Day: November 19, 2024

The Invite

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RDP Tuesday: GUIDE

I had drifted off while reading a book, I don’t remember the title but I remember how warm the sun shinning through my slightly dusty windows felt on my cool face and chilly hands and I remember the smell of furniture polish-it was overpowering-  lemony fresh was the scent. My sister was hard at work cleaning the woodwork because that’s what she does when she is feeling stressed out or sad.

She must have bathed my room and the rest of the house in it.

That day must have been a bad one for her.

“What pulled me away from my comfortable rest near the window was a voice whispering in my ear:

Follow me, follow me, follow the sound of my voice- just take one step at a time and follow me. ”

“Follow you where” I asked without turning my head.

” You will find out if you follow me, just follow the sound of my voice. ”

” Why?” I asked. “Why should I follow you.”

The voice sighed, the throat the voice was housed in cleared itself. ” Follow me, follow the sound of my voice. Just take one step at a time and follow me.”

I heard my bedroom door open, I heard the jingle and clicking of metal wheels  rolling through the doorway.

” You don’t want to be here for this part, follow me, follow the sound of my voice-”

I heard a zipper, I heard a man whisper something to my sister who was sniffling, they were just behind me and I wondered if they could see who it was that was whispering into my ear.

” If you are still here when they bring the gurney around,  you’ll lose  your mind. I promise you. So follow me, just follow the sound of my voice,”

So I did.

The walk away from my window was a long one, and during my I walk, at every step,  I wished  I could have finished my book.

Welcome To Camp Harmony!

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For FOWC with Fandango: WOUND

In Puyallup Washington at the Puyallup Fairgrounds – where every year a jingle hit the airwaves that invited you to ” do the Puyallup ‘ in the exact spot where Camp Harmony’ once stood.

Before it was called The Western Washington Fairgrounds where you can now do things like eat fair food and pet giant Clydesdale horses  where you can see fireworks shows and ride carnival rides and watch people get blue  for their champion show rabbits and catch concerts by cool acts Joan Jett,   during WWII American citizens of Japanese ancestry were sent  to ” Camp Harmony ” ( now the home of the Fairgrounds ) and trust me, nobody sent there was bopping along to jingles like ” Do the Puyallup ” as they lined up in the mud and waited to be ‘processed’.

My friend’s family were among those Japanese- Americans sent to Camp Harmony and here’s the kicker- he was in the  US Army at the time. While he was off fighting for the United States, his family were sitting in Camp Harmony.

If you’re wondering if he ever got over the fact that while  his family were in a detention camp and he was not, he never did.

Bainbridge Island High School pupils bid farewell to their Japanese American classmates, March 1942

The location for the assembly center AKA Camp Harmony  was on and around the Western Washington Fairgrounds in Puyallup, Washington. It consisted of four distinct areas:

  • A, with a population of about 2000, located northeast of the fairgrounds.
  • B, with a population of about 1200, just east of the fairgrounds in the vicinity of the current Blue parking lot.
  • C, with a population of about 800, located northwest of the fairgrounds.
  • D, with a population of about 3000, located on the fairgrounds proper in the area including the racetrack and grandstand, east of the roller coaster

  • Internees lined up in the rain, Camp Harmony (Puyallup Assembly Center), 1942

You have to understand, all of these places listed above I’ve parked there, I’ve walked all over the fairgrounds and rode the roller coaster.

The Puyallup Fairground/ Western Washington Fairground  is a happy clappy place where you can eat cotton candy and send your kids off to play in a boucy house and you can even visit a ghost town but that doesn’t really change the fact that the Puyallup Fairgrounds WERE a concentration camp designed to hold American Citizens.

And today it would seem that the Trust Fund Brat who is now the President Elect wants to bring back places  like Camp Harmony and fill it with people brought there at gun point by US Soldiers.

Some wounds never heal like the one left behind by Camp Harmony.

Eventually they fester and pop and ooze  no matter how many bandaids you slap on them.

Puyallup Assembly Center, ” Camp Harmony “1942

My Wingdog

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Hamish Macbeth
Photo Pualani K.

There are service dogs that guide the blind and service dogs that can detect when their person is about to have a seizure, these wonderful dogs can even be trained to take care of their person during medical events and stress related events.

