There are unreal experiences that seem real, but what about
the reverse: things that you actually experienced but over time become hazy? If
they were unlikely to begin with, there’s a risk they’ll slip into a sort
of dream category: Did I really do that?
These 50-odd years later I had to ask myself if I’d really gone
to a concert of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra on Okinawa. The question intrigued me to
the point where I had to contact the orchestra and ask.
As I recall it, I had settled in at my posting, a fenced-in
enclosure on top of a hill overlooking the airbase we were to defend if
necessary. It was a decade and more since the end of WWII and the airbase had restaurants, a PX, and a movie theater -- relatively
luxurious recreational facilities. Our barracks had a pingpong table -- I
became fairly proficient -- and a TV set tuned to a military channel. There’s a
surprising amount of down time when you’re in the army, and I and the other members
of our short-handed crew spent most of it in that barracks on that hill.
I doubt you can imagine my feelings when I learned about the
concert. This was the one you swapped
guard duty nights for, two for one. I vaguely remember some walking to
get there, and I really believe I
attended that concert, but the rest of the details are gone. That’s
what gives it its dream-like quality.
But the LAPO archivist confirmed it; the orchestra had toured the
Far East that year, performing in Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore,
Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Taipei and,
unaccountably, Okinawa. It would have
been the equivalent of including a stop in New York but playing it on Governors
Island.
