(This is Part Two of a ramble through my photo album - pictures that I took with a cheap little Kodak during my first military assignment overseas. This was thirty years ago, and just about everything about the Air Force, and Misawa AB has changed since then...Part One is here.)

At the street fair, in Misawa City - the summer of 1977; a group of us from the barracks went to see what it was all about. Mostly, they had stopped traffic on the main shopping street of Misawa, hung out lanterns and moved all kinds of activities and amusements into the street.

Putting out more lanterns!

Even more lanterns, with fringe hanging down to street level, and blowing in the wind.

 Once, a group of us took the trail to Hachinoe, the next biggest town to the south, for the Nabuta festival, which featured a parade of massive floats, pulled through the streets by volunteers pulling ropes attached to the front of them. Most of the volunteers were children of various sizes, always backed up by a dozed strong men pulling from the length of rope closest to the float. Mostly, the kids walked in front, holding out the rope. In some cases - that of the smallest pre-K kids - their mothers walked along with them, holding their other hand. I took some other pictures of the parade floats, but we were watching from the wrong side of the street for the pictures to come out well.

Beach grass and sand ripples, along the coast near Misawa AB.

It was not usually very warm at Misawa in the summer - usually about the high 70-80ies, but incredibly, awfully, terribly humid, with something close to 100% saturation. You would put down a glass of ice tea, and in a minute or two, it would have sweated a great puddle of condensation around it. Clothing would be damp with sweat almost the moment you were dressed, and you would be hot and sticky within minutes of stepping out of an ice-cold shower.

The barracks had no air conditioning. The only way to be comfortable in it at the height of summer would be to open the doors at either end of the hallway, open the door to your room, with the electric fan in the open window, and sit on the floor in the hallway. This was the only way to get a breeze moving through the building.

Island of shrines, Lake Towada, summer 1977

And in the winter, Misawa averaged 96 inches of snow. Welcome to four seasons. In the summer, given a day off - we'd go anywere for a chance to be cool - up to the mountains, or down to the beach -- which in latter case, was only a few minutes' drive away.

I liked the beach, myself - it was quiet, and I could look out across the water and know that the people whom I loved were a straight shot awary, across of a couple of thousand miles of open water. On the other side of it, was the west coast of the US, and just a couple of hundred miles farther in one direction would be my parents and sibs, and in the other was Teddy Bear guy, whom I loved very much. (It didn't work out with him, I'm sorry to say - but heck, I was only 23, hardly old enough to know better.)

(Next - Part Three: Road Trip!)