There was a base hobby shop that we were encouraged to use, again with the hope it would keep us out of trouble.  They had a crafts facilities with molds and kilns, for making pottery or your own atrocious artwork that your parents preferred you display in your room, not where everyone could see it.  After all, how many ash trays can a family use who doesn't smoke (except their sneaky son)?  There were classes in pottery, like classes for everything else under the sun on that base, in the faint hope that it would give you some appreciation of the Japanese arts .. or any art, for that matter.  I spun pots and watched them implode.  I wasn't interested in this at all, but I tried to show more than a three-week attention span in something.  I decided to make a gift for a particularly promiscuous girl at school (thinking back, how dumb it was to go along with those stereotypes .. guys are congratulated and girls are reviled for the same activities).  I got it all the way to the firing kiln before the female ceramics instructor heard me snickering about the giant dildo baking away inside.  As happened to me so many times with so many authoritarian figures, she was not amused one bit, and removed it to the trash heap.  My friends and I did get large guffaws out of watching her handle that smoking, fire-red, hunka, hunka burnin' love and trying to dispose of it in a ladylike manner.

Next door was the photo hobby shop, so I decided to try that.  It was equipped with everything you needed, and for free.  Chemicals, baths, paper, enlargers .. all there to be used.  Daytime was the best time to use the photo hobby shops, since most of the evening was jammed with military personnel.  I took a variety of pictures of landscapes, architecture, crowd shots, city scenes, gnarly old mama-sans and papa-sans, sometimes alone, sometimes with my friend "Covert" Carl (that really was his nickname .. he was a world-class sneak).  Since we were only shooting in black-and-white, which is all we could develop at the hobby shop, it was a cheap diversion.
 

That was the summer of the demonstrations.  There were some huge rallies protesting the American presence in Japan or just all of us capitalist, imperialist pigs in general.  The communists were the ringleaders of it all, and they recruited a lot of Japanese college students to participate .. of course .. how many senior citizens do you ever see at demonstrations?

 

Whoever thought up this idea was the true media genius of the time: the snake dance.  It was a media magnet.  Cameras flocked from all over the world to shoot 50,000 Japanese students snake dancing through the streets of Tokyo.  The Zengakuren Student Union .. they were the organizers, and they were militant!  Nothing would suit them, nothing less than the complete withdrawl of all American troops from Japan.  The snake dances were well-choreographed and highly organized.  Everyone had a bright bandana, many with the rising sun symbol of Japan.  Crowd monitors had bullhorns to give instructions.  Japanese TV covered them, and it transfixed me .. it was a precursor of the American civil rights demonstrations and the Vietnam War demonstrations to follow.  My parents told me to get home fast if ever I was caught in one, because they might kill an American.  Who knows what would happen?  I knew what would happen .. I was already plotting it.

Soon, my wishes came true .. there was a giant rally planned near Meiji Shrine .. in Harajuku .. right outside the gates of Washington Heights!  I couldn't believe it .. I was going down there with my camera!  Naturally, the base became like a war zone, and everyone was restricted on base.  But, I was prepared.  I had made a "Press Pass" out of our school newspaper's logo, The Dragon's Roar, and sealed it in cheap plastic.  I had seen press passes before, and they usually wore them around their neck or clipped to a jacket.  And they all had camera bags.  I got a whistle lanyard from the gym locker room and attached the pass to it.

	For the first time, I had to sneak OFF base, because security was so tight.  Over the wall into Harajuku, trying to look as non-teenager as I could, and into the biggest crowd of people I had ever seen.  Maybe 100,000, maybe more, and I seemed to be the only white eyes in the bunch.  I kept my eye to the camera and clicked away.  Roll after roll.  The snake dance was breathtaking!  In tight formation, each person would reel from one side of the street to the other, an enormous, undulating python, looking to encircle and crush its oppressor.  The Japanese police were in riot gear, but at a respectful distance.  Neither side wanted to start something first.  Finally, after more than an hour, a Japanese policeman approached me, speaking perfect English.  I gave him my "press" story, but he could tell I was just a kid.  He suggested I get back to the base before anything happened.  Discretion is the better part of valor, so I retreated.  This time, I walked in the gate, saying I was returning from a trip.  No problem.
..

          I ran to the photo hobby shop to develop the pictures.  I noticed something weird as they were developing, and the shop manager came over to inspect them, then my camera.  "Big crack," he said, as he pointed to the camera body.  I had dropped the camera days before and not seen the crack.  It had let light pour in, ruining the unexposed film.  Not one single shot came out.  How depressing!  An historic event, and I had not been able to get one picture of it.  Arrrrgggghhhhhhh!  I never told anyone about it because it was more embarrassing than the Mt. Fuji incident.

On the other hand .. all was not lost in the photo opportunities that Tokyo presented.  My friend "Covert" Carl had spotted something quite interesting in Shibuya, and we went to take a look.  It was a "photo salon" that provided models for you to photograph.  There, on the second floor, was the sign: "Kinka Nude Studios."  We couldn't be so lucky, could we?  Naw!  Probably a complete gyp.  We'll go up and check it out.  There, waiting for the next customer, was this beautiful Japanese girl of about 22 or 23, with a robe barely on.  The price, if I remember, was about $12 each .. they even had cameras you could rent .. but we'd brought our own (this time, I did a thorough inspection).  Then, she drops the robe!  Totally nude .. so this is what they mean by being a photography "buff!!" .. and we're 16 .. forget ceramics, we had found our hobby! .. we clicked away .. then we took each other's picture with her .. but, no touchee! .. and that was it.  And a big rush back to the photo hobby shop for developing.  And this time, it worked.  Keeping those photos hidden from our parents until we moved away from home was a major intelligence operation.  I finally hid them so well that I forgot where I'd stashed them, and can't find them to this day .. pictures or the negatives .. and neither can Carl.