Takeo ‘Babe’ Utsumi

29 Mar 2008	Random Thoughts Good Friday and Easter Sunday have come and gone for this year. Naturally, the papers are still full of ads for candies, flowers and children’s clothing. It’s almost as big...
22 Mar 2008	Random Thoughts The main hot topic of this past week has been the showing on TV of a sermon given by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Chicago. He is a fiery and dynamic speaker. In a way, his style...
15 Mar 2008	Random Thoughts The voters in the Democratic Party are truly in a dilemma in this coming presidential election. For one thing, the two candidates for the position are setting an unprecedented...
8 Mar 2008	Random Thoughts There was an interesting article in last week’s edition of the Hokubei Mainichi about the 2008 Japanese American Leadership Delegation Program. This will be the eighth such....
1 Mar 2008	Random Thoughts Looking back into the past, say about 25 to 30 years, we did a bit of traveling. Helen and I have gone to Japan, to Hawaii several times, Mexico a couple of times, cruised through the...
23 Feb 2008	Random Thoughts When a human being is called two-faced it is not a complimentary remark. It more or less describes a person with a deceptive mind and trickery. However, in Texas a cat litter produced a...
16 Feb 2008	Random Thoughts In my last article I mentioned the demise of former gasoline station operators — Mike Inouye, Joe Tondo, George and Jim Nakamura, Les Matsumura and Yo Kato. One name I...
9 Feb 2008	Random Thoughts Well, the 2008 version of the Super Bowl football game between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants was a good one. The Giants won, but it was only in the last few seconds...
2 Feb 2008	Random Thoughts Last Saturday evening we were privileged to attend the annual S.F. Nisei Fishing Club’s awards dinner at the Grosvenor Hotel near the airport. The event was attended by a goodly crowd, perhaps the best in recent years.
26 Jan 2008	Random Thoughts As a young kid, reading the Sunday funny paper was something I really looked forward to. The comic section was in color, and the characters depicted were always ingrained in my mind through all those years.
19 Jan 2008	Random Thoughts Toward the end of year 2007 I was happy and hopeful that it would be the finale of the loss of so many friends this past year. After I wrote the last column for the year, I...
29 Dec 2007	Random Thoughts Did you ever wonder what ever happened to the baseball that was the last one pitched in the World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the Colorado Rockies last fall?
22 Dec 2007	Random Thoughts This past week the revelation and accusation of the use of steroids by baseball players was revealed by former senator George Mitchell. It raised a lot of eyebrows among sports fans who...
15 Dec 2007	Random Thoughts As the end of 2007 comes nearer, we become very much aware that the campaign for the next president of the United States is approaching. Seems like the front-runners for the Democrats will be...
8 Dec 2007	Random Thoughts The other night I listened to a hot and heavy discussion on a radio talk show. The argument was on the subject of whether a Chinese artist-sculptor should be chosen to do the likeness of...
1 Dec 2007	Random Thoughts That was a tragic and senseless killing of a pizza delivery man in Richmond the other night. Most of these guys who deliver pizzas are not paid a salary, but depend mainly on tips.
17 Nov 2007	Random Thoughts The opening game for next year’s Major League Baseball season should be of great interest, especially for the Japanese population here and in Japan. It will be held in Tokyo between the...
3 Nov 2007	Random Thoughts Well, baseball’s World Series games are over in a rather quick fashion. It was four straight for the Boston Red Sox over the Colorado Rockies.
27 Oct 2007	Random Thoughts In times of disaster, such as the wildfire and devastation in the San Diego area, there always are great deeds of courage, kindness and helpfulness. People from all over the United States...
20 Oct 2007	Random Thoughts In 1785, a man named Francois Blanchard was one of the earliest people to experiment with the hot air balloon. He decided to fly over the Channel from England to France. He wore a lot of...
13 Oct 2007	Random Thoughts I guess I will have to eat crow after last weekend’s big football upset of the Stanford Cardinals against the mighty USC Trojans.
6 Oct 2007	Random Thoughts From the first day of its inception, I have been a die-hard San Francisco 49ers football fan, with Buck Shaw as coach, Bud Foster at the microphone and the Moribito brothers as owners.
29 Sep 2007	Random Thoughts I heard a great title for a book recently on a radio review show: Things I Overhead While Talking to Myself.
22 Sep 2007	Random Thoughts The late great newspaper writer, Herb Caen, in the San Francisco Chronicle, had at the top of his column “Baghdad by the Bay.” This was many years ago, and at that time the...
15 Sep 2007	Random Thoughts Every time that I hear about a shark attack on a surfboarder along our coasts, the explanation seems to be the same.
8 Sep 2007	Random Thoughts After a couple of weeks of hiatus from these pages, I have had the chance to watch, listen and think about the various happenings around us.
18 Aug 2007	Random Thoughts During the Vietnam War we not only had thousands of GIs, but also an elite group of soldiers called the Rangers. They did a lot of close fighting in the jungles in Southeast Asia.
11 Aug 2007	Random Thoughts A couple of weeks ago I made a foray into the world of tea. I mentioned a radio talk show host who discussed his trip to England and discovered the delight of drinking tea. He was so...
4 Aug 2007	Random Thoughts On Monday, Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn were inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame Museum in Cooperstown, New York. Both of them are certainly deserving of this honor and recognition.
