Events on December 23, Wikipedia 
(December 23, Events(English editions)
(The past records of Events in the Japanese edition)
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The Editor's memo for this day!
Friday, 22, December, 2017
"VOA@com" I received early this morning is "No.336(Dec. 22, 2017)"On December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York explodes over Lockerbie, Scotland,"("1988 Pan Am Flight 103 explodes over Scotland(HISTORY)").
This morning at around 10, Arnel and I visited the bank "Metro Bank", which is just out front of the Laguna BelAir village we live in. The bank has been the one for the remittance of the a-bomb health care, so that we decided to move the pension to the same bank account.
It is very rare I get out of the village, but my mind is not that hungry or thirsty because of my having joy and happiness of being in office all day and night in working for this web editing. Ha ha. If not so, I would have felt so happy getting out of the home visiting and watching things and scenery. Or rather feel for hungry of getting out. Indeed this sort on my feeling is a happy matter...
I got enough sunbathing this morning! When I make it, I always make it in the prayer for everything I have and my being in and with.
I
today@VOA & NYTimes.com
This column is for editing what I call "the illustrated stories" with photos related with the events and news, so that the visitors could enjoy the stories in a visual ways. The former, "today@VOA" deals with historical events with the exception of week-ends, and the latter with stories who lived and dead with more than a hundred years old of his or her lives. My interest in the latter one comes from my strong will of living more than a hundred of years trying to make it with a thought of my mother who lived until 102, or my personal wish and will to live a life of the so-called "The longest lived Hibakusha(A-bomb survivor) with my thought of "Ms. Elbina Deans, the longest-lived suruvivor of the Titanic", and another target of a 119-year-old Filipina, Puerto Princesa, with the title of oldest living person in the Guinness Book of World Records.
No.337(Dec. 23, 2017)
"On December 22, 1882, the first string of lights is used as a Christmas tree decoration"
Invention is something I was deeply concerned in the first stage of my businessman career with three inventions, so that my interest is which was the real inventor of the Xmas tree light bulbs and its arrangement in the relationship of President and vice president. Which was the real motivator and inventor is my deep concern. Ha ha. (The-24-photo-attached file)(33.9KB)
| On This Day in American History |
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On December 22, 1882, the first string of lights is used as a Christmas tree decoration by Thomas Edison’s colleague Edward H. Johnson, vice president of the Edison Electric Light Company. Johnson uses 80 small red, white and blue electric bulbs, strung on a single power cord, to light the Christmas tree at his home in New York. Some say Edison was the first person to actually use electric lights as Christmas decorations when he strung them around his laboratory in 1880. |
No.336(Dec. 22, 2017)
"On December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York explodes over Lockerbie, Scotland,"
(The-29-photo-attached file)(46.11KB)
| On This Day in American History |
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On December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York explodes over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew members aboard. Eleven Lockerbie residents die on the ground. Authorities say a bomb hidden inside a cassette player in the cargo area brought the plane down. The disaster is believed to be an attack against the United States. Two Libyan intelligence agents are later charged in the case. |
"1988 Pan Am Flight 103 explodes over Scotland(HISTORY)"
No.335(Dec. 21, 2017)
"On December 20, 1957, rock-and-roll icon Elvis Presley receives his draft notice for the U.S. Army"
The year 1957 and years ahead reminds me of my 20th age of fervent effort of pursuing my independent technician shop management with my effort of mastering new techniques through correspondence, especially mastering the American-born new ones never exercised in Japan in those days. One was "band-saw gas-welding" and the other was "Band saw Heat tensionning technique". Those technical developments were all made through correspondence with American craft men mainly in Oregon where lumbering business(Band saw mills) was big.
I recall the only chance of knowing of Presley was in the American magazine "LIFE" with black and white photos of his playing and singing. I remember, by watching him singing and dancing-like way, I now come to know "Elvis-Pelvis style of singing-dancing performance. Ha ha.
