I had planned to write an editorial for this week’s paper on an important topic such as redistricting or a move by assorted broadcasters and government officials to run public notices on the airwaves or on the Internet (depending on who’s talking).
I’ll probably still address those in good time, but after last week’s massive earthquakes in northern Japan, for the moment I’m a little less concerned about legal advertising or who’s representing us in Salem or Washington.
That’s because on Saturday my wife and I had bigger fish to fry. Our three daughters were sitting in the Vancouver, British Columbia, airport and we were in Seattle, trying to decide whether to pull the plug on a trip to Japan to see their uncle and aunt and cousins.
We’d had this trip booked for a couple of months. We’d figured out how, in spite of the cash-strapped, recession economic situations many of us are experiencing, we could get our three daughters – 18, 16, and 12 – over there.
It was a great opportunity for the kids and, even though my wife and I would have jumped at the chance to go along, we couldn’t all go, and they were going to have to take it by themselves.
So here we were on Saturday, having gotten up at 5 in the morning to send our kids up to Vancouver on an early flight out of Seattle ($300 cheaper per person than flying out of Portland on this particular weekend). They were sitting there, waiting through a four-hour delay to see if their flight was really going to leave for Narita, the main international airport in Tokyo. The one the day before had not, but Japan Airlines personnel had assured us this one looked like it would because the airport was reopening after shutting down following the quakes and fires.
We were sitting parked along the coastal highway below Pike’s Market, where an overhead roadway provides a roof for the parking lots, waiting to hear from the kids that they’d gotten a green light. I was trying to get in the mood to go for a run. I really didn’t feel like it.
Then a trusted friend called with news. He said he’d heard that the U.S. ambassador was urging Americans to get out of Japan.
Hmmm. That put a new crimp in things. We had no way of getting onto the Internet to check it out ourselves, so we were kind of at a loss as we sat there in our car with the cold rain pouring down in front of us – one more reason to question the sanity of going on a long run. We prayed for wisdom. We discussed our options.
Japan is an orderly country, populated by people who are generally extremely law-abiding and polite. I didn’t see it spiraling wildly out of control. I wasn’t expecting widespread looting. Buying everything in a convenience store is not looting.
I lived there for almost nine years when I was a kid. I’ve been away for much longer than that, but I know it well. It was hard to believe that, unless the airport was crumbling into pieces in Tokyo, the kids would really have much problem getting to where my brother lived, down in the southern island of Kyushu, about the length of California away from the troubles.
One of our problems was that if we did pull the plug on the trip, we’d lose big financially because unless the airline cancelled the flight, it would be our choice, not theirs. Plus, both my wife’s and my passports had expired and w needed them to go to Vancouver. We hadn’t renewed them because, well, passports aren’t cheap any more and it didn’t seem likely we’d need one – Japan being such a stable country. Plus, we have reliable relatives who have passports and who live in Japan.
Now we were wishing we’d gone ahead and spent that money. (Hmmm. Wonder how much three on-the-spot plane tickets from Vancouver to Seattle would cost? Is there a bus? A train? Wonder if the girls could hitchhike to the border where we could pick them up?) None of our options looked very reassuring.
Well, I did go running, partly to get a chance to think things through. My wife, Miriam, stayed in the car and made some calls to friends and relatives who are level-headed. She learned that the consular urgency seemed more directed toward those in northern Japan – which was pretty understandable – and that tourists were being advised to stay away.
That was also understandable, but our girls weren’t normal tourists. They were going to stay with friends and relatives, not at hotels.
The upshot of all of this was that when I got back from my run, we decided to wait and see if the flight went through. If it did, they would go. If it didn’t, well, that seemed like it would be a providential answer, wouldn’t it?
The plane did go, the girls were on it (unaware of any of our concerns), and 18 hours later they were sitting in my brother’s kitchen, wolfing down ramen – genuine ramen, not the cheap chicken/beef stuff we have here.
Now that they’re over there feasting on Asian cuisine and going with their uncle to visit my home town, all I’m left with are, well, redistricting and public notices. And the shingles my wife just told me are all over the back yard.
But somehow all that doesn’t seem as important any more, at least not right now, in light of what’s happening in northern Japan.
Still have to get this paper out, though, so I guess I’d better get back to work.