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46 FOUR SEASONS BREEZE | AUGUST 2021 The Book Club selection for Aug. 10 is Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford. Here is a brief description from Amazon.com: "In the opening pages of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Henry Lee comes upon a crowd gathered outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle's Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has made an incredible discovery: the belongings of Japanese families, left when they were rounded up and sent to internment camps during World War II. As Henry looks on, the owner opens a Japanese parasol. This simple act takes old Henry Lee back to the 1940s, at the height of the war, when young Henry's world is a jumble of confusion and excitement, and to his father, who is obsessed with the war in China and having Henry grow up American. While "scholarshipping" at the exclusive Rainier Elementary, where the white kids ignore him, Henry meets Keiko Okabe, a young Japanese American student. Amid the chaos of blackouts, curfews, and FBI raids, Henry and Keiko forge a bond of friendship and innocent love that transcends the long- standing prejudices of their Old World ancestors. And after Keiko and her family are swept up in the evacuations to the internment camps, she and Henry are left only with the hope that the war will end, and that their promise to each other will be kept. Forty years later, Henry Lee is certain that the parasol belonged to Keiko. In the hotel's dark dusty basement he begins looking for signs of the Okabe family's belongings and for a long-lost object whose value he cannot begin to measure. Now a widower, Henry is still trying to find his voice – words that might explain the actions of his nationalistic father, words that might bridge the gap between him and his modern, Chinese American son, words that might help him confront the choices he made many years ago." Our meetings are held on the second Tuesday of each month at 9:30 am in the RCN Room #3, and someone volunteers to lead the discussion about the book we have chosen for the month. For more information or to get on our mailing list, please contact me at michelesrosen@ gmail.com. ~ Micki Rosen Book Club Four Seasons Veterans Park We are all familiar with dog tags worn by military members deployed in war zones. The need to identify bodies was well documented during the Civil and Spanish American wars. In 1906, the Army put out a general order for aluminum disc-shaped ID tags to be worn by all soldiers. In 1916 on the eve of US involvement in WWI, the order was amended to add a second disk or tag. In 1917 the Navy began using nickel alloy tags. During WWII draftees nicknamed them "dog tags" because they claimed they were being treated like dogs. The first venue in the park for August covers WWI that started July 28, 1914. As American forces deployed around the world during WWII, they took with them their music. Jazz, Country and Western, and love songs filled the airwaves. Radio had been invented between the wars and vinyl records allowed disc jockeys to broadcast new tunes wherever the GIs landed. Flags during the second fortnight of August depict some of the artists and popular songs from the USA and UK. ~ Len Tavernetti, ltavernetti@hotmail.com

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