Thursday, August 29, 2002

Nance, welcome to my blog! I'm so glad that you finally made it here. You may find that the blog references are obscure, and that's because we (my sister Meredith and my brother Bob) post here in reference to Meredith's blog or Bob's blog . So be sure to read both places for continuity.


Biographical background on Nance: she and I met at SUNY Oswego the summer of 1976, where we studied linguistics together. She joined me in 1978 in Hamamatsu, Japan, teaching English at the same strange institute. She lives in Issaquah, Washington with her wonderful family who Barb and I never get to see often enough. She is a brilliant thinker, great talker, energetic dancer and overall wonderful person.

We did see My Big Fat Greek Wedding and also laughed out loud during the whole thing. I think it would make a great double bill with Monsoon Wedding, which is not as funny but very moving and international! We'll be going to a wedding the week after Labor Day - our dear friends John & Brad are having a ceremony in Los Angeles to celebrate 10 years together. It will be a Hawaiian theme... can't wait.
Leah Brooks at 12:57 PM

We've just returned from New York where we were visiting my family. Besides the oppressive heat, humidity and gnats, it was the best trip ever. We took a side trip to Rochester to visit MF and Tara, a drive to Cooperstown to see the baseball Hall of Fame, and a day-long drive to the city to see "Rent". I always seem to be taken by how rural upstate New York is, but this time it seemed to really take me by surprise. I guess the constant growth around me in Seattle made the contrast appear greater. It's probably the closest I'll come to feeling like being transported back in time.

I just read Fast Food Nation. It was an educational look at how the fast food industry has shaped how we live as well as an eye-opening look at the vast history of the meatpacking industry. Very informative.

You've got to see the movie My Bg Fat Greek Wedding which will make you laugh out loud. I went with my 2 sisters on "seniors" night and thought we would be ousted for laughing so hard! Remind me to keep laughing when I am a senior!!!

You mentioned about the artists that do stick sculptures. I had the chance to see several of them at the new glass museum in Tacoma. They are fabulous! They are very large and open so that you can actually walk inside of them. I didn't take note of the artists' names, but I think the sculptures were made by different ones.
Nance Koike at 12:11 PM

Wednesday, August 28, 2002

Barb got a java error trying to post the following blog:


I've just caught up on everyone's memories of basements, Five and Dime
stores, and Bob's photos of "things." Bob, your picture of small metal
objects reminds me of that old commercial for Cracker Jack. The kid is
at the beach and he stops to buy a box from an actor we all know and
recognize (I want to say his name is Jack Guillford or something close
to that). Anyway, he doesn't have quite enough money so he starts
pulling things out of his pockets--marbles, string, keys, pebbles. Oh,
it was more delicious to see his treasures than to eat the Cracker
Jacks. The desire to focus on things also reminds me of the key scene in
To Kill a Mockingbird where the young boy, Jem, pulls out his old cigar
box and shows Scout all the treasures that some mysterious stranger
(Boo Radley) has provided for them in a hole in the Maple Tree near
their house. It was quite moving in the book but after seeing it in the
movie as a kid, I wanted my own cigar box to save things.


I envy Leah's memories of her basement. We had no such thing growing up
in Los Angeles. Well, maybe somewhere there were basements but not on my
block. We had instead back pantries stocked with shelves and jars,
closets that were really hallways connecting one bedroom to another
section of the house, and narrow passageways along the side of the
garage that would lead to small open spaces between people's backyards.
I remember the great sense of exhilaration my gang experience when we
found a small hole in a backyard fence we could crawl under. Such
freedom! It was a little concrete channel for some kind of drainage
(which is why we could fit under the fence) leading to an area behind
someone's gardening shed. Then we had to climb over an ivy-covered
cyclone fence and run down the driveway--and find ourselves in the
street around the corner!!! You would think we were Marco Polo on the
eve of his discovery of the Silk Route.


The closest thing we had to basements was the crawl space under the
foundation. I guess that would be under the foundation. Maybe it's
between the foundation and the first floor. Regardless, it's extremely
narrow and not even a child of 9 can stand up, let alone sit up straight
except in a few select corners of this subterranean expanse. It was
always dark, even midday and had that sharp smell of dirt dusted with
concrete and industrial glues and solvents. We would take flashlights
with us and crawl from one end of the house to the other--"exploring." I
think the boys did their best to encourage a belief that awful spiders
and killer insects lived under the house. And so it was a very brave
thing indeed to go under there.


