Yokohama Navy Exchange was where?

Yes, Eric. Hi! You are right. Nile C. Kinnick High School was so named after the switch from army to navy school in 1959. And there is a Kinnick High School in Yokosuka. Here is a question that puzzled me. I had many American classmates at my school, St. Joseph College, up on the Bluff in Yokohama that closed its doors in 2000. I was a student there from 1949-1961. But the American students were sons of diplomats and officers and business executives for the most part. And my former colleague at the paper I worked had a dad who was an admiral in the U.S. Navy. She was a student at St. Maur's next door.
I wonder why they chose the private schools instead of Yohi? But my classmates Tom, Sparky and Miles all had girlfriends who attended YoHi.

It looks like we just missed each other at St Joseph's. I was a student there until 1948, from 1946.
My Mom worked for the American Red Cross women, who were housed at Berrick Hall very near St Joseph's on the Bluff, in Yokohama, until we emigrated to the US.

While I was there at St Joseph's I do not believe there were any U.S. students there at all.....just kids from all over Europe, or kids of Japanese or Japanese/European backgrounds. It had formerly just admitted boys, with St Maur's the school for girls.

I attended St Maur's in Karuizawa until I was 8 in 1946, and I believe it took them a while to relocate to the Bluff. I first learned English there. I remember both St Joseph's and St Maur's with great affection.

St Maur's still exists, as far as I know, offering several academic programs including the IB, and the French national curriculum. I am not a teacher, but I always thought it would be a great place for an American to be an exchange teacher for a year...

Regards,
Steffi

I recently read that military radar operators in North America will be keeping an eye out for the Jolly Fat Man and his eight tiny reindeer coming in from the North Pole.

I remember FEN Radio in Tokyo, (Far East Network) was doing the same thing on the day before Christmas. It seemed every year, Santa was first observed delivering toys and other gifts over Hokkaido.

As I fell asleep on Christmas eve, FEN reported Santa was "still busy over Hokkaido."

The FEN, [far east network] was active when I was there from 67-69
I remember that they had a program called ''The Balloon Farm'' they played some
''hip'' records and had an announcer that tried to be cool, but didnt make it and the whole show came off as a pathetic attempt to be cool.
Some years later there was a movie called ''Good Morning Vietnam'' with Robin Williams fighting against the establishment. Was a nice flashback.

Merry Christmas, and a very happy and healthy and safe New Year, everyone!

Have a good time, but stay safe....

Best -
Steffi

Merry Christmas to all of my friends at Japan-Guide.
I hope all of you are safe and well this year.

I happened to contact a friend from College who I have not spoken with or seen in 54 years. He asked what I have been doing all these years and I told him that I have posted most all of my memories from my time stationed in Japan, on the JP Guide site. I warned him....as I have not heard from him much since then..I assume he is still reading..he was warned haha

I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays. I lived on the Bluff in Yokohama near St. Joseph�fs in 1952-54. I remember one Japanese friend that attended St. Joseph�fs, John Suzuki, but I don�ft know what his parents did or why he went to St. Joseph�fs. I don�ft remember knowing anyone else that went to St. Joseph�fs. I attended Yo-Hi for sixth & seventh grade. We weren�ft really high school students but we were in the same building and attended the high school assemblies and sporting events. Yo-Hi was a great experience. We had as much freedom as the high school students and could eat where we wanted or skip the school bus and go somewhere else after school.
When I left Yokohama, we moved to a strange land called, �gThe South.�h There, while living at Fort Lee, I attended a segregated school in Prince George County, Virginia for eighth grade. That was dramatically different. Everyone was either an Army kid who hadn�ft known anyone very long, or a farmer�fs kid who had always gone to school with the same local kids. The only thing the two groups had in common was that we were all white. The subject matter in eighth grade was pretty much the same as what I had learned in 7th grade the year before at Yo-Hi so it was boring. Then my parents divorced and I moved to New Jersey. For ninth and part of tenth grade I attended an inner-city school that was run more like a prison than a high school. I skipped school so often that I was expelled for excessive absences as punishment. I had a part-time job that I was able to switch to full-time so that worked out pretty well for a while. I did enroll in a vocational school a year later in an electrician program while still working full time and attended for a year and a half during the day while working nights as a mechanic in a bowling alley where I mostly sat around in back waiting for a machine to malfunction. I had plenty of time to get school work done at work and was way ahead on self-paced assignments. Then, when I was eighteen, the local draft board started making me feel uneasy. It was time to start thinking about how I was going to fulfill my military obligation or have others decide. I joined the Marine Corps and stayed for twenty years. I had a dream assignment for part of 1964-5 when I was stationed in a unit at Atsugi. Yokohama was only a short train ride away. I was home! Unfortunately, the dream ended when we all got sent to Vietnam. I got back to Yokohama one last time in 1973 for about two hours between getting off a plane in Tokyo and catching a train to Iwakuni where I was stationed then although I had been deployed elsewhere the entire year. Another trip to Yokohama is still at the top of my bucket list.

