Now is as good a time as any to talk about Japanese School. A total waste of time. Oh, the first two years weren't too bad, but after that, I was just taking my body to school and leaving my mind on the playground. About the only good thing I can say about Japanese school is that I made some good friends among the boys who went to schools other than Riverside.

There would be a "first bell," and a "second bell." First bell was for the younger students, second bell was for the older ones. We couldn't wait to become second bell, because then we could play around for an extra hour or so.

Now, Japanese language school is no place to let your mind wander. Not only do you get left 'way behind (they literally were talking foreign), your physical well-being was also in jeopardy -- especially from the male teachers. I remember in particular Uemura-sensei. Here was the proto-typical Japanese schoolmaster in person. I think God used him as a model when he fashioned disciplinarians for the first time.

More than one of us felt a chalkboard eraser whack us on the side of the head while we were in revelry, traipsing in the sun, deep in the reaches of our juvenile minds. His aim was incredible. Without so much as a windup, he'd hurl that eraser 20, 30, 40 feet across the room, smack dab in the middle of our greased-down hair.

Of course, we didn't dare wipe the chalk off, so we sat there in humiliation with a white rectangle impressed on our heads. And we definitely didn't cry. Any tears would set off a tirade about how we were sissies, and would almost guarantee a finger knuckle whack on the top of our heads.

Once one of my classmates decided to tough it out in defiance of "the law." He stood up, made "big body" to the sensei, and set his jaw firmly. Naturally, he was ordered to the front of the class to face his discipline. He went up and when ordered to apologize, simply refused and muttered something under his breath. Next thing we knew, he was on the floor, the victim of a magnificent leg sweep by Uemura-sensei.

I don't care how tough you are, if a man twice your height and strength leg-sweeps you, you stand up, hold back the tears, apologize humbly and walk back to your seat with your head bowed in shame.

I once had to go to Japanese summer school. Talk about punishment. There's nothing worse than spending your summer vacation going to school — unless it's going to Japanese summer school. One day, I hit upon a scheme. When Dad dropped me off, I was going to hide, cut class, then magically reappear when he came to pick me up. I misjudged his intelligence, and I forgot that cars had rear-view mirrors.

Dad dropped me off, and I immediately ducked behind a large pile of gravel. Horrors! As I watched his car diminish in the distance, his brake lights suddenly came on and he started backing up. My ruse was discovered, foiled forever more. He called me over, gave me his "I'm-so-disappointed-in-you" look, and delivered one of his famous lectures (abbreviated version). I went to school that day.

I used to cut class a lot. I'd either hide out under a building at the Hongwanji, or play on the swings at Riverside, or walk around poking into stores until it was time for Dad to pick me up.

One day, Walter Janado joined me and we explored behind some buildings. We found a little garden where we dug up some "imo" (little taros) and ate them raw. Come to think of it, we had probably raided one of the bonsan's gardens and absconded with his dinner.

I got away with it most of the time, and believe me, I did it a lot. One day though, when I caught the bus home, there were Mom and Dad waiting for me. "How was Japanese School today?" "Okay." "What did you learn today?" "The same thing." (Uh oh, something was up. I could feel it in my bones.)

"Your sensei called today to find out why you haven't been to Japanese school in two weeks. She thought you were sick." My heart sank, my face turned white, and I wanted to cry. Nabbed. As I stood there, I could just imagine my fate -- no dinner for the rest of my life, a belt-whipping that would render me seat-less for a year, or worse yet, a lecture.

It was a lecture. I had to stand there and listen while Mom and Dad explained my responsibilities to me in a soft and understanding tone that oozed disappointment in buckets. About the only thing worse than a lecture is silence -- parental silence that would scream their displeasure and disappointment in their number one son.

I had learned my lesson, I would never cut class at Japanese school again. I would show them that their faith in me was justified.

I got caught again. For some reason, Obachan was walking down Waianuenue Avenue past Riverside School on the very day that I decided to hang around the school playground with Glenn Miyao. Now Glenn never had to go to Japanese school, the lucky guy, so he didn't care. He didn't get into trouble that day.

Obachan spotted me and incredulously inquired why I wasn't in Japanese school. Of course I had no smart answer, so I made up some lame excuse about not knowing what time it was. Now, Obachan wasn't dumb. She knew what I had done.

