Hilo Days: Remembering Dad

Today being Father's Day, I thought I'd run one of the stories from my old "Hilo Days" website. Dad (Robert Mitsuo Miyamoto, M.D.) played an important role in my growing up, and I always remember him on Father's Day.

Global Disaster

I used to have a little globe of the Earth that showed the world and political divisions as it existed in the early '50s. I guess there were countries like the Bechuanaland Protectorate, French Somaliland, Ceylon and Indo-China on it.

Those names don't exist anymore. They sort of went the way of my youth. Bechuanaland became Botswana, French Somaliland became Afars and Issas, Ceylon became Sri Lanka, and Indo-China became Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

Anyway, the thing I remember about this globe was that one day, Dad really put a scare into me. He placed the globe in the middle of the kitchen table and said he was going to make a dark cloud appear over our house. Dad located the Hawaiian Islands and slowly passed his hand over the globe.

Slowly, slowly, his hand neared Hawaii. A second later, it covered Hawaii. A second later, it got dark outside. For a moment, but it did get darker outside as a cloud actually passed over the house.

Shook me up. Today, I wonder if it shook up Dad too. Maybe he didn't know he had the power.