Another interesting thing is about the Polio vaccine turned to be familiar and accepted widely after Presley he accepted it. This I found in the last phrase of of "1957 Elvis Presley is drafted"(HISTORY), which says "The American population shot from 2 percent to 85 percent by the time of his(Elvis Presley)discharge on March 2, 1960.". This I say as myself being the Polio victim. (The-61-photo-attached:90.16KB)
| On This Day in American History |
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On December 20, 1957, rock-and-roll icon Elvis Presley receives his draft notice for the U.S. Army while spending the Christmas holiday at Graceland, his Tennessee mansion. Presley, who is widely praised for not attempting to avoid the draft, goes on to serve two years in the US Army, the bulk of that time in Germany. |
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This editor's hidden talent is the English recitation of
The following is only an example of what I have in personal policy or what are called "personal philosophy" or the like. Others are supposed to be translated into English someday, though)
I am fond of English language. My history of English language studying dates back when I was in night-time high school. I was obliged to give up higher education because of my father's early death right after the Hiroshima atomic bomb drop.
The followings are the one I am proud of being able to make recitation of in good memory in a way as a native speaker or even better(laugh). This is the one I could be proud of and being able to make better than the natives, yes!. You will be astonished when hear it!
Oh I remember back in Japan some years ago, I happened to watch the CNN on the Day 11-9 ceremony, an American politician made that recitation as good as I!(laugh again)
At the end of this top page, let me introduce something about my personal hobby for English language learning and practices. The following five English notes are the ones I love to make recitation of with loud voice as good as the native English speakers.
The motivation for this habit is very interesting, and let me explain;
Back in Japan when I was 40-year-old or so, I began to take a morning nice and hot bath after more than an-hour-physical exercises until good amount of perspiration, which, I thought, was good for a person who cannot enjoy the shower after playing the golf.
Good amount of perspiration after exercises and more in hot bath tub brought me splendid feeling, so that I hit upon an idea of using the time in the bathtub in a more efficient way, and that is to make recitations of English speech or the poem or the like while enjoying nice and hot tub!
By the way, dipping into nice and hot bathtub is no more needed for me in this tropical country. My style all through the day and night is "Suteteko(middle-long light pants) & short shirts style" from morning through night.
Well, let me explain my English recitation hobbies. The first one is "The Lord's Prayer", and continued on with such as; "Lord's Prayer", "The Lion's Code of Ethics", "Lincoln's Gettysburg's Address", "Youth", "My Way". This takes about 8-minute, which I found it was good enough time before the perspiration came out(In Japan with nice and hot bath tub, but no more here in a tropical country, though.)
My recitation items and the motivations are as follow;
1. "Lord's Prayer "
I was born in a Buddist family. When I was in high school(Night time one because of my destiny of abandoning higher education after my father's early death after the A-bomb, to take care of my family.
It happened that I won the first prize in the English speech contest for Hiroshima prefecture high school. The title was "How I've fought my way out." This was the beginning of my long way of life benefited by my English knowledge and human relationship brought by that.
The biggest one was my experience with an American lady missionary and English teacher in Hiroshima Mission school, Miss Anderson by the name, who came to me at the contest with her student girl, saying "Congratulations, Mr.Yoshida. May I introduce my student?...". That was the beginning of my association with the missionary and her student, Miss Murakami.....
The former, Miss Anderson, to my way to become a Christian with "The Lord's Prayer" close to my life, and the latter, in later years, become my life benefactor.
One of the great lessons I learned from Miss Anderson was that "The polio is the greatest gift given me by God who wants me to show people how a man can be that strong if he has faith in God. This was the beginning of my lifelong association with the Lord's Prayer.
By the way this happening brought another life-valued opportunity of getting associated with her student, Miss Yoshino Murakami, who in later years, became my life-long, unforgettable and precious friend girl I ever knew. She happened to be a daughter of Hiroshima University professor and later year became the president of the Mission high and university, and more, becoming the go-between for my wedding, which ended in separation years later(Ha).
Continuing to write about her(Miss Murakami) more, let me tell the visitors about my essay contest winner article titled "My eternal platonic sweetheart and benefactor in my life". If you click the link, there comes the copy of that Article (though in Japanese), which was the one I got the prize for "one of the 55 items selected as "good works" among 717 applied. The contest was sponsored by a publishing company in Tokyo under the title of "My first love, first HE and first HER". The applicants were from teenagers to eightieth. The below far the right is the cover opened backside, in which my essay appears on P.235.
Well, sorry for getting off the line in my writing about how I got to be closely associated with the Lord's Prayer.
２. "The Lion's Code of Ethics"
At the time I was one of the Lion's club members, especially when I was the chairman of a committee and editor-in-chief of the magazine published by the Lions Club 336-C-district, something made me to try to memorize it being able to make recitation of. It happened that we had the Cabinet sponsored the Cabinet Annual General Assembly where we invited the American President of the International Club Association, Mr. Woolard was the name.
