At the beginning of May I took Yoshiko to Central Park to see the blossoms and to ride the horse and carriage. I once read about a ride through the blossoms in the Japanese novel Spring Snow, but we didn't go as far as the young couple in the book. We basically just went around the block and posed for a few photographs across from the Plaza hotel. We hadn't seen each other for three weeks, so it was a good encounter, sitting on a bench and sharing the deepest part of my heart, which of course is the bottom.
Apart from going out to dinner and a movie one evening it was the first time I saw her since my mother's visit. I had recently met Dr. Suek, my central figure, in the lobby of the New Yorker. He said that I had a wonderful wife and inquired about when I would be starting my family. The requirements of the Formula Course were to witness about three years and have three spiritual children and to fund raise for about three years. My wife and I had met the requirements. A month had passed since my mother's visit and Yoshiko and I hadn't spoken more than a few minutes at any given time. Fumia told me it might be an "Ancestral problem," that was making her avoid me, and suggested that I buy her flowers. So I made her a comical little booklet, entitled Count Bloomy, from clip art. On February 27, I went to the office again. Yoshiko was sitting at a table and spoke to me briefly. She said that she'd read the letter from my mother. I told her that the snow in Milton wasn't as high as the snow in the picture my mother had sent from Meaford. Yoshiko asked me to watch Musashi. The episode was called The Fall, where Miyamoto meets Otsu by a misty waterfall and takes her ruggedly in her arms, but she refuses his advances. Yoshiko brought me a tea, but when the video was over she had disappeared. For some reason she had a panic attack... Perhaps she had seen the waterfall scene and was apprehensive of wet kisses. I had wanted Yoshiko to go with me to True Parent's Birthday Celebration at the Manhattan Center and ran into her after Father's speech. Standing by the sushi counter in Sona Bona, I told her that I had sat in the front row, and that Father had playfully put his foot on my shoulder. She ended up going to the Celebration that evening with some friends. It was disappointing for me to look back and see her several rows behind instead of sitting with me.
Sitting on a park bench we talked about the difficult time that I had with my father, which prompted her to say, "Everyone has difficulties in their lives." I told her I was aware of that and realized that everyone must take responsibility for their own lives. I had forgiven my father a long ago, but had not looked so objectively at the whole thing. I shed a few tears for the old man. Yoshiko brought along her dictionary to look up a few words; including 'compassion;' 'intimidate,' and one I dare not say. I also shared about running from away from home when I was fourteen.
One of the reasons I ran away to Niagara Falls was that I thought I was real ugly. I used to wear blue jeans and striped T-shirts all the time, and was ashamed cause I looked poor. A group of girls gathered around the bulletin board where there was a display of Centennial Babies, and one girl said, "You were pretty as a baby, why can't you look like that now." Of course I could not share what really happened:
In my grade eight class there was one girl, Cathy O’Neil, who seamed to have a fancy for me. In Science class I would turn around and look at her, and she would have her head propped up on her arm and be looking at me. One time her bike and my bike were leaned against the Five and Dime store, and when hers accidentally tipped mine, she grabbed my bike to save it from falling. "Good catch eh?" She said, "I rescued your bike." I thought for a girl to rescue a boys bike was a sure sign of love. After about six months of reading too much into such incidents I was beginning to become interested in her. I wanted to have her for a partner in Square Dancing Class. It was spring, and I finally got enough nerve to ask her to go roller-skating with me. She refused.
The next day I could see her and Mike sitting at the back of the room talking about me, and later, Mike teased me about it. I went home and planned my “Great Escape.”
On May 13, 1967 a Saturday morning, I got my dad to help me to put a new tire on the back wheel of my bike. When it was finished I said, “I'm going to try it out,” setting off, without anyone knowing, to Niagara Falls, some 80 miles away. He thought that I would just be driving around the block. I was headed for New York City. Planning to stand on the ledge of the Empire State Building, I would threaten to jump off, unless someone paid for plastic surgery. At the time, I felt terribly ugly. I had a big red birthmark covering the right side of my face. I used to always ask my mother for a dime for a chocolate bar. Usually she would say "Can I have, can I have, is that all you can say?" But one time she was short of patience and said "You're an ugly kid." I never forgot that remark.
There had recently been a project at school to put all our baby pictures on a bulletin board. Mine was one of the cutest pictures on the board. Patsy Rosener, standing with a few girls looking at pictures said, “You were such a cute baby; too bad you can't be so cute now.” I didn’t realize that she was just kidding.
