What I'm afraid is, I'll read it so well, I'll sabotage myself. Afterwards, the media will expect me to be able to answer all their questions in Japanese and I'll just have to stand there looking stupid.

Memories of MUM - Peace Pilgrimages and World Friendship Center

     This will be the last re-cycled post about my mom. I sense you're getting bored--or maybe it's me. I do have some fun and more personal ones I haven't posted before which I hope you will enjoy, leading up to the ceremony on June 12.
     This is extracted from a long and insightful chapter, "The Symbolic American: Barbara Reynolds," from City of Silence: Listening to Hiroshima by Rachelle Linner. (The entire chapter is posted on His Scribe, Nov. 23, 2010.) If you want to skip any overlap with what I've been posting, pick the saga up with "The Peace Pilgrimage" on p. 64. You can quit at "Ambiguous Symbols" on the last page.

Left-click on each page once or twice to enlarge.

Memories of MUM - After second protest voyage

From His Scribe, Nov.13, 2010

After we sailed "to Russia with Love"

                                                     Press Statement

     On October 21, 1961, the yacht Phoenix of Hiroshima, with five Americans aboard, was stopped 10 miles outside of Nakhodka, Siberia, boarded by Soviet military authorities and, while under surveillance by three Soviet vessels, was refused permission under any circumstances to enter the port.
     We were carrying messages and petitions from thousands of Japanese and Americans, protesting the resumption of nuclear testing and appealing for a positive approach to world peace through understanding.
     The Soviet authorities put food and supplies aboard our yacht, but refused to accept any of the petitions or to permit any communication whatever with the Russian people.
     Therefore, after 16 days at sea, under very severe weather conditions, the Phoenix then put about without making port and started her return voyage. For over one day she was followed by a Soviet vessel.
     On October 28, almost exactly 5 weeks after sailing from Hiroshima on our mission, we dropped anchor in the harbor of Fukuoka, under stress of weather.
     The entire voyage was the most difficult passage the Phoenix has encountered in over 60,000 miles of sailing around the world, during the past seven years.
     We, the crew of the yacht Phoenix, are deeply disappointed at the refusal of the Soviet authorities to accept the messages and petitions. We continue to strongly protest the testing of nuclear weapons by any nations.
     Fukuoka, Japan, October 29, 1961
                                                                  Signed:
                                                                  Earle Reynolds (Captain)
                                                                  Barbara Reynolds
                                                                  Ted Reynolds
                                                                  Jessica Reynolds
                                                                  Tom Yoneda

     Mum (Barbara) wrote our friends, "Our reception has been heartwarming. Taxi drivers, shop-keepers, even strangers who pass us on the street, bow and said: "O-kaeri" (Welcome home!). To meet with such affection in Hiroshima touches us deeply and makes us very humble. More than ever, we are determined not to let these people down, these people who have suffered so much and are still falling ill and dying from the effects of a bomb dropped 16 years before."
     She wrote to the Peace Action Center in Washington, D.C. on December 6, 1961 (By the way, we had  no organization sponsoring or underwriting either of our protest trips): "As you may know, the Russian authorities refused to accept our letters and petitions. (They suggested that we take them to the Soviet Embassy in Tokyo--which is coming full circle and promises no opportunity of getting our concern to the Russian people.) We are now trying to consider what we ought to do with this responsibility and trust, as we still feel obligated to get the feelings of the Japanese people to the world.
     "It has been suggested that we raise money to send one or two representatives from Hiroshima to the UN, to deliver the messages in person to Zorin or to U Thant.
                                                                                        "Barbara Reynolds
                                                                                        "Yacht Phoenix
                                                                                        "Hiroshima, Japan"


Documents quoted in Friends of the Hibakusha, Virginia Naeve, Editor. Denver: Swallow Paperbooks, 1964.