I was told that the President's special favorite is "The Lions Code of Ethics", so that I tried to memorize it and, if ever have a chance, I could let him know of that big passion of mine as a "Lion" as passionate as he. Ha
In fact I had good opportunities of being with him at his visit as a chairman of the committee and the editor-in-chef of the magazine. Apparently, he seemed surprised to know of this, saying "I love the code but not as much and good as I memorize it...". Later months, I had an honor of receiving his award.
３. "Youth "
This poem is very popular among Japanese regardless of their being business tops or the workers. A friend of mine gave me the copy, saying that "Yoshida"s way of life overlap with the way the poem writes". I was charmed with its contents so that I brought it into one of my favorite recitations.
I remember that the first time I happened to know of this poem was at my twentieth when I came to know that the poem was by Samuel Ullman who first appeared in the Readers' Digest in 1945, the year the World War ended, and years passed after my friend gave me a poem text.
I also came to know that General Douglas MacArthur, was one of the lovers of the poem. An interesting point and proud of about my recitations with this one is that at the end of the poem of, I personally add some words to that. "...you may die young at eighty." turns to my own words of "...You may die young at a hundred!! in Yoshida's own words!".
By the way, General Douglas MacArthur is so familiar to the Filipinos. I found in The Manila Times an article about him entitled "Behind every great man The women in the life of General Douglas MacArthur".
４. "Lincoln's Gettysburg's Address"
Lincoln's Gettysburg' Address is popular even among Japanese. Fortunately, in my life with a widow lady after my divorce with my former wife(....Well, sorry for being personal. A huge amount of story await for me to tell about my life history, though), her daughter happened to read aloud her high school English text, I gave her some suggestion on the pronunciation, which brought me great interest to make it as one of my own favorite English recitations.
It was in 1993 when I was in the midst of my one-month-investigation trip to the States, I visited the Abraham Memorial Hall, where I met the President statue and on the side wall was his that famous speech! I was captured with that big speech text carved or painted, and began to stay there with my reading in heart as if making myself speaking it!
An American man standing beside me seemed interested so that I said to him, "I could make that recitation perfectly!" like a boy being proud of being able to! He seemed interested and said, "when I was young, schools used to demand students to memorize and read it aloud. However, in modern times...No..." by shrinking his shoulders.)
I remember the year before last, on the 9.11 ceremony in NY, an American politician, whose name I don't remember, stood on the platform beside the speech table with this recitation, needless to say not looking down on the speech table for the text. I thought I could make it as good as he did!!
5. "My Way "
"My Way" is indeed the best one to end the 8-minute-recitations as the final one in that I can overlap my own life with that of the original singer Frank Sinatra, in such a way as he ended with;
The last words of Frank's is ♪....Yes..., this is my way...♪ is the very thing that yoshida wants to say in heart, concluding a series of English recitations with ♪...Yes, this is my OWN way...♪. I conclude a series of my English recitation with the thought that "I have lived and will continue living the life in the way I believed to be right and demanded to...".
My last stage of life here in the soil of the Philippines is to end my life with a prayer of those who died here with no regards of nationalities during the World War II with my humble prayers.
A couple of photos attached far the right below are Ms. Masako Doi, ex socialist parliament lady, who became the first Chairwoman in the parliament general assembly, was a fond of ♪My Way♪. She used to sing it with her dignity and passion as if she herself played the life like that of Frank. See her proud posture with her back so straight in her parliament chairwoman table, and so do this an aged man of Yoshida. I thank you for reading such a long explanation.
Lastly, this Editor, Yoshida, would like to give the visitors a smiling "Peanuts and his fellow doggy" with their cute thoughts or conversation. This piece of cartoon symbolizes one of my philosophies I reached after more than 60-year -life as a top business person in three stages of Life in Japan.
This idea is well and much expressed as "From own profit to others' profit", which is explained in detail when you click that, though in Japanese. Someday, I would life like to have its English translation for my intention of giving the visitors as a token of my thanks for your kind visit.
Thanks for your visit to my website. Please be sure to come again!!
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Saturday, December 23, 2017
YUKI YOSHIDA
“Grateful to be alive and active”
(86-year-1-month old)
Santa Rosa city, Laguna, Philippines
E-mail:yoshida@a-bombsurvivor.com
URL(eng):http://www.abombsurvivor.com
URL(jpn):http://www.abombsurvivor.com/index_japanese.html
