There seems to have been a spate of recent notable deaths, this winter.
One is Congressman Robt. Matsui (D-Sacramento). The other night I heard a repeat on C-SPAN radio of the Capitol Hill Memorial Service for him. Bill Clinton was one of the speakers. As you might expect, he was most empathic, yet long-winded.
The empathic comment came when he talked about Matsui's effort for Japanese American redress and his (Clinton's) own awareness of the issue. Regarding the latter, he mentioned knowing about the Jerome, Arkansas internment camp. (This was reminiscent of a comment he made to an Asian American Journalists convention luncheon back in '92, when he was running for President. (See earlier blog entry "Straight Outta Compton"))
I know I've got a Matsui soundbite or 2 on a cassette stashed somewhere, that I'd gathered from covering an APA Dem reception, years ago. Recalling the encounter with Matsui reminds me of another event I'd attended a week or 2 before that at Johns Hopkins U. The speaker had been a Sacramento dentist named Herbert Yee.
It turns out that Yee had known Matsui for many years, probably before the latter became an active politician. If I remember correctly... they had gotten to know each other when Yee retained Matsui's legal services in the course of buying a commercial property in the Sacto. area. (Yee has a very interesting background, which I won't go into... but you can get a hint of it if you do a search on him.)
The other death I wish to highlight is that of Ho, Wai Kam. (Or Wai Kam Ho) He was a retired Chinese art historian and curator (ex-Nelson Atkins museum in Kansas City). He was consulting with the Shanghai Museum, and in Shanghai when he died.
I'd last seen him at my cousin's wedding back in April ('04). Didn't realize he was notable enough to rate an obituary in the New York Times (Jan. 1, 2005)
(Gosh, when I die, I'll be lucky if anyone can identify me. I'll just be a nameless corpse. I seem to recall that happenning to a fellow I'd met one time, when I was living in SF. Many months (or a year or so?) after I met him, I found out he'd died without ID on him, and ended up being an unidentified body in a hospital morgue for a while. Not sure how he was finally ID'd....
Or maybe my demise will be even more untraceable - I'll be swept out to sea by a tsunami.)
Just got back from spending the holidays in LA. It started off sunny and then the rains came. It was soggy, most of the time, except for New Years. (Can't have it raining on the Rose Parade!)
Picked up a sore throat and cold, and still am in a weakened state. Hope to regain my sense of smell and taste.
Watched a lotta tv. Now that I'm back, I'm back to exclusively listening to radio. What a difference! Tsunami coverage is a whole lot better on radio than tv. Much more insightful.