I recall the name of the elementary school inside YO-HI.
It was called "Nasugbu Beach Elementary."

There was considerable history in the YO-HI building.
I think it was a school for Japanese girls in the pre-war era...

Nasugbu Beach in the Philippines was the scene of an American military invasion on January 31, 1945.

Today, it's a resort area, with hotels, restaurants and swimming pools, Hawaii style...

Ave-san,

Lovely to hear about your very interesting and varied life, like the other folks on this thread......it sounds like you kind of followed in your father's footsteps in also going into the military. I was curious as to where you landed after all these adventures and approximately where you are living now. I also lived on the Bluff, but much earlier, in 1945 to 1948 when we moved to the States. St Joseph's was my school also, as they became co-ed until St Mauer's, the girls' school, returned from Karuizawa, where they had moved during the second world war. Besides the school, what stands out in my recollection are the swimming pool, where I learned to float but not swim and had my ft Coca Cola, the hospital, where there were a group of orphan babies, with whom I played, and a lovely Catholic Church, which I liked to visit with my friend, Minette.......and the Foreigners Cemetery, where my father is buried.

As for NJ .....I worked in some of those urban high schools starting in 1964 , and it is true that in those days truanting kids were simply dropped from the rolls once they reached 16. Not sure that happens anymore...and it is also true that they had a prison like feel, though I didn't think of it that way at the time...ie, chained doors to prevent intruders, security guards, metal detectors, etc.

And Eric....your long term memory for details continues to astound.....you are our unofficial archivist....

Best regards to everyone.....

Thanks very much.
Sleep beckons ...

Hello everyone,

Did you enjoy Christmas evening? I hope it.

Yokohama is sunny and the temperature is about 55 degrees Tuesday noon now. Here will be chilly from the end of the year to new year. This web is bluff's St. Joseph history. I think you have already seen this, give it a try again.

http://www.sjcusachapter.com/sub08.html

Stay safe, Thank you.

In the mid to late 50s, for unknown reasons, my folks took me out of Nasugbu Beach and enrolled me at Yokohama International School. YIS acceepted kids through the 6th grade at the time.
The school used textbooks from the UK and had an interesting group of teachers. Most memorable was "Mr. Stubbs," an Englishman who taught English and looked after the school newspaper. Then there was "Mr. Yajima." He was an ex-German Army enlisted man who had been shot in the thigh while on the Russian Front. Yajima took his wife's family name for his own under an old Japanese custom allowing the name change where no male offspring carried on the name.
The headmaster was a Mr Bauman, later succeeded by Mr DeHaan. Neither cared much for US Army brats.
David Niven's brother enrolled twin boys who looked and talked like their uncle David. Pity I can't recall their names.
Mr. Yajima taught math, sometimes using the UK's pounds, shillings and pence (12=20=1 or some such.) I'm told the UK finally got rid of this curious accounting in favor of 100 pence to the pound.

https://www.yis.ac.jp/about-us/history

Hello again everyone,

This is history of YIS, The kid standing to the left of the picture is our friend Eric. I often go to bluff and I am visiting the Foreign General Cemetery, Motomachi Park.
Yokohama is raining now. But here is much warmer than usual. Here will be fine in this afternoon.