The appeal remains strong for the next generation. When Scott and family
came out here for my 40th birthday, one of the first unsupervised
activities requested by Rocky and Ray (still going strong after all the
adults pooped out) was to ask if they could crawl under our house. Yes
of course, we said. But watch out for the killer insects.
Leah Brooks at 12:02 PM

Thursday, August 22, 2002

The smell that comes to me when I think of the five & dime is that of fish food, or maybe it was moldy turtles. Remember the little turtles that they sold in the back? You could pick them up and their little legs would run away as fast as they could, thrashing in the air. At christmas time, they were dyed red & green. Poor little things.
Leah Brooks at 11:38 AM

Tuesday, August 20, 2002

My first job was working at Murphy's 5 and 10. I was 16 and worked mostly at the candy counter, although I also helped stock in other departments. I felt quite important standing in back of the counter looking out over the candy bins and making change. We also sold popcorn out of a machine like the ones in movie theaters. I loved making the popcorn. Also required were endless trips up and down the rows staighting all the items after the customers moved them. It was very boring since there were not many customers. I think I worked on Friday nights and Saturdays.I remember a manicure kit with many little tools that I coveted, but did not feel I could afford. Quite often I sampled the candy if no one was around. The store had a certain smell that I can still recall and seemed dark in contrast the bright light coming in the front windows from the street. I had a great view of anyone who was was walking up and down. This was important since one of the main entertainments in LeRoy was watching who was going where.
Meredith Brooks at 1:49 PM

Monday, August 19, 2002

I like Bob's photos of old LeRoy. Looking at that picture of the Mobil station made me remember how we used to stop there on Sundays after church and buy milk from a vending machine. It cost fifty cents for a half gallon of milk, I think. This was very new fangled, because I think we were still getting our milk delivered during the week... but by Sunday, all the milk in the house was usually gone.

I don't have any memories of the hardware store, just of Wick's lumber yard. But do you remember the five and dime, and the man who used to walk around there with a purse?
Leah Brooks at 10:57 AM

Tuesday, August 13, 2002

Sounds like a fun conference. Its hot and humid here too but not 110. I just read a great book call The River Why, about fishing. Its very funny although the ending is a little corny. Just read a wonderful article in the 8/5 New Yorker called The Naked Face. The article is about people who are very good at reading peoples expressions and some psychologists who made this art into a science.They created an alphabet of compents of all facial expressions.In the process of practicing them,they found out that rather than being a reflection of the emotion, the facial expressions actually were a cause of the emotions. The automomic nervous system reacts to a stimulus which causes a facial expression whic results in an emotion. Its worth reading.
Meredith Brooks at 6:58 PM

I'm in Palm Desert at the FileMaker Pro developer's conference. It's got to be at least 110 degrees outside.. incredible heat that rises up in waves against a hazy gray sky, behind which the mountain shapes are hulking. Inside the Marriott, hundreds of filemaker geeks (I use the term in a friendly manner, since I am among them) are hobnobbing and attending classes. Since it's too hot to eat outside, we dart outside under the umbrellas to scoop up our buffet, then hurry inside to eat and chat with our co-tablers.

I hope to get my hotel room soon, so I can take a nap - I slept little last night, got up at 5am to catch my flight here, and am feeling light headed from the heat. Every evening, there is a jam session, since so many programmers are musicians, too. I want to be awake for that part.
Leah Brooks at 1:36 PM

Monday, August 12, 2002

I read the novel "Empire Falls" recently and throughly enjoyed it. It takes place in a small town in the middle of Maine. It was a originally a factory town, and the factory closed many years ago, and the economy has never rebounded.The residents are still dealing with the remnants of that feudal-like society...complete with a town matriarch and many long-held secrets. The main character, a short order cook in the town grill, is so very real and so likeable. His likeability may even be his fatal flaw.

Now I've started reading "Back When We Were Grownups" by Ann Tyler. A 53 year old woman is reviewing her life and wondering what she would have been like if she had made different choices as a young woman. Isn't that fun to think about?

Here's a question from the game zapmambo: would you rather go back in time and be able to talk to your younger self about the future, or go into the future and find out things about your future self?


Leah Brooks at 4:22 PM