Memories of MUM - Second protest voyage, USSR

From 
His Scribe, October 11, 2010

TO RUSSIA WITH LOVE

     Many Americans steered clear of us when we came back from protesting American nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific. "Tell it to the Russians!" they chided in letters to the editor. "They're the reason we have to test weapons."
     "We will," we promised, "if they ever resume atmospheric testing."
     In the autumn of 1961 they did. Ted and I, now students at International Christian University in Tokyo, read the headlines with a sinking feeling in the pits of our stomachs. We didn't have to say anything. We knew we had to do it all again. We took the 11-hour train ride back to Hiroshima and gathered with Skipper and Mum on the Phoenix.
     The nearest military port was Vladivostok but it was iced in at that time of year. We would head instead to Nakhodka. Nick Mikami wasn't going with us this time because the Japanese government wouldn't promise to let him back into his country afterward (they wouldn't promise to let Skipper back in, either). Instead we invited Ted's friend Tom Yoneda, a Japanese-American with American citizenship, to sail with us.
     This trip was harder than the last one. For one thing, it was winter and we had to sail to Russia and back through brutal seas. Also, as unpredictable as the American government had been, the Soviet government was a wholly unknown quantity. There would be no publicity about our trip in the USSR. They could do what they pleased with us--imprison us, sink the Phoenix--and no one need ever know.
     I wrote a book-length account of the trip when we got back to Japan and it was published in 1962 as (my title) To Russia with Love and (publisher's title) Jessica's Journal--which had been the title of my first book. To compound the confusion, they printed a picture of Mum in the front of the book instead of me.
     None of that mattered, though, because it was in Japanese so "no one" could read it anyway and it died quietly.
     NEW NOTE: A Japanese pastor staying with us recently pulled the long out-of-print Japanese volume off our shelves because he recognized the name of the translator. "This man was very well-known in Japan!" he said, impressed. "He translated authors like Hemingway! I read Hemingway in his translation."
     Now I was impressed! 

     This year, the Peace Resource Center which Mum later established in Wilmington College, Wilmington, Ohio, and which houses her personal library, her own writings and the biggest collection on materials about Hiroshima, Nagasaki, war, peace and nuclear weapons in the country, contacted me. The director wanted to publish To Russia with Love in English. They had an editor and publisher ready to move on it.
     Fortunately I knew where the only extant manuscript was. I got it out and read it for the first time in 50 years, the first time since I'd written it.
     It brought back intense memories. It was a bizarre trip in many ways--a middle-aged American couple with two teenagers, a Japanese-American friend, and two cats confronting the Great Russian Bear in a 50-foot ketch. Our reception was even more surreal, involving legs of mutton and 55-gallon drums of diesel fuel--and a Cold War encounter with real Russians.
     I'm telling you this because it sets up the scene for what happened next, about Mum spending Christmas Day praying in the Peace Park and how that led to her turning our failure at reaching the Russian people into two Peace Pilgrimages to the whole world.

     To Russia with Love is now available and can be ordered from the Peace Resource Center at Wilmington College, Wilmington, OH for $11.99 (plus postage and handling). All proceeds will go to the Center.

Memories of MUM - First protest voyage, Part 11

From His Scribe, September 24, 2010

PHOENIX and GOLDEN RULE (11) Arrest

      On the night of July 1, 1958, the Phoenix ghosted across the finish line. We were officially within the "zone," having crossed a line as invisible as the equator or the International Date Line.
      The next morning, 85 miles later, American Coast Guard cutter W307 which had been following us for two nights came alongside. The captain shouted, "Heave to, and prepare to be boarded." (Heave to means to pull around into the wind and stop.)

