When I think of the fifth grade, Mrs. Lolita Ragsdale is right at the top of my mind. She was a Spanish lady with a great singing voice in the tradition of great Spanish music.

One day, Mrs. Ragsdale announced that we were going to learn how to sing some Spanish songs. We were going to become artists of sorts, and blend our mellifluous voices together in two Spanish classics -- La Paloma and Cielito Lindo.

What? And why? Of course, I was a wonderful accomplished singer already, so I had no problems learning my part. But I swear to God, half the class was tone-deaf. She never gave up, though, and she forced us to learn and perform -- in three-part harmony, La Paloma in both English and in Spanish, and Cielito Lindo entirely in Spanish.

Eventually, we learned the truth. Mrs. Ragsdale had entered our class in a district-wide school singing festival at the Hilo Armory. We were to represent the "privileged" kids at Riverside School. Aw-right! Now there was purpose to our practice. Now we had a reason to excel!

We sang our hearts out. We hit the right notes and we got better and better. And throughout our rehearsals, Mrs. Ragsdale kept saying the same thing over and over. I remember her very words: "You have to learn to smile and sing at same time. Smile and sing! Smile and sing!"

I have to say, we were awesome. Dressed in white tops and black pants, and a red sash, we looked simply marvelous. We smiled and sang, then we smiled and sang some more. The Riverside School fifth-grade class delivered a near-professional performance at that festival. Nobody came near to matching our angelic voices. In fact, the only other performance I remember was a group of 200 or so elementary students all playing "Lady of Spain" in unison on their ukuleles. I think it was Waiakea Elementary, if such a school ever existed -- we didn't know, but remember, we were the "semi-private school" kids from Riverside.

But the uke performance did come pretty close to awesome, though nowhere close to us.

Mrs. Ragsdale had a big black 18-inch ruler she called the "Black Mariah" (as in "Ma-rai-ah") that hurt like the dickens when it was introduced to your backside. I met Miss Mariah at least a couple of times that year.

The thing is, your introduction was always something of a surprise. She would sneak up on you while you were carrying on a conversation during nap time (yes, we still took naps until we reached the sixth grade, and remember, I hated naps).

You'd be blissfully unaware of the impending doom, when suddenly your friend would turn absolutely quiet, his mouth would drop open, and before you could say "Black Mariah," your buttocks would explode in pain. You'd turn around and see Mrs. Ragsdale's back, the "Black Mariah" peeking over her shoulder, as she continued her rounds.

If you were lucky, you'd be the one who had turned quiet and whose jaw had dropped as Mrs. Ragsdale approached your tete-a-tete from the opposite direction.

I had my first cigarette while I was in the fifth-grade, hiding under the Tanigawa's house, across the street from Obachan's house. It was with either Jay Murasaki or Walter Janado. Probably Walter. He was a kind of a rogue.

He lived with his sister Joy, and his mom, who I think was divorced. Walter is the guy who ate wasp grubs cooked in butter and shoyu. He actually did that in front of me. Anyway, that cigarette tasted awful, and it made me dizzy. It also made me feel like a man -- no, like a MAN!

But then I went home and Dad smelled it on me, and he made me smoke one of these big stink cigars that he had. Forced me inhale and everything, and I got sick as a dog. I didn't touch the stuff again until I went to YMCA camp a couple of years later.

Christmas vacation in the '50s was a great time to be a kid. Those two and a half weeks at the end of December, mixed in with the joyous mood of the season were heaven on earth. Even after I lost my Santa virginity, I always enjoyed Christmas. When it comes to yuletide, I guess no one ever grows up. I know Dad never tired of it.

Putting up the tree was a family effort. No, maybe not an effort -- it wasn't that at all. It was more like a bonding event. Dad would balance the tree just right in the stand,

Mom would dig out the box of ornaments and we'd all trim the tree.

Of course, no tree would be complete without tinsel. We call them icicles nowadays, but back then, they were made out of tin. (As in "tin-foil" back then, aluminum foil today.)

Actually, they were fun things. I used to press a piece into a bunch to mold a tin bullet, shave match heads into a powder, bend a bicycle spoke into the shape of a pistol, pack the spoke's tightening nut with the shaved match heads, plug it up with a small wad of paper and a tin bullet, then hold the nut over a candle.

The match-head chemicals would heat up and explode, sending the tin bullet hurtling across the room.

But, I digress.

Dad always got the best tree he could find. No skimpy trees for us. And it kind of rubbed off, on me at least. There's nothing like a full, pine-scented, well-shaped Christmas tree to get you in the Christmas mood. One year in college, my roommates and I bought an aluminum tree. It just didn't cut the mustard -- no aroma, no needle mess, no class.