As I rode my bike there were trees blossoming in a canopy above the road. I stopped in a general store for a bottle of pop and saw men lined up to buy perfume. I traveled on. It got dark and I slept in some woods, with only a sweater. It was very chilly and I didn't get much sleep. Sunday morning, I reached Niagara Falls, and spent a couple of my ten dollars on pancakes for breakfast. I asked a man how much for a helicopter ride, he said “Five dollars — you're not from around here are you?”
I crossed the rainbow bridge to get to the United States. Halfway across I stopped and looked at the raging waters below. I thought for a moment about jumping over the railing, but didn’t. When I got across the US customs sent me back to the Ontario Provincial Police. I fell asleep on the bench and woke up when my ride home arrived. Rick, Mary and mom picked me up in Rick’s white ’64 Pontiac convertible with the red interior. Rick said, “You keep getting further and further away each time.”
The next day, I went for a ride on my bike and my dad came and got me, threw the bike in the trunk, and drove me home. Terry and Mom took me to a psychiatrist in Oakville the following week. I did well on an aptitude test, and the Doctor said that I would have been qualified to be a fighter pilot in the Second World War. It was his opinion that it was my father who was the problem with his bad drinking problem, and beating me when he was in a stupor. Things settled down after that, but for about five years I fought viciously with my father. Sarcasm was our main weapon. I'll never forget though, how sorry I was that my mother was hurt, when she came to get me at Niagara Falls. I had no idea that it, Mother's Day. Had I realized the day it was I might have postponed my trip until Father’s Day.
Our class was taking a trip to Ottawa to see the parliament buildings. Everyone was talking about me jumping off the parliament buildings as a "Centennial Sacrifice." Word spread fast about the suicide. Mike suggested that I could jump off the roof of the apartment buildings on Ontario Street. He'd even show me how to open the roof hatch. I must have disappointed a lot of students, because I played hooky the day of the field trip.
One day, just after Easter, I saw Yoshiko three times by chance. First it was outside the elevator on the 6th floor of the New Yorker, then on Fifth Avenue, across from the Manhattan Public Library where I did research for the World University Times. I spoke to her briefly; she was in a rush and took advantage of the walk sign to cross the street. That evening, I was sitting in the Family Mart in the basement of the hotel, and she walked in with her hair in a ponytail. She bought me a Coke and said, "I've seen you many times today, I hear you made $1,200.00 fund raising on Easter Sunday."
After morning service on June 17, Howard Self asked me if I could go to Washington to help with the ministers, in preparation for the rally. "You can leave on Monday morning with Myles." We had just spent the last few days spray-painting stenciled placards in the art room.
Saturday evening I met Yoshiko and Reiko in the lobby. Yoshiko had a new haircut and I joked about getting a punk haircut myself. We went out for dinner with Fumia and her husband. When I suggested we see, The God's Must Be Crazy, they said that the bushman who starred in that movie had gone to Japan. Rieko, Yoshiko and Aoki went to by taxi to 34th and 3rd and saw the movie Goonies.
When we returned we talked in the lobby. Yoshiko asked if I had talked to Fumia, and I said that I ran into her in the Laundromat. She then said they were worried about her being able to handle an International wedding. "I want to set a standard of sacrifice for the family," she said.
"It's important to sacrifice, but we must also give others hope by being an example of a loving couple."
"I still feel as committed to you as when we were matched."
"You are looking at it intellectually when you should be looking at it heartisically. We should be growing closer in heart." Then I gave her a wedding band, which she had been expecting since I had asked her friend to find out her ring size. "If I try to be like Miyamoto Musashi and you try to be like an American sister we both won't be happy."
"You should come to visit me at the office more often, even if I don't look like I'm welcoming you," she said. "You should take care of your health, because you look tired."
I spent a week in Washington helping with a Ministers Workshop, and with the rally on June 25th. Many ministers took part, and the placards had a dignified, professional look. Most of the posters I had seen the week before at the CARP offices for we had made most of them. The most moving thing was seeing the ministers standing before the White House lifting their handcuffed hands to the heavens.
Father was released on August 20, 1985, having served thirteen months for tax evasion. Immediately prior to his release from Danbury Federal prison he spent forty-five days at Phoenix House, a Brooklyn "halfway house." Twenty-five top American religious leaders gathered in Washington DC and held a welcoming press conference. There was a cartoon of Father's release in the New York Post. It was a picture of Rev. Moon in prison with all the prisoners bowing down to him. I cut it out and pasted it in my journal. The cartoonist may have been funny to some people, but in actuality Rev. Moon gained respect of many prisoners.
"I don't care if he's turned 'em all into
Moonies! Just get him out of here before he calls a mass wedding!"
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