My dog doesn’t fall under the category of a service dog, or an emotional support animal ( even though he sort of does both things anyway ). None the less, my dog sees things for me that I can’t.

I am not visually impaired, I don’t have health issues.  The thing is I am a really very bad judge of character, which means that the people I let close to me do me dirt, the people I  think I can’t  actually trust  turn out to be great friends. It’s a blindness all the same and my dog helps me through it.

Hamish has a good sense about people, I can tell right off the bat by his demeanor if this is a person I should talk to, be around or trust.

I’ve noticed that there are people Hamish  loves being around- you can see it in his body language, in his eyes, the way he brings them toys and watches their faces when they talk to him. He literally shivers with glee.

Then there are people he sort of hangs around and just keeps his eye on.

He will interact with them, he is friendly, but there is something about the ways he keeps his eye on them that I suppose hearkens back to his bloodline. I’ve never used him for hunting, but I’ve had hunters offer me top dollar to breed him because his raw talent is that obvious. With training, he’d be a great hunting dog like his Dad Leroy and his Grandma Mocha and his Mom and great grandparents too.

You’d never guess by his carefree spirit, but Hamish comes from a long line of champion hunting and tracking dogs.

So he will keep track of these people until they leave- his attention span is scary long. That means if you show up on his radar you are going to stay there until you leave the room. If you show up again he will act the same way.

I’ve learned to give those people that Hamish feels like he needs to track a lot of  space.

And when we are out and we run into strangers that he has an issue with,  he isn’t that subtle- he’ll stand, do that pointing thing that tracking dogs- right at them – and then he will turn and want to walk away.

He doesn’t lead me on his walks, but when he calls time I always listen to him.

My instincts suck, but Hamish Macbeth’s do not.

In dog I trust.

Hamish Macbeth
Photo P.C. Knapp

Nobody’s Queen

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She was nobody’s Queen, she was not a princess.

Hatshepsut was Pharaoh and she was King of Egypt.

Politics being politics since time began, her reign was wiped from the history of Eygpt upon her death and her Stepson took the throne.

The reason was politics- pure and simple.

Short story is, her stepson, Thutmose III in her reign and far beyond  was  regarded as a great warrior, military commander, and military strategist. He was under her command at the time and it seemd to be a situation that suited them both.

When he took the throne it was far more important to establish him as a Pharoah, as God and Hatshepsut would have understood that. She had been his coregent- and Gods were not descendents of their coregents.

He didn’t remove her from History out of hatred or sexism, politics of the day did that and it’s worth reading up on.

What I want to write about today is this, if I could speak to one historical figure it was be Heshepsut.

Hatshepsut, was the female king of Egypt (reigned as coregent c. 1479–73 bce and in her own right c. 1473–58 bce) who attained unprecedented power for a woman, adopting the full titles and regalia of a pharaoh.

Hatshepsut had a daughter named  Neferure  and there is an empty tomb built into a cliff that is believed to be her daughter’s tomb.

When Howard Carter found it, all that was in the tomb were , bits of bone and scraps of wood and Neferure name on the wall.

I watched an an episode on cable about the re-discovery of this tomb-  a team of archeologist went back to explore the tomb. They had to find a ladder to climb up to the tomb and just after they got inside a colony of bats flew out at the archeologists . They were pretty freaked out. I’m surprised nobody ran out of the tomb and plunged to a messy death.

I think that the tomb was unstable too  and the film crew and the archeologists got their shots and hot footed it out of there talking about the instability of the tomb all the way down the ladder.

Anyway, that’s the excuse they gave for the short visit.

Ha! Unstable my foot, they were afraid of the bats.

So t his is what I would ask Hatshepsut-

that thing with the bats flying out at the camera crew-

that was you , wasn’t it?

Because had that been my daughter’s tomb, the tomb of a young woman who could have been King of Egpyt one day- like her Mother- I’d have set bats out on anyone disturbing her sleep. In her sleep after all, she can dream about who and what she could have been.

I’d want her to have that.

Neferure or Neferura (Ancient Egyptian: Nfrw-Rꜥ, meaning The Beauty of Re) was an Egyptian princess of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. She was the daughter of two pharaohs, Hatshepsut and Thutmose II.[1] She served in high offices in the government and the religious administration of Ancient Egypt.