A VIEW OF YOKOHAMA FROM A BRIDGE LONG GONE

There is an image in my mind much like the one in the slide of a bygone Yokohama.

It will remain long after I am gone. Somewhere in another frame of time this scene will survive and the bridge upon where I stood will be rebuilt with those moments in mind.

If Heaven does exist, and I see no reason why it shouldn't, or couldn't, we will all see some of our favorite places there, in a never-ending light, sunlight or moonlight, our choice to make, at some other time, but moreover, the reasons why it was so special will not be missed in such a future scene, the smiles exchanged will seal the scene as a moment of reality saved and given back, our reward for having survived the trials and temptations of a time away from eternity, a time our earthly residence will have removed all memory of the time we spent before volunteering for a tour as earthly beings on a planet we will always remember as our home, dear Earth.

Does it not make sense, then, that we should have some special spots to recall, like photographs in earthly albums shared while we were here. These scenes, like the slide of another time, another place, the Yokohama Waterfront, will be forever on display somewhere in another planet for the rest of all eternity.
And there is so much more we will not learn until that time, I believe.

There's no sense in thinking all of this was simply a big mistake. By Robert L. Huffstutter

A BRIEF MENTION ABOUT MY LIFE AND TIMES IN YOKOHAMA by R.L.HUFFSTUTTER

MY LIFE AND TIMES IN YOKOHAMA could have gone on forever. They should have, but they didn't. It was a time when almost everything was perfect, yet at the same time, totally screwed up. Their was a lot of unrest in southeast Asia; there was much going on that I knew nothing about. Had I been able to predict the events of the next few years, I could have become an Admiral. I was young. Who hasn't been at one time or another? There are good times to be young and bad times to be young. I would have preferred to have delayed my youth. That is to say, extended it for as long as it was necessary to get my mind focused on the distant future. Looking back on those times, I am glad I experienced them. Among those days and nights exists a memory that has sustained me in times of deep despondency, in times when I felt I had left all on a pier on cloudy morning in December of 1963. Images somehow return with age and seem nearer now than then. It's strange how much closer I feel to that yesterday today than I did when it was so much closer to real time. Has my heart and mind been healed by time? Perhaps. And I have no guarantee that I will not be going back to that pier someday and resume what had to be delayed. Such is the mystery of love and yesterday. Yokohama, you were there when I needed you and there you have remained, your gardens, coffee shops and little places in Motomatchi remain for return in the hours before dawn when my restless soul seeks to escape back, back to another time and another place.

YOKOHAMA WATERFRONT AND OLD BOATS IN 1963

THESE OLD BOATS WERE FROM AN ERA LONG BEFORE THE WAR WAS OVER OR BEGAN. THEY WERE AN ODD SIGHT, NOT REALLY FISHING BOATS, BUT MORE LIKE HARBOR TUGS OF SORTS, THE KIND THAT LEAD, TOW AND GUIDE LARGE SHIPS JUST LAUNCHED TO THE CHANNEL DEEP SO THEY COULD GO TO FARAWAY AND DISTANT BASES, PLACES WITH DUTCH NAMES. THE FLAG FLYING THEN MUCH DIFFERENT THAN THE ONE ABOVE THEIR MEGA VESSELS OF THIS TIME AND PLACE

There are those who say a picture is worth a thousand words. I will
agree what better way to save memories than a simple photo snapped more than four decades ago. This photo seems odd and out of place in America but in Japan it is the kind that are a dime a dozen, maybe a little less or a little more, but this was taken when it took 360 yen to make a greenback dollar. This place was near one of many old canals, near buildings that were still standing, mere shells of what they had been before the war, but nobody was mad, never can I remember one ill word about the fires that razed the old port city made of wood. It was a place where veterans of a surrendered nation met and talked, not in whispers or hushed folds, but loud enough to hear if one could understand. It was a strange time, a healing time, a time to celebrate a peace forged in atomic ashes, cinders and smiles.

NEIGHBORHOOD BAR: YOKOHAMA 1962