Coast Guard cutter Planetree overtakes us

Armed guards

    "What is your authority?" Skipper responded. After all, the cutter was 2000 miles from the nearest American coast.
     The master of the Planetree read out some figures and Skip obeyed "under protest." Two armed men came aboard and put Skipper--only Skipper--under arrest. They couldn't arrest Nick, because he wasn't an American citizen--and in fact, they couldn't even legally detain him (though they did). They couldn't arrest me, since I was a minor. And they could hardly arrest Amya, our current feline mascot. But they didn't arrest Mum or Ted either. They ordered us to sail to Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands. A Navy destroyer USS Collett appeared on the horizon to make sure we did.
     Ted was on watch at 4:30 on the morning of July 3 and Mum was in the cockpit with him. Suddenly the sky lit up to the west (the direction of Bikini Island, 200 miles away) as if with a "gigantic flash bulb, oval in shape and at about five to fifteen degrees above the horizon," according to Ted. Although the explosion was not reported by our military or in American newscasts, a Japanese station announced that the United States had exploded another bomb in the Bikini test zone.
     We now know the bomb was code-named "Cedar." (The date given by the military is July 2; they were probably going by Stateside dating. We happen to know it was July 3 local time!) Cedar was equal to 220 kilotons of TNT--that is, 14-18 times the power of the Hiroshima bomb. Of the 72 bombs exploded in Hardtack Series I, the largest was 9.3 megatons.

USS Collett "escorts" us to Kwajalein

     You can read details of all this in The Forbidden Voyage if you can find a copy. As a teenager I was curious about First Petty Officer Acree and Boatswain Laflin. Besides the guns, they had brought their own canned food and water with them. By July 2, they had kicked off their shoes, impractical on a yacht (although they hastily put them on whenever the Collett came close), and removed their sidearms. By July 3, they were still drinking their canned water but--Skip wrote "Barbara's method of breaking down their resistance was positively fiendish"--ate big bowls of Mum's savory spaghetti and meat sauce with us.
     The men thought we'd sailed into the test zone by accident and the Navy had assigned them to rescue us.  Their jobs, replacing buoys and marine installations damaged by the tests, exposed them to considerable radiation but they assured us everything was under control: "A man can take one hundred roentgens of radioactivity per hour without harm."
     "Oh?" asked Skip. "For how many hours?"
     "Well, five or six anyway."
     Skip pulled out his copy of Shubert and Lapp's Radiation: What It Is and How It Affects You and showed them that an over-all exposure of that much would probably be fatal.
     Laflin confided that some of the men, in order to get leaves, "cheated" by putting the radiation badges issued them in their shoes instead of on their shirts. Skip pointed out that if the deck is the most radioactive place on the boat, the badges should be placed in the shoes.
     By the time we reached Kwaj on the 4th of July we were lifelong friends.    

Skipper and Mum at Skipper's arraignment, Honolulu

     On July 5, the Navy put Skipper on a MATS plane and taxpayers flew him back to Honolulu for trial. Mum and I went with him, leaving Nick and Ted to guard the Phoenix.

Memories of MUM - First protest voyage, Part 4

From His Scribe, September 17, 2010

PHOENIX and GOLDEN RULE (4) Mum's, Nick's perspectives

     Looking back at this crossroads in our lives, Mum wrote, "By the time we returned to Hawaii (where we had stopped for four months on our outward voyage), two of the Japanese had left us and the third had become like one of the family. We had all experienced that 'consciousness raising' which only life itself can give. We were ready to be shoved onto the stage as 'peace activists.'
     "It was at that point that Phoenix--Bird of Peace, risen from the ashes of Hiroshima--met the Golden Rule, sailed from California by four Quakers for the purpose of protesting the U.S. nuclear weapons tests in the South Pacific.
     "'Crackpots!' was our first reaction. What could four men on a tiny boat do to change government policies? But we were concerned about the dangers from radiation and soon realized that the presence of Golden Rule was stimulating a discussion of the issues. For me, it stimulated much more." (From "Sailing into Test Waters," included in the book, Reweaving the Web of Life: Feminism and Non-Violence, 1982)
     Mum was struck by the amazing series of interlocking factors which to her (then a believer in an impersonal but benign Deity) could not be accounted for by coincidence:
     Skipper was a leading world expert on the dangers of radiation and concerned about them. We had spent three years in Hiroshima, had built a boat there named after a bird which (Western mythology) rises from its own ashes and (Eastern mythology) appears only in a time of universal peace. One of our crew was a citizen of Hiroshima.We had deep-sea sailing experience and were ready for a long voyage. We had arrived in Honolulu while the U.S. was doing a series of atmospheric nuclear tests. We had arrived the day after the Golden Rule was hauled back from attempting to sail to the nuclear test zone to protest those tests. And we were on our way back to Hiroshima. We wouldn't have to go out of our way to enter the test zone. In fact we would have to go considerably out of our way not to enter it.
     In short, we were ideally positioned to take over where the Golden Rule had been forced to leave off.
    "In court," Mum continued in her essay, "where we went to a hearing on an injunction forbidding Golden Rule to sail--an injunction which was upheld--I heard George Willoughby's quiet statement: 'When the laws of men are in violation of the laws of God, I must obey God. You can send me to jail but you cannot imprison my conscience!' I felt a deep affirmation.
     "For the first time, I knew that God was and that He was in charge. I knew, too, what it was to be God-fearing. For Phoenix to pick up the protest voyage after the crew of Golden Rule had been sentenced to sixty days in jail was not an action I felt we could evade. Rather, it was a decision for which our whole lives had prepared us. To have said, 'No, I have other plans for my life!' would have taken more courage than I possessed.