Kaoru

Begone, bad year. In just two days, we can say goodbye to 2020 and welcome 2021, the year of the Ox. I learned recently that the origins of the Chinese horoscope that the Japanese follow was originally based on how the Japanese identified the 24 hour time. One a.m. would be the Hour of the Mice, the second hour was the Hour of the Ox. I'll be seeing you at the top of the Hour of the Dragon. Just roar me when you arrive.
Discovered our thread back in January 2011 in which Dave-san provided a very interesting detail about his school YIS, Yokohama International School up on the Bluff, around the corner from the Foreign Cemetery and the Weather Station. And in the same thread Steffi and I wrote about Karuizawa and the school we both attended: St. Joseph College. I know of your friend Minette (formerly Yoshimoto) who lived on the Bluff near the school. My older schoolmate Julio Rangel met her last year in New York along with Kunio Kikuchi whose father worked with Mr. Yoshimoto for Mitsubishi (silk trade in Lyon, France).
I have sad news about a query about John Suzuki, a student at St. Joseph College, class of 1960: He died a few months ago.
But I have good news for all the students who huffed and puffed walking up the hill towards our schools on the Bluff (Yamate): From Motomachi/Chinatown subway station on the Minato Mirai/Toyoko Line, you can take an elevator or escalator up to American Hill Park. From there, it's an easy walk to YIS, St. Maur's and St. Joseph College. Oops, I forgot. St. Joseph International School has been flattened, gone with the wind. But Berrick Hall still stands, newly refurbished, thanks to the Yokohama City government. And in one room there is memorabilia of our much beloved alma mater, St. Joseph College. There are photographs of our school in one corner of the memorial building of the Foreign Cemetery, Gaijin Bochi. I still pay my respects to our teachers buried there with each visit to Japan. Look for the large statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. There they lie, nuns from St. Maur's, Marianist brothers from St. Joseph. On this sad note, after the Auld Lang Syne (Hotaru no Hikari) is sung, hope arrives when the sun rises on New Year's Day, 2021.
Happy New Year to you, one and all. The only Corona we'll drink will be that beer from Mexico!

We now have a great threat. We need not supremacy or conflict. And early end of the virus. I believe that leaders and people around the world must work together to end this great tribulation. Let's all unite and fight the virus.

I agree with Kaoru's opinion, live !!

Kaoru-san, thank you for the link to the interesting article about St Joseph's. I was there only for a couple of years, but I have gone memories of this school.....

I once read a piece about St Maur's also, which I know still exists after a very long history, now teaching curriculums from countries all over the world, including the IB courses, and the French national curriculum. I think it may be the oldest missionary school in the east, dating back to the mid-eighteenth century.....

I hope you are staying safe....I read that Tokyo is having a Covid outbreak, as we are here in many parts of the US as well.....Will you be able to get the vaccine soon?

Everyone else... stay safe as well.......and sane in these interesting times.....May things calm down soon.

Thanks again for your answer Steffi-san and Keiko.

I've been to Bluff Av.D Sankeien Garden last week. And I had coffee at Hotel New Grand. The area is about 4 miles from my house, but I didn't visit much before because there were many tourists very quiet now.

Yes, the corona vaccine will be given first to patients, hospital doctors and nurses from this February, I think it's too late...

I went to NYC the year after 9/11. There were many pix and letters nearby the rubble of the World Trading Center Buildings, seeing them made me sad...

And I saw the Isaiah wall at the UN headquarters. I often reading the Holly Bible, my favorite verse is "Isaiah 2: 4",

"He shall judge between the nations,
and shall decide disputes for many peoples;
and they shall beat their swords
into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword
against nation,
neither shall they learn war anymore".

Stay safe
Keep in touch,