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This is a story about an
international couple raising and home educating three
young boys on a small island in Japan, half living in
buses, engaged in organic, self-sufficient farming in
the middle of a mountain forest while dealing with
climate, cultural, and personal challenges. These pages
are about pretty much anything and everything all guided
by our family motto, Taking Chances, Making Changes,
Being Happy. Thank you very much for joining us on our
ongoing crazy adventure.
Comments or questions about this blog?....message me at
Facebook. |
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 Life
Was Good
I grew up in a small village called Kenmore, located in
Western New York, north of, and adjacent to, the city of
Buffalo. As with any place in America, things were not
perfect, but when I was a child, it certainly seemed as
close to perfect as you could get. I lived in the same house
for my entire childhood, played with the same friends, and
went to the same places on a regular basis.
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 Sure there was discrimination, especially for a Jewish kid
like me growing up in a predominately Christian
neighborhood. The usual comments of kike, and dirty Jew
would come up from time to time, usually from a pissed off
friend who temporary was at a loss for words and simply
reached out for the first derogatory term which came to
mind, no doubt learned from his parents at the dinner table
one night. Anyway, you got called names, you fought, and
then the next day you were friends again and out playing
touch football in the street beneath the rows of majestic
maple trees which lined the streets of my small, quiet,
little village. Life was good and seemed like it would never
change. |
 This
Guy Was Okay
Eventually I moved to sunny California
in order to finish my college education, and to be with my
parents, who had moved there during my first year of college
at S.U.N.Y. at Buffalo. After the move I pretty much lost
touch with most of my childhood friends and began my new
life in California. Again, life was good.
Every four
years, there was a presidential election which led to the
same old bullshit being spewed by politicians trying to get
the top job in the U.S., and after being elected, nothing much
really changed. All the campaign promises went by the
wayside and were soon forgotten, and again, not much really changed.
Things were not so stable though in other places around the
world. I can remember stories of people in other countries
back in the day, who were forced to move because of
persecution or political unrest, with the knowledge they
would never return home. In fact, my grandparents emigrated
to Canada many years ago to escape deteriorating conditions
in Russia. I thought how sad it must be to lose the home you
always knew and loved, and be forced to relocate in a
foreign land, and establish yourself and your family in a
new place. I can
also remember thinking, thank goodness I am an American,
because that could never happen in my country.
Now fast forward a few years. I moved to Japan originally
for a change. I was always fascinated by foreign cultures,
especially Asian, and decided to move to Japan. I eventually
met my wife Akiko, we got married, became the parents of two
wonderful boys, and moved to a very conservative,
countryside area known as Nara, Japan. We eventually found
our way to the island of Tanegashima, a subtropical island
located off the mainland of Japan. During these years, the
president of the United States was Barack Obama. Maybe not
the most dynamic of presidents, but a man with poise, good
demeanor, and a level of eloquence not seen in the last few
presidents. Again life was good. |
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 Both
Were Not Okay
Then came the run for the presidency of 2016, and along with
it, a woman and a man, both vying for the top spot in the
country. The woman, Hillary Clinton, a seemingly
untrustworthy woman and the wife of an equally dishonest
former president. The man, Donald Trump, a reputedly
unscrupulous, and ruthless businessman, who did anything to
achieve his goals.
Being in Japan, I had the option of
submitting an absentee ballot, and chose to give up that
right, as in my opinion, both Clinton and Trump were
unacceptable choices to lead the country. That said, I was
sure Clinton would be victorious and America would coast
along for another four years, complete with the usual lack
of enthusiasm and adversity to change, as with
administrations of the past. America seemed stable and we
began talking about returning to my home in San Diego,
California until the unthinkable happened....Trump won the
election. In the couple of months that followed, it became
all too evident that things were taking a turn for the
worse. Then again, surely the nasty rhetoric Trump exhibited
on the campaign trail would end once this egomaniac knew he
won the election. It turned out not to be the case. |
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 Donald
Trump Creates Chaos
As president elect, Trump was unreasonable, stumbling
through ill thought out decisions, and making incessant
rants from his Twitter account. Okay, this was simply post
triumph pretentiousness which would go away once the weight
of the presidency set in….or so I thought. During his first
couple of weeks in office, Trump managed to scare a country,
and a world, into virtual submission, with his subordinates,
along with world leaders, catering to his every whim.
His first executive orders, which were intended to create
chaos, included: plans to build a border
wall to keep out illegal immigrants, censoring the
Environmental Protection Agency along with preparations to
delete all climate change data from their website, giving
the go ahead to build a couple of controversial pipelines,
and the infamous immigration ban which created unprecedented
chaos in America, and threw the international community into
turmoil. I watched as whites clashed with minorities in
protest rallies, years of scientific research by dedicated
scientists getting deleted, regard for the environment
being reduced to nonexistence, and immigrants with legal
status to be in this country, torn away from their families.
Trump has cut into the very fabric of what made America
great. It was then I realized that the America I knew no
longer exists, and possibly for good. |
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