Niichi (Nick) Mikami

     "I shared my conviction with my family. After some discussion (and perhaps for different reasons) we found ourselves in agreement. As for our Japanese companion, Nick Mikami, there was no hesitation. 'I am from Hiroshima!' he said. [Nick's mother and brother had been in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped. For days, his mother had crawled through the radioactive rubble, searching for her brother-in-law. She never found his body.]
     And so, with no knowledge of the peace movement nor any background in nonviolent action, we sailed. . .
     "I became an 'activist' out of a deeply felt inner compulsion, as instinctively as a dog responds to his master's voice. . ."
     "Barbara feels this is the hand of Providence," Skipper wrote. "I am more inclined to feel it is just damned bad luck. Anyway, we talked almost all night, and finally decided to sail, but to postpone any final decision until we are close to the area of the testing zone."

Memories of MUM - First protest voyage, Part 1

Why is  Barbara Reynolds, a wife, mother, and writer of children's books from Wisconsin, having a monument erected to her memory in the Peace Memorial Park, Hiroshima, Japan? (For those of you who have been reading all my posts since His Scribe, please bear with the redundancy.)

In 1958 and 1961, as part of the Reynolds family, she sailed on protest voyages against American and then Soviet nuclear testing. over the following years, she accompanied survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombs around the world appealing for an end to nuclear weapons. She founded the World Friendship Center in Hiroshima and was made a citizen of the city by Mayor Hamai and declared to be a "Japanese National Treasure" at a dinner with Prime Minister Nakasone.

It all started after my dad "Skipper" designed and built a yacht in Hiroshima, Japan while studying the effects of radiation between 1951-54. We spent the next four years sailing around the world in it. (That's on His Scribe.) Now it was 1958 and we were in Hawaii, looking forward to the last leg of our journey back to Hiroshima. . .


NOTE: This is all covered in detail in posts on His Scribe.  I'll be re-posting over the next few days a few of them that pertain especially to my mother and Hiroshima,  posts headed PHOENIX from Sept. 14-28 and posts headed MUM from November 13-24.

From His Scribe.September 14, 2010

PHOENIX and GOLDEN RULE (1) First Encounter

     Our official circumnavigation didn't end in Hilo. We still intended to sail back to Hiroshima. With that in mind, we pulled into the Ala Wai Yacht Harbor, Honolulu, May 2, 1958, for our final fitting-out (painting, overhauling engine and radio, making a new mainsail, studying charts and pilot books) before re-crossing the Pacific.

  Across the dock from the Phoenix was a smaller yacht which was also getting publicity, more controversial publicity than we were. It was the Golden Rule and three of the four men aboard were Quakers, a category of people we had never met before.
     The captain was Albert Bigelow, 52, a former Navy commander during World War II--an unlikely convert to pacifism, one might think. With him were Bill Huntington, a rather tall, scholarly-looking man, about 50; George Willoughby, a short intense man in his forties with a doctorate in political science and Orion Sherwood, an earnest, cheerful young man in his twenties, a Methodist.