Humiliation. She personally escorted me to Japanese school where she took me into the classroom, marched me up to the teacher and made me apologize for being late. Then, she went home. I will thank her to this day -- not for showing me the error of my ways that day, but for never telling Mom and Dad what I had done. Let's face it, she saved me from "the lecture."

Actually, I did some pretty horrible things where Japanese school was concerned. We were given envelopes to take home once a month for "gesh-sha" (tuition). Mom or Dad would put some cash in the envelope and I'd give it back to the teacher the next day.

One day I thought up a grand idea. I'd take the money, then throw away the envelope. I'd have some money to spend on dried squid and shaved ice, the teacher would forget all about the tuition, and no one would be the wiser.

Real stupid. It prompted a lot of questions from everyone involved, and I had to make up some incredibly stupid story that I lost it while riding on the bus, or something like that. That was the first and only time I ever lied about taking money.

At the end of every Japanese school year, they'd have a graduation ceremony where they'd give out attendance and academic awards. I used to get tablets and pencils for my perfect attendance the first two years, and tablets and pencils and Japanese-language storybooks for my grades the first three years.

At first, I got all A's, then some B's, then all B's, then some C's, then all C's, then . . . oh, I'm so ashamed.

Actually, the only grade that stayed in the A and B range was the grade for my calligraphy. Must have been a good Japanese-character writer, eh?

Somehow, I stuck it through for six years, even if I didn't know what was going on in class, or even what the teacher was saying everyday. I got to go to the graduation ceremony and pick up my certificate with the rest of them.

That day I graduated was one of the happiest days of my entire life up to that point. No more dogging it, no more guilty feelings, no more struggling through the Japanese language, no more internal humiliation at not being able to keep up with the rest of the kids in my Japanese school class.

I was getting out. And, they gave me a composition tablet that I could use every day at "regular" school (you know the tablet -- it's the one that's been around forever and a day, black with white marbling, about 3/8th of an inch thick).

The small family stores were great in the '50s. On the way to Japanese school, we'd pass maybe four or five of them (you see, now there's another good reason I've discovered for going to Japanese school). The one I remember most was the Kawamoto store on Kilauea Avenue, about a half-block or so away from the Hongwangi. We'd drop in and pick up a dried squid to gnaw on.

Those dried squid were great. They cost a dime, so we didn't get to buy one every day. They were usually brown, but sometimes red-dyed. They were about a foot long, the tentacles making up about half the body length. Every now and then they'd have 18-inchers in stock, but of course, those cost at least 15 cents.

Dried squid smelled like . . . well, dried squid. Real stink. But were they ono. We'd start off by ripping off the tentacles one at a time and slowly feeding them one by one into our mouths until we couldn't fit any more in. Then we'd just let the saliva flow and start chewing as best we could.

Neat we weren't. Eating dried squid was not exactly gourmet dining. It was one messy occupation -- the saliva would squirt out the side of our mouths, endangering any and all passersby, and the front of our shirt would sport juicy brown spit spots (actually looked like chewing tobacco — wonder if Mom and Obachan noticed, and what they used to think the spots were).

Our shirt pockets were always full of dried squid flakes and dust, sometimes intermingled with cuttlefish flakes.

Cuttlefish was another favorite. They'd come in large sheets that looked like square beige-colored cloth. The smell was all cuttlefish, as obnoxious an odor as dried squid.

But oh, what a flavor. It was sweet and soft, almost ambrosia. It wasn't quite as messy, so I guess you could consider cuttlefish a more "elegant" dried seafood, up there with dried scallops -- a more patrician after-school snack.

Cuttlefish cost about a dime to 15 cents, but you got a lot less for your money. Ounce for ounce, it was more expensive than the ordinary plebeian squid, but definitely worth the cost.

The most expensive dried seafood snack was abalone. These damned things cost about 50 cents apiece for a stupid dead marine animal's foot (well, isn't that what abalone is?) that was the size of a large egg. We'd often pool our money to buy one. The trouble with abalone was that you needed a pocket knife to eat it. The abalone was so hard that you'd have to shave off pieces to make it chewable. I don't mean chunks, now, I mean shavings. Consequently, the boy who owned the pocketknife got the lion's share of the abalone. After all, fair was fair, and the one who did all the work definitely should get more of the spoils -- we had honor in those days.

