In Memoriam

About five or so years ago, my husband and my son and I took a trip by train to Chicago. We love riding the train, because you can sit and read, get up and use the restroom, watch the scenery, eat your lunch, and all the time, you're still moving towards your destination. You don't have to stop for gas, and you don't have to struggle to find an expensive place to park your car.

I was folding a lot of origami at the time, and I was working full-time and had spending cash. So I asked on the "O-list", an international origami email list (subscription instructions here), about good paper stores in Chicago.

One of the stores we visited was J. Toguri Mercantile, on West Belmont. My husband was instantly sucked into a display of cookbooks (he's the cook and makes scary Thai laab), and I was dazzled by a rack of wonderful origami papers. Wow. I remember we also each bought a set of fancy chopsticks there. (My Polish-Irish husband can eat with chopsticks and pick up individual rice grains with them -- what is UP with that?) I bought myself the "baby" chopsticks that are joined together in the center, much more my speed!

We had a great time in that store, and were waited on by a tiny elderly Japanese lady who smiled at our then-2-year-old son. I dimly remember that she asked him if he liked candy. (We were buying him candy.)

It was not until I got home, and was looking up Toguri's on the internet, that I learned that Iva Toguri of Toguri's was the woman arrested, tried and imprisoned for broadcasting as "Tokyo Rose".

There are many websites detailing the injustice of her arrest and conviction. Go off and Google for Iva Toguri, Orphan Ann, and Tokyo Rose.

Iva Toguri died in Chicago on Tuesday, September 26, 2006, at age 90.