Yokohama Navy Exchange was where?

Peter:
I believe it was another of our (past) post-ers, Kathleen Fletcher Standridge (Fletch) who said she had toured the milk plant. I never went there; I did mostly "Japanese sightseeing".

Seems like I remember our quarts of milk carried the "Sealtest" brand name. I think Sealtest was a California dairy that supplied milk powder which was "bottled" in Japan.
For some reason, we kept these quart cartons in the freezer and would thaw them out a few days before they were needed.

Thanks Lori, you were right .. as always. Don't know about the Sealtest vs. Meadow Gold.. I suspect that as the occupation got along and then the Southeast asia bit that they needed to ramp up the procurement aspect and bids for contracts ect... thus Meadow Gold. I would have my little routine. Do my morning walk through [ the Japanese didn't need me anyway as they knew what they were doing and I didn't]. Then a half pint of chocolate milk on the roof to watch the morning sky turn from a beautiful blue to a dull grey as the steel plants in Kawasaki fired up there furances. How romantic. For several months I was the only serviceman there. A lovely treat.. except for the paperwork !! I have looked it up on the net there is no mention of it except in an obscure reference. I was the right man for the job as once a Japanese supervisor was grilling me on the finer points of the dairy business. I majored in Dairy in school and worked on dairy farms and plants for 5 years through school. One day he was trying to one -up me about the anatomy and physiology of the dairy cow, had him there was tight on my thesis. He walked away thinging that the US Army was getting better at this. Had to give it to him though, his english was very impressive. And we turned out to be good friends. The plant also had a quality control lab. One day I just walked in and started running my oun tests based on my college lab courses in dairy science. The supervisor and the young tech had never seen this and sat on their desks smiling. Ran a simple butterfat scale test.. confirmed their findings had a good laugh and left. I was sweating all the time as i had forgotten 50% of the procedure and was making it up as I went along, BS can be a beautiful thing.
Question for Dave. Do you know Ollie North? Personally I mean ? Lets see if Peters psychic powers work here.

I didn't drink much milk at Kishine Barracks, so I can't recall much about it. When I was in Okinawa, 1978-80, the milk was pretty good. The processing plant was run by Old Dominion, who won the contract away from Meadow Gold. I saw how they made cottage cheese, which was in a long wide concrete trough that didn't even have a top on it to keep things from falling or flying into it. But the cottage cheese was good. The contract called for the contractor to use real chocolate in the chocolate milk and ice cream and he was using imitation chocolate and was fined and they made him use the real stuff. But, you know what? The chocolate milk tasted better when they were using the imitation. Ah, memories.

One of the things I enjoy on this forum is remembering trivial things after someone else has mentioned something that refreshes a long forgotten memory. Like "Sunken Gardens." Never could figure out why they were called that. Now I know. They weren't called that by anyone but ignorant Army folk and brats.
Sealtest and Meadow Gold both were familiar but I wouldn't have associated either with Japan or the Far East. I just checked my fridge to see if we buy Sealtest milk but it is Lucerne. Funny, couldn't tell you what kind of milk we buy here but I remember Holland Dairy from when I lived in San Marcos, California and Yoder's Dairy from when I lived in Virginia Beach. When I returned from Japan in '54 aboard the Anderson I wouldn't drink the milk. It didn't taste right. It was fresh and I was used to reconstituted milk.
I hadn't thought of honey buckets in years but who could ever forget them? Their use wasn't particularly concerning to people who had lived in the country and knew something about how farmers nourished soil but was shocking to the city folks. Everyone from the country knew you had to wash produce and knew why but city people seemed to think vegetables were grown in nice clean soil and came from the grocery ready to eat. The biggest problem with honey buckets was getting caught behind the cart in traffic. I found a picture of a honey wagon. http://dobashi.jp/abraham/pearl.age.jp/whizlinc/sendaij...
The whole site is great because the pictures are from the same time when I first lived in Japan.
http://dobashi.jp/abraham/pearl.age.jp/whizlinc/tableof...
As for not being allowed to buy vegetables in a Japanese market but the stuff in the restaurants being OK, yeah, right. The restaurants must have bought their veggies at the same grocery as the city folks bought theirs, not where stuff that came from some gross farm. Raw fish& squid didn't appeal to most Americans in 1954 either but now they are both very popular here. Some people still don't believe me when I tell them calamari is squid. I used to eat dried squid at Lou Gehrig Stadium and loved it. The same goes for the spicy Japanese hot dogs. There's no telling what was in them but they were better tasting than any hot dogs I've ever eaten at a ball park here and probably no more unsavory. Talk about gross, ever been in a sausage factory? Makes cottage cheese & yogurt production look clean and healthy. I seem to remember the kids tickets for Japanese ball games being about 50 Yen and the dogs and squid about the same. And we could buy beer in Yokohama at age twelve although none of us liked it as much as we liked soda. Those were indeed the days.
I've been looking at Yokohama on Google Earth and finally found something that is unchanged from 1954. There was a rock and concrete wall we used to sit on near where I lived when we were waiting for the bus. That wall is still there and there is now a Japanese bus stop where the Army bus stop was.
Peter-san says, "...BS can be a beautiful thing. Question for Dave. Do you know Ollie North? Personally I mean ? Let's see if Peters psychic powers work here."
Hmmm! Interesting associations! I don't believe I ever met the gentleman, although it is possible. I've had fleeting associations with a lot of good Marines (we are all good) whose names I've forgotten or never knew during my time in the Marine Corps and since. Living near Washington I've met and spoken with a lot of famous people, Marines and others, but wouldn't say I know any of them personally. I guess the test is to ask them if they know me.
Why do you ask?
Dave-san