We always had lots of presents under the tree. After all, five kids, Obachan, Mom and Dad made for a lot of people. Even if we all gave each other just one gift, that would total up to at least 56 presents.

And there was always a bunch of gifts from Mom's side of the family in California -- even an annual package containing a present for me from Mom's Yuba City cousins.

Christmas in Hilo survives in a plethora of memories -- the Hongwanji tree that was too tall for our home but just right for Dad's office, the annual Waiakea Lions Club Christmas parties where everyone went home with a grab-bag gift, the Salvation Army kettles, sitting on Santa's lap at the Kress store, buying a cheap tie at Ben Franklin and having Mom get a refund and a replacement tie at the Men's shop, and special services at the Church of the Holy Cross.

The church events deserve extra mention here. For some reason, I was always involved in the church nativity program. When younger, I was usually a shepherd, but I once was Jesus Christ. When older, I was usually a Wise Man, but I once was Santa Claus.

Both exceptions were sort of embarrassing, but what do you expect -- after all, wasn't I the King of Embarrassment? As Baby Jesus, I had to wear a diaper on stage. As Jolly Old Saint Nick, I felt everyone was making fun of me since I was the only one not dressed in nativity garb.

As it turned out, everyone was quite proud of me, and my friends ended up showing me a lot of respect.

Mom really got into the spirit of the season. She decorated the living room with Christmas scenes and special decorations that she'd revive year after year. I remember in particular a winter village that she'd display on the living room credenza, sitting atop a fluffy blanket of cotton snow. She had special felt Christmas stockings for each of us, all inscribed with our names -- big stockings with lots of room for Santa to stuff lots of goodies in.

Before losing my Santa virginity, I would always try to stay up to see the man. Never succeeded. I'd wake up early, like every other kid in the world, rush to the living room and gasp at the wonderful gift that Santa brought me that year. In later years, I would search all over the house looking for the "Santa" presents. Little did I know that Dad had them stashed away at his office.

Christmas Day was just filled with impatient Miyamoto kids. First of all, we had to wait until Dad came back from making his hospital rounds. After all, he was a doctor and his patients also had needs. Then, we had to wait until he picked up Obachan and brought her to the house.

By that time, for Christ's sake, it was at least 9 o'clock, and we were antsy as hell. Mom would relent a little, and let us open "family presents first." That did not mean presents from family on the mainland -- just the ones from the other kids, and Mom and Dad.

The reason we couldn't open any gifts from outside the immediate family was because Mom had to compile a list of gifts given to whom by whom. Every family goes through this. The famous gift lists by mom. I guess the gift lists served to remind us of who gave what to whom during thank-you letter writing time. For what other purpose they existed, I am at a loss to say, but I do know Mom's were preserved till the end of time on different-sized sheets of paper.

I must be older than I thought. I remember when "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" first came out.

There was another part of Christmas vacation -- New Year's fireworks.

Those blasted things used to scare me when I was real young. They were just too damned noisy. The fuse either sputtered slowly along, scaring me with the anticipation of the great explosion, or they zapped along too fast, triggering the blast before I could get safely away. Either way, it scared the hell out of me. When I was real young, like up to and including first grade, I used to run to the bedroom and hide under the covers while Dad was out there lighting every piece of fireworks in sight.

Dad loved them. Every New Year's Eve he'd break out the bombs and strings of Duck Brand, the sparklers and sky rockets. The smell of gunpowder would rise over Hilo all night and it created the illusion that the whole world was at war.

We'd all work up a good appetite and slurp down noodles bought at a Chinese restaurant. ("The Chinese never close for any holiday. They're always open," Dad said.)

New Year's Day was also fun. When I was older, all us kids would run around the neighborhood with a brown paper bag, filled with the small Camel Brand firecrackers, larger Duck Brand firecrackers, colorful round Chinese hand-bombs, and a fat string with one glowing end. No manure punks for us.

We'd attack and bomb ant colonies in an all-out war with those nasty nuclear-mutated insect aliens from outer space, and use our slingshots to shoot hand-bombs at the flies that swarmed the dead toads that didn't make it across the road before being squashed by a passing car.

We'd also search out the gross toad-menaces under wooden planks, between rocks, and in the tall grass, and destroy them with the mighty Duck Brand firecrackers (this was before my career-ending toad sticking incident with my stiletto).

We'd make mudballs, stick a Duck Brand in, light the fuse, and hurl the mud grenades at each other. ("Craig, what are these brown spots on your clothes?")

We'd wrap cherry bombs in bread, light them, and throw them into the river (I'll tell you lots about the river later). The mosquito fish would swarm around to eat the bread and the cherry bomb would go off. Hundreds of fish would rise, dead or stunned, to the surface and be washed away to fish heaven.