The Chikamori Selfacy (A Reboot)
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-451kWfI6hzI/X8bPPtEyeVI/AAAAAAAAk54/KB3_SyRJ73IFG8EkSAmOkYAyCBOz1giwgCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/ChikamoriSelfacyReboot_banner.png Prologue: June 12, 1970; Sacred Spleen Hospital...
Forum Discussion
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-451kWfI6hzI/X8bPPtEyeVI/AAAAAAAAk54/KB3_SyRJ73IFG8EkSAmOkYAyCBOz1giwgCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/ChikamoriSelfacyReboot_banner.png
Chapter 11 - Advanced Education (Part 2)
Haruo was sorting out his luggage in preparation. Clothes, he had definitive need of, a book to read during leisure, namely some obscure military tome that he’d always been interested in; namely about the US and its involvement in the Vietnam War; the wind-down happening in the first five years of his life with the eventual withdrawal of US forces in Vietnam happening in 1973 and the Fall of Saigon in 1975.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FwMKf0MVGh8/YVEcqF-307I/AAAAAAAAqCE/onF334ar1egoF-KMqpg3iXoNrrxYC5DnQCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/zz9sky1wrbr31.png
When Haruo was just a toddler, his mother and father had used the TV to babysit him while his grandmother did chores around the house and during those earliest years, he remembered the news broadcasts from the killing fields of Nam being played into his living room. From the dying days of the war: men dying in the rice paddies, USAF F-4s and F-100s doing napalm runs sending up billowing explosions of red and orange quickly turning into black sooty smoke as the surrounding vegetation burned. And the daily kill count. All of that etched into a distant fading memory as fifteen years had passed in what seemed like a torturously long time to a youngster yet was really only a blink of an eye.
Now he was a young adult.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-foOWYq806aY/WVYm-rH7nhI/AAAAAAAAJyk/aq6dIQ-jbScrtJCIqERhOXmKgjFMT8PoQCLcBGAs/s1600/Screenshot-3.jpg
Canada had been both a refuge for those against the war, deserters and dissenters alike as well as a place for hawks to disparage. And Haruo was grateful that his country hadn’t been dragged into the quagmire like Australia and France or many of the now mid-thirty to mid-forty somethings would have been killed in those same fields that the American Gis and Marines had died in. It was in these same late Eighties years that the talk of the Vietnam Memorial being constructed was starting to take place.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UPpSi80AyvY/YVEiHiPRRjI/AAAAAAAAqCM/2DAgMjL8Kj8kVuOrm_sQaZxpd565EbadQCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/Screenshot-159.jpg
Haruo wasn’t sure about what else to take with him to dorm at UBC. There had always been model kits including an F-15 Eagle kit that he’d wanted to build but unfortunately his skills weren’t all that great to begin with in terms of building. A lack of patience along with a desire to see the completed bird wasn’t conducive to building a museum quality piece. So since he was going to university to study, he would leave his model airplanes at home.
What else was there really, food and snacks? He could readily get those at the grocery store near UBC. There was a sports shop where he could get hockey equipment when he needed it, tape, sticks, skates, pads etc.
If he was going to take the sports scholarship, he might as well play for the school team. He knew he didn’t have the talent to get drafted to the NHL. At best he would be a third-line plug forward who could potentially be counted on to get the puck on net two, maybe three times in a blue moon. What he did do well with his stocky big but short frame and his mean attitude on the ice was rack up PIMs (penalties in minutes). If someone went after one of his team’s star players, he’d be right in there throwing right hooks to the player’s face with his left grabbing the offending player’s jersey to hold him in place.
Five for fighting, possibly a ten-minute game misconduct and ejection for instigating too – maybe if the team was unlucky, he’d get a suspension.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JR1yP8-zYy4/YVEkP6JrZeI/AAAAAAAAqCU/qE_elu8nZNgV2y18S0lTtV6z5fjm_uHDQCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/Screenshot-164.jpg
Torao looked over at his cousin. “So, what do you think of playing hockey for the Thunderbirds?”
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tN1xFC38KmM/YVEkcWiu_gI/AAAAAAAAqCY/a25I_sj1hEE3XwV-231v5trDkxySxpp3ACLcBGAsYHQ/s0/Screenshot-162.jpg
“It’ll keep me from going completely stark-raving nuts.” was Haruo’s response. Torao’s and Bebe’s explorations in congress would be enough to drive anyone stark-raving insane who was within earshot. Hence the reason why River was wound up as tight as a drum kit – it was as a result of listening to Bebe and Torao going at it in the shower and the fact that they (River and Haruo) were abstaining served to frustrate her to no end.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tiygHtj_4QA/YVEoBVp4UxI/AAAAAAAAqCk/eaiIoE6xVEoY5C8VMGsA6Ahb0TKSoZxTQCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/Screenshot-180_censored.jpg
Frankly the fact that Bebe wasn’t in the family way yet was surprising enough. At least they were using protection as far as Haruo knew. Evidently they didn’t want an unexpected happy happy bundle of joy joy which would proceed to stench up their dormitory and force the Chancellor of UBC to ask if it might be possible to defer her education; quite possibly until the ankle-biter was twenty.