Dave san- Just a wild guess as you were a marine and now live in the DC area and with your computer skills appear to be no slouch. And thanks for the links.. were great.
Hope all are well. cold and rainy in NE.

The pictures in your site look just like Yokohama in the mid 1950s. I remember watching several of these buildings being constructed.
First; a frame of heavy bamboo was built around the exterior of the new building. Workers hiked themselves up on these scaffoldings do do ten or more hours of work each day. The exterior walls were green bamboo, cut to exact lengths and then tied in bundles for strength. Then gray stucco mud was plastered over the bamboo, often two stories high. A tatami frame was put in and mats were layed in place. Shazam; a home for a family or a new business. Sometimes both.

You mentioned how the Japanese constructed a house and tatami mats. I hurt my back at football practice in high school and have had back trouble ever since. The apartment I lived in at Hakuraku Mansion had tatami mats for the floor, upon which I slept on a futon, and I never had back trouble.

We had tatami floors in some rooms, and wooden floors elsewhere, but never slept on the floor. But to this day we remove our shoes indoors - once you get the rationale of that, you never do anything but - just doesn't seem sanitary.

I noticed this on the Japan-guide main page. I haven't explored much of it, but I thought some of you may find it interesting:

www.japan-guide.com/event/yokohama-expo/

Sounds like Wally-san likes to sleep on the floor. I can understand that.. less distance to fall when you pass out.
Hey SrCath..finished the book yet?

I just looked at Lori's site - the very interesting 150th anniversary expo in Yokohama, which I for one didn't know about. I'm telling my son Jeff about it - he's planning a lengthy visit to Japan this fall and shouldn't miss this. Maybe all of us should go there too - we could get a group discount! Anyway, thanks to Lori for this story - you are really alert, as usual.

Hey guys.. Steffi has a great idea ! we could all go together. I for one would love to get to know you all on that 16 hour flight at 30 thousand feet in that cramped airplane.. sounds great !

Alas, I've not had a lot of reading time lately, but I'm chipping away at it. It being Japanese Inn. I love it. The books I've read of recent Japanese history are downright depressing, but this book is just plain delightful. I may see if our local bookstore can find a copy for me.

I just found this on Japan-guide.com Bill Chickering Theater present today? forum.
http://www5.ocn.ne.jp/~matida/gallery2.htm
http://www5.ocn.ne.jp/~matida/map.htm
http://www5.ocn.ne.jp/~matida/gallery2a.htm
The arrows on the bottom will take you through the entire album.
Also found old racetrack pictures by following links.
http://hisa491.fc2web.com/list8.htm
Enjoy!
Dave-san

The links provided several pictures of the way things looked in the Honmoku area in the early '80's when I lived in Yokohama. I appreciated seeing them!

Nice pix !
The photo of the Bill Chickering was kind of sad.

I spent every Saturday morning there for several years.

Thanks Dave for the great photos.
I was happy to see the photo of ''Bayside Courts''. I lived there 1968-9

Dave-san
Thanks for the photos and the map. I was taken by the ammount of space that the occupation forces took up at the time the map was done. It shows that Yamashita Park at the water front was "base housing" and that much of downtown was some kind of facility or other. I am not sure when this map was done, any guesses anyone ?
Joe.. Hi ! I remember your posts from a long time ago. I remember Bayside Courts very well. In the typical irony it was not really on the bay and there were no courts there either. I always thought it sounded good in letters to home. Jooe do you remember any of the Veterinary food inspactors there, lived in the 1st bldg on the right 2nd floor on the east [ right side] I stayed there but not for long as I was newly married and found an apartment, went there every day.. Joe confirm the name of the little caferteria there was it called the ' Main Brace" ?

I don't remember any of the food inspectors. I lived on the 2nd. floor, second bldg on the right. A lot of the residents in my bldg. also worked in the printing plant with me. A bus would get us to work in Kawasaki. The roads were unpaved & quite narrow & the pollution enroute (smell) was quite bad at that time.
We would pass a University & there were, often, student demonstrators against the Vietnam War in the street.

I did eat in the small cafeteria quite a bit but the name you mentioned doesn't ring a bell. I remember the yakitori being sold from push carts in the area.

Places visited often were: Zebra Club, Motomachi, swimming pool near the PX & Tokyo.

Went with a couple of friends to Hakone and Atami.

What year were you there?
What were some of your experiences?