I went to the public baths in Japan in gardens in separate houses. There were female attendants. I was often in Tokyo in the wintertime, and would walk to the bathhouse through the snow with little straw sandals in a light cotton kimono and nothing else. You took off your kimono and squatted down and hugged your knees while one of the young attendants would pour warm water over your shoulders. Your whole body would be soaked. Then you stood up and you had a girl at your back and one in front and they scrubbed you with brushes and soap. You squatted again and they rinsed you a few times. You hadn’t come to the tub to be cleaned; you came to be refreshed. Then you would get into the tub and it was so hot. When you stood up, it looked like you were wearing red underwear up to your neck. If you had the courage (I never did), you would take a cold tub. When you walked back through the bathhouse to the main building, you were the center of a great cloud of steam. It was strange. You didn’t feel the cold even though it was below freezing.

I loved the Japanese culture. The way you were treated, their tradition of hygiene and cleanliness, the exotic nature of everything was new. Everything you touched and saw and smelled was a revelation. It was something unknown.

I traveled quite a bit in Japan because I would often leave the Air Force to avoid being shipped out of Japan. I had a lovely place to stay, I had friends…I didn’t want to go. Because I was a propeller mechanic and there were always more mechanics than they ever needed, they were forever getting rid of them. When I wasn’t working in the prop shop or maintenance control, I was vulnerable. So I had a deal going with Sylvia Swinney, a good-natured Polish Master Sergeant in the Army. She was in charge of special services, which dealt with theater, music and entertainment. She had gotten me out of the Air Force and into the Army, which got me stationed in Sendai in Northern Japan.

I was shocked when I got back Sunday night from a weekend with friends to find orders to send me to Okinawa. I had to be out of there the next morning. I couldn’t call my friends or write because I didn’t have their addresses. I felt very guilty about just ‘evaporating,’ but I didn’t know what to do. So I shipped out to Okinawa for six months.