     On March 25, the crew of the Golden Rule had sailed from San Pedro, California to Hawaii with the intention of continuing on into the area of the Pacific Ocean where our government was testing atmospheric nuclear weapons. They intended to protest radioactive fallout with their own bodies.
     A hastily-imposed injunction, dated April 16, made it illegal for American citizens to enter this 390,000 square miles of open ocean. In other words their trip, legal when they left California, was illegal by the time they reached Honolulu.
     In spite of the injunction, on May 1 the sailors had left Honolulu bound for the forbidden zone.

     They were intercepted by the Coast Guard. The Golden Rule was towed back and the four men were put under arrest.
     This is where things stood when we arrived in Honolulu the very next day. We were curious about these men and their strong convictions about "nuclear explosions, by any nation," being "inhuman, immoral, contemptuous crimes against all mankind."
     But Skipper was even more concerned with the fact that the huge area of the Pacific Ocean declared off-limits to American citizens blanketed any reasonable route by which we could sail the Phoenix back to Japan.




His Scribe, Golden Rule Part 1

My niece in Afghanistan

     I didn't know I have a niece in Afghanistan until today! Lisa is married with four young daughters, a busy veterinarian somewhere in Michigan (I thought). I think I've only met her twice, at family reunions, and I don't remember her ever answering any of my letters to her.
     So when I wrote the whole Reynolds family, my family of origin, about the unveiling of Mum's memorial next month (see posts below), inviting them to consider "going yourself or helping others go to the ceremony." I only tossed Lisa's name into the mix as an afterthought.
     She responded almost right away:

Dear Jessica, I would love to be there with you in Hiroshima, but I am currently in Afghanistan and circumstances are such that I cannot attend. 

Lisa

You can imagine my astonishment and curiosity! I wrote back, 

Dear Lisa,

I had no idea you were in Afghanistan! That news brings all kinds of questions to my mind--under whose auspices? for what purpose? for how long? Does Ted know? And Naomi? Who is with the girls? What about your practice? If you are free to explain, I would be very interested.

Thanks for writing.

Love,

Jessica

Hey Jessica, I am here in Southern Afghanistan as an Army Veterinarian.  Mostly I am taking care of the Military Working dogs that are sniffing out the IEDs and unexploded ordinances, but I also am here to support the local Afghan veterinarians and farmers, as we are attempting to stabilize the region and provide the local nationals with the tools to provide for themselves.  There are many many sheep and goats here, plus a few camels running around.  And, I have no idea if dad knows, I think he might.  Mom and Naomi do because when the Tsunami happened, they tried to contact me and eventually figured out why I was not answering my cell phone.  The Reynolds side of the family is pretty anti military so I don't go around talking about what I do much. But, I am envious of you as I would love to go to Hiroshima and be part of the history. Lisa Lisa, I think what you're doing is amazing! I was just reading about Army dogs online, including a photo essay by Rebecca Frankel. We will be praying for your safety and the safety of those (human and otherwise) with whom you are working. Is it okay if I let Ted know? He was telling me he hadn't heard much from you and he sounded kind of deflated about that. I can't imagine he wouldn't be proud of you. Love, Jessica  Wow.  That just goes to show that one should never make assumptions.  I didn't think you would be supportive.  Thank you.  You are welcome to tell Dad.  The one time we did discuss my going to Afghanistan, he said that I was supporting an invading Army and the conversation kinda stalled out about then.  I do love him lots and I am sad he feels that way.  I feel he doesn't understand what we are doing here and doesn't want to hear my perspective.  Hell, I'm not sure I understand what we are doing here.  But the Army has learned that the only way to defeat terrorism is to stabilize those areas of the world that are unstable, so that people have choices and the oportunity to do the right thing.  It is the poverty and the hunger and the lack of education that permits Al Queda and other extremist organizations to florish.  Most of the insurgents that are being taken out here are just local farmers that get paid by the Taliban $10/mortor round they fire at us.  Killing them doesn't stop the number of hungry farmers that need $10 to feed their children.  Introducing poutry and aquaculture industries, replacing Poppy production with Safron fields, promoting improvements to the agriculture and food animal industries, these things may help those farmers not chose to take that $10 offer.  I think sometimes we do a better job than other times at accomplishing that goal, but the stability operations and nation building is a huge focus now and we hear about it every day.  Gosh, did I just get on a soap box or something?  Well, it is midnight here so I am going to crawl into bed.  Take care and have a WONDERFUL time in Hiroshima. Lisa

