Connections Multiplying

After the Northern California “book tour” we enjoyed two more book events at The Book Store in Lompoc.

As a result connections are popping up everywhere! Just yesterday a Lompoc woman named Jerry Beattie made contact with the Shirokawa family whom she had not heard from in decades. And a retired teacher named Jits Furusawa, who now lives in Lompoc, told about his stepfather, Osamu Matoba, who returned briefly to Lompoc after the war. Osamu Matoba is the older brother of Kiyoshi Matoba who starred as a baseball player in Lompoc in 1940-41

And this note from Lucille and Kaoru Bill Honda.

Did I tell you that a friend that we had not seen for over 55 years recently wrote to us to say she just finished reading your “Vanished” book? She said Bill never told her that he was a coach with girls’ basketball in Lompoc before the war.  We were all living in Salt Lake City after World War II started. Her name is Mary Kikukawa Nakagama. (Mary and a few other friends, including Bill, belonged to the Japanese Church of Christ in SLC and used to hang around with each other). I didn’t know her very well because I used to attend the Japanese Buddhist Church across the street (as my Father and Mother were Buddhists). She has lived in Gardena, CA for about 40-50 years. Apparently a relative of hers from Salt Lake City attended the Montrose launch and sent Mary your book. At any rate she said she and her daughter, Julie, were driving up to the Biltmore Hotel in Santa Barbara  for a couple of days from Los Angeles and invited Bill and me  to dinner at the Biltmore a couple of weeks ago. You can imagine what a pleasant surprise that was! Of course, we didn’t recognize them, but Mary said the minute she saw us she knew who we were. We had a great time visiting with them and we invited them to lunch the following day and after lunch they came to our home and looked through Bill’s OLD picture albums with Mary in a lot of the photos. Since I knew that it was Julie’s birthday that day, early in the morning I went to Von’s and bought a small fresh strawberry shortcake and later that afternoon after we delved through all the albums, I put some candles on the cake and we all sang “Happy Birthday” to Julie. and she was very ‘touched.’  It was a real joy to see them after all these years! John, see what your book lead to????

Thanks, Lucille.

One more thing: all 500 of the first printing of Vanished have been sold. A second printing has been ordered. The first batch of books at M & S Pharmacy in Los Angeles has already sold out. They will be replenished for Saturday morning. Thank you, everybody.