Ah but such were preparations to go away to university. Lots of oopportunity to find one’s vocation in life and with a switch of vowels, it could be defined as a temporary escape from reality; namely the sour fact that Bebe would be coming back to a classroom filled with non-listening, non-cooperating juveniles who wanted to upstage you and be the center of attention...
...and that was just the teachers.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-J6QaBBBiiZA/YVEoSxGmS8I/AAAAAAAAqCs/YEO5i8V_5vsYFoebEq5ZTH691pLoIslYQCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/Screenshot-27.jpg
The kids at the school or at least the recalcitrant ones could drive one to drink hard alcohol 80 proof. When Bebe graduated university, she could become a high-school teacher and eventually aspire to higher levels much like Haruo’s un-lamented malignant late mother though Bebe had a much softer touch in terms of guiding the student body and coaxing them to higher levels of learning. At least she would do her job with the enjoyment of teaching rather than the mind-twisting and malevolent intentions of Haruo’s late mother towards her charges back when the witch was alive.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wTMDiM8gwjE/YVE3JtspYZI/AAAAAAAAqDI/SQDg-BsRuNg-GRc3RszdJfYVsk7i4xH2gCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/Screenshot-222.jpg
River had no idea of what was to come in terms of her post-secondary academics. Would she be studying the works of Renoir, the paintings of Michelangelo, the mind-bending output of Picasso or the weird and wacky modernist style of Andy Warhol. She had no aspirations to be like any of them.
In other words, she preferred the happy little trees of Bob Ross, ex-United States Air Force Master Sergeant and former drill instructor, who, in any case, had a blinding revelation and decided that he would no longer yell at anyone and never did again after viewing a tableau of grizzlies calmly fishing in a stream nearby against a backdrop of majestic mountains filled with happy little trees; picked up paint and brush and never looked back.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BBbX4uH1u-o/YVE3c3AwEvI/AAAAAAAAqDQ/vyM47NRHY0YUpQ-d_fY1ktmOjim_JF1HgCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/Screenshot-253.jpg
So River was planning to study the artworks of the great Masters and glean what esoteric knowledge of light and brush technique was available to her.
Monet, Raphael; all would be covered in those textbooks; the painting techniques of the great masters mastered and it would all boil down to Bob Ross and his happy little trees.
(End Part 2)
Chapter 11 - Advanced Education (Part 2)
Haruo was sorting out his luggage in preparation. Clothes, he had definitive need of, a book to read during leisure, namely some obscure military tome that he’d always been interested in; namely about the US and its involvement in the Vietnam War; the wind-down happening in the first five years of his life with the eventual withdrawal of US forces in Vietnam happening in 1973 and the Fall of Saigon in 1975.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FwMKf0MVGh8/YVEcqF-307I/AAAAAAAAqCE/onF334ar1egoF-KMqpg3iXoNrrxYC5DnQCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/zz9sky1wrbr31.png
When Haruo was just a toddler, his mother and father had used the TV to babysit him while his grandmother did chores around the house and during those earliest years, he remembered the news broadcasts from the killing fields of Nam being played into his living room. From the dying days of the war: men dying in the rice paddies, USAF F-4s and F-100s doing napalm runs sending up billowing explosions of red and orange quickly turning into black sooty smoke as the surrounding vegetation burned. And the daily kill count. All of that etched into a distant fading memory as fifteen years had passed in what seemed like a torturously long time to a youngster yet was really only a blink of an eye.
Now he was a young adult.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-foOWYq806aY/WVYm-rH7nhI/AAAAAAAAJyk/aq6dIQ-jbScrtJCIqERhOXmKgjFMT8PoQCLcBGAs/s1600/Screenshot-3.jpg
Canada had been both a refuge for those against the war, deserters and dissenters alike as well as a place for hawks to disparage. And Haruo was grateful that his country hadn’t been dragged into the quagmire like Australia and France or many of the now mid-thirty to mid-forty somethings would have been killed in those same fields that the American Gis and Marines had died in. It was in these same late Eighties years that the talk of the Vietnam Memorial being constructed was starting to take place.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UPpSi80AyvY/YVEiHiPRRjI/AAAAAAAAqCM/2DAgMjL8Kj8kVuOrm_sQaZxpd565EbadQCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/Screenshot-159.jpg
Haruo wasn’t sure about what else to take with him to dorm at UBC. There had always been model kits including an F-15 Eagle kit that he’d wanted to build but unfortunately his skills weren’t all that great to begin with in terms of building. A lack of patience along with a desire to see the completed bird wasn’t conducive to building a museum quality piece. So since he was going to university to study, he would leave his model airplanes at home.