Since I had her permission I forwarded this correspondence to her father, my brother Ted. Under the subject heading, "Friends again?" Ted immediately wrote to her, with a copy to me,  

Dear Lisa,
I've gotten along with Jessica for decades by not arguing with her about religion.  Think you and I could work out a similar modus vivendi?  I love you and miss you, respect what you are doing, and think that's more important than any difference of opinion.
 

Please stay in touch.

Have you done much with camels yet?
ted

All of this happened today.

Mum was a woman who loved reconciliations and restorations of relationship. She would be thrilled to know that the invitation to the dedication of a monument in her honor would have reconciled her son with his daughter and her granddaughter with her aunt.   

HIROSHIMA: We accept the invitation

(For invitation, see previous post)

Dear Michiko, Riji-kai, and everyone who has helped with this monument,

     This is so wonderful it takes my breath away! It is the culmination of so much work and so many dreams! You have all been so patient with our family in our making so many demands for changes in the wording and picture on the monument. I deeply apologize for the continual inconvenience we--I--caused you. But I believe the end product is beautiful and will be a witness and inspiration to other foreigners who visit the Peace Park and see what God can do through any individual listening to Him. 

     We feel so privileged to be invited to the ceremony. I see this ceremony as closure, a perhaps final opportunity to honor the generation actually exposed to the atomic bomb for their dedicated, tireless, unfailing commitment to peace and the abolishment of nuclear weapons. Among these hibakusha we can now count all those irradiated by the disasters at the Fukushima power plants. Radiation, whether from bombs of war or power plants for peace, still kills. I want to be a part of declaring the use of nuclear energy--because of the short- and long-term risks--to be inhuman and "politically incorrect." 

     It is also closure for my mother's involvement with Hiroshima and the hibakusha, symbolically laying her spirit to rest in the city she came to love and feel a part of.

     Jerry and I accept with pleasure the invitation to the unveiling ceremony. It seems appropriate that it be held during the week of my mother's birthday, June 12.

Blessings,

Jessica

Invitation from Hiroshima

     We just received the following letter announcing the completion of the monument to my mother, Barbara Reynolds, for her 17 years' humanitarian assistance to the survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombs, including the founding of the World Friendship Center. The writer, Michiko Yamane, is on the board of WFC and is a point person for the Riji-kai (group of decision-making elders) who originated the idea of and desire for this monument.

     In less than five weeks, the long-awaited monument will be erected and unveiled in the Hiroshima Peace Park. (For back story, read anything on HIS SCRIBE marked MUM or PHOENIX or anything about "nuclear" or "Hiroshima." Ted is my brother and Naomi is his eldest daughter, captain of the Phoenix.) 

 

Dear Jessica, Ted and Naomi,

I hope this mail finds you well.

We have a good news about Barbara’s monument.

Finally this morning we received a permit to change the photo into the one with the serene , peaceful and faithful expression.

We are so happy to meet your request.

We will receive another permit soon to install a monument at the south-eastern corner of Peace Memorial Park during the period from June 1^st till June 10^th.

As soon as we complete placing the monument, we should have an unveiling ceremony.

Although we haven’t decided the exact date, weekend or weekday, could you come to Hiroshima to attend the ceremony during the third week of June, from 11 to 17?

We want to set up the date according to your schedule.

We are looking forward to your response.

Peace and many blessings.

Shalom,

Michiko Yamane (^-^)