You could tell who were abalone carvers. Those were the guys whose right thumbs (or left ones if they were left-handed) were sporting shallow cut lines. You see, you had to hold the abalone in your left hand, then shave it with the knife held in your right hand. You pulled the knife toward you, and in order to prevent being stabbed in the chest, you had to stop the blade with your right thumb.

Boys being not quite as adept with dangerous items as grown-ups, you inevitably hit your thumb with the knife blade every time you shaved off a piece. Nothing drastic, just a cut through a couple of cell layers. But when you do it up to 200 times per abalone, it shows.

One of the more affordable after-school snacks was shaved ice. A nickel, 10 cents if we wanted azuki beans and ice cream. The most prevalent flavor was strawberry, but we often experimented with color (flavor) combinations. Green and yellow went together fine (lime and lemon), as did red and blue (strawberry and vanilla). If we were feeling particularly ornery, you'd order a "rainbow" -- red and green and yellow and blue. Problem was, the rainbow usually turned out looking like dark mud. And of course, we all know that shaved ice will color our lips, our teeth, our gums and our tongue. What started out looking like a gorgeous Hilo rainbow usually ended up looking like a mouthful of mud.

But I didn't care. It was go-o-od.

We ate a lot of Popsicles. Yes, we did. You see, every so many Popsicles had the word "Free" printed on the stick. Find one, and you could turn it in for a free Popsicle. We all fell for that ploy like a ton of bricks.

I bought Popsicle after Popsicle trying for the magic stick. Actually, I was getting pretty sick of the confection (in retrospect, I was paying my nickel for nothing but frozen sugared water on a stick). It must have taken 50 purchases before I got my first "free" one. But then, I got so jazzed at actually getting the "free" stick that I started up again, ever hoping for the elusive free Popsicle.

The "free" Popsicle hunt had a side benefit, though. We'd all save our Popsicle sticks and play with them. We'd make houses, dig dirt, weave them into trivet trays, make helicopter blades with them. We made good use of those stupid sticks.

We ate quite a bit of crack seed.

There used to be a Chinese crack seed store on Kamehameha Avenue, just past Mamo Street, heading toward Waiakea town. They had every flavor of crack seed you could imagine, and for a nickel, they'd put about 10 pieces into a small brown paper bag for you.

The best part was that after you finished eating all the seeds, you could pop the wet part of the bag into your mouth and chew out all the flavorful crack seed juices that had soaked the bag bottom. Sure, there was that brown bag paper taste, but who cared. We liked our pleasures sweet, sour and simple those days.

Crack seed hasn't changed much. They did switch to cellophane bags in the late '50s, but the product itself hasn't changed. There's still the semi-wet one with little pieces of straw stuck to it that looks like small horseshit. There's still the football crack seed that looks like a football.

Mom used to say that crack seed was filthy. She'd heard that the Chinese 'way over in China where the stuff was made would soften the fruit by stomping with their feet, sort of like crushing grapes for wine. That part wasn't bad.

What was gross was when she told us about the sweat and spit. Apparently, she reported, the dirty, uneducated Chinese would stomp and tromp so hard that they'd work up a sweat, and, would let their sweat drip into the tub.

It seems they also worked up a dry mouth, so they'd pick up a small piece of sweaty crack seed from the tub, pop it into their mouths so the sour taste would help them to salivate and keep their mouth moist. Then, oh yeech, they'd spit in the tub while stomping around with crack seed squishing up between their toes.

To this day, I can still picture a stereotypical old yellow Chinese man with a long pigtail and long fu manchu moustache, wearing a cone-shaped Chinaman's hat, with a colorful silk top and baggy cotton pants, stomping around with his toe-jammy feet in a tub full of crack seed, dripping sweat and dribbling spit from the corners of his mouth.

Yecch. But I don't care. Crack seed still tastes good.

Knives have always fascinated me. Remember that infamous pocketknife incident in Mrs. Baptiste's fourth-grade class? There's something about a knife that's sinister and yet beautiful. An age-old instrument of destruction, a knife can create things of lasting beauty.

I used to drool at the ads in the comic books that offered "A Genuine Stag Handle Hunting Knife!" from the Johnson Company for "Only $2.00!" If only I had the two bucks to send away for one of those beauties, I could . . . rid the world of the plague, conquer all those rotten bad guys, and clench the blade between my teeth while I swung from the sails of a pirate ship.

