Before I Met Your Mother and the Clown About Town
(Posted on Saturday, September 12, 2020)
Top photo was taken on my parent’s anniversary in 1974.
Taken while we were living in Japan, with Mount Fuji in the background. Yes, to answer your question, I have to imagine that in our house there were different sizes of bowls that were used to cut my hair.
Chapter Six: What TV Show Theme Songs from Cheers, Friends, The Golden Girls, Etc., Are Trying to Get At
“… My third-grade year, we lived in Falls Church, Virginia, where I became tight with Antony Cramer, someone who was cheerful and generous and funny. A mere year later, we had to move to Needham, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston. You may not believe this, but in the early 80s, being the nine-year-old foreign kid with the quirky habits did not play well in the Boston suburbs.”
Chapter 16: When You Believe
“Just before my father was about to be moved to Frankfurt, Father Giuseppe Pittau came to visit. He was born in Villacidro, a small town in Sardinia, and became a Jesuit. In his mid-20s, he arrived in Japan as a missionary and spent most of his academic life at Sophia University in Tokyo. He was the bridge between Japanese and Italian worlds, who eventually led the Society of Jesus and was named an archbishop. About 24 years later, he was the one who baptized you, Sofia, and then a few days later, presided over the Catholic wedding of your mother and me. At the hospital, Father Pittau gave his rosary beads to my father. Then he said, ‘I want you to give these back to me when you come back.'”
Matt and I go to Japan in 2003 and this is the Great Buddha of Kamakura. And that’s Uncle Kazuo (Chapter 17) photobombing us 11 years before it was named “Word of the Year” by Collins English Dictionary. A man ahead of his time.
Typical Clown About Town behavior, circa 2004 and documented via state of the art technology, the Motorola RAZR.
Chapter 16: When You Believe
“Six days after I had one of the worst days of my life, on a blue-skied, wondrous morning, I had one of my best.”
Uncle Kazuo’s gambling losses on this trip led to some sumptuous comped meals.
Chapter 17: The Year You Were Four and Three Years Old
“Uncle Kazuo was an exceedingly rare breed, the Japanese bon vivant who ate well, drank, and gambled to excess and lived with the overriding objective of having fun. At my bachelor party in Las Vegas, there were seven of my close friends…and the 60 something-year-old Japanese salaryman.”
