1 Earthprobe Prologue

Earthprobe


PROLOGUE: Spring, 2004

Roseville, California:

When I was a young man, the US Navy took me to Hawaii for duty at the little navy radio station at Laulualei, Oahu.

I liked the beauty and atmosphere of the islands so much that upon discharge eighteen months later I stayed on, attending the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

To earn a living, I played music in nightclubs—the drummer in a rock and roll band—and then when I graduated, got into teaching and newspaper work.

For a short time I was the editor of The Hawaii Herald, a small English language weekly newspaper for second and third generation Japanese Americans. As such I wrote stories about the Japanese community in Hawaii and was always on the lookout for interesting material.

Driving toward Waikiki on Kalakaua Avenue one afternoon I spotted a Japanese man in a strange costume walking down the sidewalk. I parked my car and asked if I could photograph him and hear the reason for his dress.

He said I was welcome to a photograph and explained that he was a monk from a large monastery in Japan and the straw hat, the straw cape, walking stick and the straw sandals he wore were the traditional pilgrimage costume of a traveler of his brotherhood. He had been sent by his monastery to walk around the world to see how things really were and then to come back and report his findings to his fellows. Honolulu was his last stop before returning to Japan.

I wrote this story up and published it with his photograph in The Herald.

This occurred during the Viet Nam war era and as a newspaperman I knew very well that propaganda from all sides of every political issue made it impossible to discover the truth about anything that was going on in the world.

I thought it was a marvelous idea to walk out and see for myself what the world was like since the slow pace of walking would insure direct contact with everything.

I had already decided that living boldly, in what I thought of as a “mythic” way, was the best way for me to live, so after a couple of years of preparation I quit my teaching job at the University of Hawaii to make a slow exploration around the planet—not walking every step of the way, but taking my time and staying on the ground as much as possible.

I had no monastery to support me and no monk’s fellowship to report my findings back to, but I thought I could more or less support myself along the way and tell about what I found in a published account for interested readers.

The following is my report of that long ago “earth probe”.

Tomasito, 2009


...