Got one of them beauties. Scrounged up the two dollars, folded them neatly between two sheets of binder paper, printed my name and address on a card, inserted them all in an envelope, bought a stamp at the post office, and mailed the order in. I don't know what made me think that the knife was going to arrive the very next day, but I anxiously waited for the mailman so I could surreptitiously intercept the package before my parents saw it.

Only problem was that we always put Dad's office address on the envelope, and through force of habit, I had done it again. In about a week or so (mail was pretty fast in the '50s), Dad brought home a small package addressed to me. Dad must have had other things on his mind that day, because he handed it to me without asking any questions. Had he looked closely, he would have seen the beads of sweat on my brow.

I took the package to my room, opened it carefully, and wouldn't you know -- the knife was only a pale imitation of what I imagined it would be. It was dull, it had no heft to it, the stag handle was painted wood (not too much plastic in those days), and the leather sheath looked like cardboard.

I stuck the knife in the drawer and maybe looked at it only a few more times before I completely forgot about it.

Of course, you just know that I'd try again. There used to be an army surplus shop on Kamehameha Avenue, right around Mamo Street. We passed there often on the way to the Hilo Boys Club and their window display always caught my eye. There used to be this beautiful switchblade knife just calling my name so sweetly. It wasn't too expensive either. Switchblades were legal then. So I scraped and saved until I had enough to buy the knife. I took it home, went directly to my desk, and started my James-Dean-Rebel-Without-A-Cause act. Wouldn't you know it, Dad passed the open door at that very moment, looked in, stopped, asked me for the knife, and took away forever.

I don't know what happened to the switchblade — but I always suspected Dad would close the doors at his office, whip out the switchblade, and act like a juvenile delinquent. On the other hand, what am I thinking about. This is Dad we're talking about. Nah. No way. He probably just threw it out with the trash.

Of course, you just know that I'd try again. (Where have I heard that before?)

My warped mind told me that the reason why I lost out on the switchblade was because it was a switchblade. Maybe a stiletto would work. So I scrimped, etc. and bought a fine-looking yellow stiletto. A "toad sticker," I think they called it.

(Actually, I did stick a toad with it. I saw one in the yard behind our house, walked up to the benign little creature, pointed the knife at his back and plunged it into his warty body. The toad went "Pooish!" or something like that, as its lungs collapsed. Sickening. I felt like throwing up, and vowed never to kill another toad on purpose again.)

I was a little more judicious about what I did with this knife. I don't think Dad ever knew that I had it. Carried it around for quite a while, I did. Until one fateful day when I was walking to Obachan's house after Japanese school.

I was swinging the knife at red hibiscus flowers, trying to cut them in half without knocking them off the plant. You know, just the red petals . . . then I'd pull off the sepal portion and suck out the sweet water that collected there.

Anyway, my left wrist got in the way of one of those slashing motions and I stuck myself in the wrist. Hurt a little, but I wasn't scared. Not until I pulled the blade, that is. Then, the blood began shooting out in pulsating spurts in cadence with my heartbeat. I'd struck an artery and the blood was shooting out all over the place. My arm got red, my friends got red, one of them almost passed out, the sidewalk got red, and the red hibiscus flowers got even redder.

I lost about a gallon of blood. No, it only seemed that way. I guess I lost about two tablespoons of blood before I pressed my right index finger on the wound. Stopped nicely, even though it oozed for a little while after.

Then, it began to hurt. Hurt for about three days afterward. I never told Dad (or Mom, or Obachan) about it — they'd only ask me how I got the knife, and about how I shouldn't have been playing around with such a deadly weapon in the first place.

But I did throw the knife away myself. Learned my lesson. Would never buy another knife in my life.

Right. A few months later, I saw a neat dagger for $15 at Kaya's Pawn Shop, just down the street from Dad's office. The old "knife-in-hand" disease struck again, and I saved and saved until I had the money.

It took a while to get up the nerve to buy such an expensive knife, but a few days later I went into the shop, pointed to the knife in the glass case, and said, "I want that one."

"Your father said you could buy that?" the man asked (I presume it was Kaya).

Fumble, bumble, mumble, "No." I backed out and never stepped foot in that shop again. I had made a big mistake going there. Turns out he was one of Dad's patients (Dad had patients EVERYWHERE), and he knew who I was.