What else was there really, food and snacks? He could readily get those at the grocery store near UBC. There was a sports shop where he could get hockey equipment when he needed it, tape, sticks, skates, pads etc.
If he was going to take the sports scholarship, he might as well play for the school team. He knew he didn’t have the talent to get drafted to the NHL. At best he would be a third-line plug forward who could potentially be counted on to get the puck on net two, maybe three times in a blue moon. What he did do well with his stocky big but short frame and his mean attitude on the ice was rack up PIMs (penalties in minutes). If someone went after one of his team’s star players, he’d be right in there throwing right hooks to the player’s face with his left grabbing the offending player’s jersey to hold him in place.
Five for fighting, possibly a ten-minute game misconduct and ejection for instigating too – maybe if the team was unlucky, he’d get a suspension.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JR1yP8-zYy4/YVEkP6JrZeI/AAAAAAAAqCU/qE_elu8nZNgV2y18S0lTtV6z5fjm_uHDQCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/Screenshot-164.jpg
Torao looked over at his cousin. “So, what do you think of playing hockey for the Thunderbirds?”
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tN1xFC38KmM/YVEkcWiu_gI/AAAAAAAAqCY/a25I_sj1hEE3XwV-231v5trDkxySxpp3ACLcBGAsYHQ/s0/Screenshot-162.jpg
“It’ll keep me from going completely stark-raving nuts.” was Haruo’s response. Torao’s and Bebe’s explorations in congress would be enough to drive anyone stark-raving insane who was within earshot. Hence the reason why River was wound up as tight as a drum kit – it was as a result of listening to Bebe and Torao going at it in the shower and the fact that they (River and Haruo) were abstaining served to frustrate her to no end.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tiygHtj_4QA/YVEoBVp4UxI/AAAAAAAAqCk/eaiIoE6xVEoY5C8VMGsA6Ahb0TKSoZxTQCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/Screenshot-180_censored.jpg
Frankly the fact that Bebe wasn’t in the family way yet was surprising enough. At least they were using protection as far as Haruo knew. Evidently they didn’t want an unexpected happy happy bundle of joy joy which would proceed to stench up their dormitory and force the Chancellor of UBC to ask if it might be possible to defer her education; quite possibly until the ankle-biter was twenty.
Ah but such were preparations to go away to university. Lots of oopportunity to find one’s vocation in life and with a switch of vowels, it could be defined as a temporary escape from reality; namely the sour fact that Bebe would be coming back to a classroom filled with non-listening, non-cooperating juveniles who wanted to upstage you and be the center of attention...
...and that was just the teachers.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-J6QaBBBiiZA/YVEoSxGmS8I/AAAAAAAAqCs/YEO5i8V_5vsYFoebEq5ZTH691pLoIslYQCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/Screenshot-27.jpg
The kids at the school or at least the recalcitrant ones could drive one to drink hard alcohol 80 proof. When Bebe graduated university, she could become a high-school teacher and eventually aspire to higher levels much like Haruo’s un-lamented malignant late mother though Bebe had a much softer touch in terms of guiding the student body and coaxing them to higher levels of learning. At least she would do her job with the enjoyment of teaching rather than the mind-twisting and malevolent intentions of Haruo’s late mother towards her charges back when the witch was alive.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wTMDiM8gwjE/YVE3JtspYZI/AAAAAAAAqDI/SQDg-BsRuNg-GRc3RszdJfYVsk7i4xH2gCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/Screenshot-222.jpg
River had no idea of what was to come in terms of her post-secondary academics. Would she be studying the works of Renoir, the paintings of Michelangelo, the mind-bending output of Picasso or the weird and wacky modernist style of Andy Warhol. She had no aspirations to be like any of them.
In other words, she preferred the happy little trees of Bob Ross, ex-United States Air Force Master Sergeant and former drill instructor, who, in any case, had a blinding revelation and decided that he would no longer yell at anyone and never did again after viewing a tableau of grizzlies calmly fishing in a stream nearby against a backdrop of majestic mountains filled with happy little trees; picked up paint and brush and never looked back.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BBbX4uH1u-o/YVE3c3AwEvI/AAAAAAAAqDQ/vyM47NRHY0YUpQ-d_fY1ktmOjim_JF1HgCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/Screenshot-253.jpg
So River was planning to study the artworks of the great Masters and glean what esoteric knowledge of light and brush technique was available to her.
Monet, Raphael; all would be covered in those textbooks; the painting techniques of the great masters mastered and it would all boil down to Bob Ross and his happy little trees.
(End Part 2)