28 Jul 2007	Random Thoughts Our good friend down the street, Shig Furuta, dropped off some material about a baseball team called the Asahis in Vancouver, B.C.
21 Jul 2007	Random Thoughts Recently I wrote about the stupid activities held in Spain every year. One is the throwing of ripe tomatoes at each other in the streets of the town. I mentioned at that time...
16 Jun 2007	Random Thoughts Last Monday morning when I woke up and turned on the radio next to my bed, all I could hear was the discussion of the last episode of “The Sopranos.” I have never watched any episode of this widely popular TV show, but apparently there are millions...
9 Jun 2007	Random Thoughts It really got my goat when I heard about the shooting of goats while grazing on the hills of Berkeley and Oakland.
2 Jun 2007	Random Thoughts When the Watanabes moved into their new home on 34th Avenue, they had an open house, which we attended. It was an eye-opener to see what an architect-designed home can be.
26 May 2007	Random Thoughts The dilemma of the wayward whales in the Sacramento River has been going on for almost two weeks. The humpbacks actually reached the deep-water channels of the Sacramento port.
19 May 2007	Random Thoughts If there is a Nisei to be named “A Man for All Seasons,” it would have to be the late Susumu Robert Saiki, who passed away two weeks ago. I knew him as a young kid in Stockton before World War II. His older brother, Barry, was a classmate of mine in the Japanese language school.
5 May 2007	Random Thoughts An astronomer in Chile recently made a discovery of another planet similar to ours, although five times larger. The weather was estimated to be almost like ours, 100 degrees at its warmest and 32 degrees at its coldest.
28 Apr 2007	Random Thoughts Recently there has been disturbing news about the ingestion of little magnets by children. These things probably drop off from toys and other items that children play with.
21 Apr 2007	Random Thoughts My old bakery friend, George Izumi of Los Angeles, called to say that after years of playing golf three times a week since his retirement, he finally got a hole-in-one. Too bad I wasn’t there because he would have had to buy me a drink.
14 Apr 2007	Random Thoughts Through the past eight to 10 years we have been having an influx of Japanese baseball players. Fortunately, to the relief of sportswriters and typesetters, the names of the players were rather simple, such as Shinjo, Suzuki, Matsui, Nomo, Iguchi, Taguchi, etc. Now...
7 Apr 2007	Random Thoughts What is it about Florida, I wonder, but that state produced two intercollegiate champions in football and basketball within a year. It was also unusual that the Gators defeated the same school, the Ohio State Buckeyes, in those events.
31 Mar 2007	Random Thoughts There was news on the air that a scientist back east has developed a breed of mosquitoes that will not carry the malaria disease. This may not seem to be a big thing here, but in certain parts of the world, this particular disease kills millions of people.
24 Mar 2007	Random Thoughts During President Bush’s trip to South America a few weeks ago, one of the things he discussed with the Brazilian government was the use of ethanol in their cars. The ethanol is produced from sugar cane, which is quite abundant there, and then mixed with gasoline...
17 Mar 2007	Random Thoughts The March Madness is about to begin. I am referring, of course, to the annual basketball tournament of the NCAA. Betting and pools are going to be in full motion from now on. The tournament starts with 64 teams, and in less than a week, it will come down to the Sweet 16.
10 Mar 2007	Random Thoughts The Chinese New Year Parade must have been a huge success with the good weather prevailing. For many years the parade was synonymous with rain, just like the AT&T Golf Tournament, formerly known as the Crosby Clambake, at Pebble Beach. Fortunately, both...
3 Mar 2007	Random Thoughts That was a great series of articles by Jan Yanehiro, who accompanied the San Francisco-Osaka sister-city delegation to Japan a couple of weeks ago. She detailed a lot of interesting facts during those few short days in Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo.
24 Feb 2007	Random Thoughts It’s the time of the year when the monarch butterflies are being tagged. This is being done so that these beautiful creatures can be followed and traced to their final destination.
10 Feb 2007	Random Thoughts The Super Bowl is finally over. As I and a million others predicted, the Indianapolis Colts came out on top. It was viewed by an estimated 93 million people in this country, minus one. I did not watch it on TV. I’m just a die-hard 49ers fan and I just couldn’t get excited about watching this one.
3 Feb 2007	Random Thoughts Well, it’s Super Bowl Sunday again. To be truthful, I haven’t watched many of these games through the years. Being a 49ers faithful, I just didn’t have the heart nor the mind to watch those other guys play. To have watched Joe Montana and...
27 Jan 2007	Random Thoughts It’s a week to go now for the football extravaganza, the Super Bowl, which will be held in Miami. The two teams vying for the championship will be the Chicago Bears and the Indianapolis Colts My choice as the winner will be the...
20 Jan 2007	Random Thoughts Well, the annual New Year’s gathering at our house has come and gone. On that day we had about 60 people, including family and relatives from our side to my sisters’ side, in-laws and out-laws, several little children and many friends.
23 Dec 2006	Random Thoughts I have always admired guys who participated in mountain climbing. Generally speaking, there is no money or glory in this endeavor. As they say, they do it because it’s there.
16 Dec 2006	Random Thoughts There is something about loyalty to certain brand names and stores. A good example is the Marshall Field’s Co. store in Chicago. This store stood for many years as the Gibraltar for shoppers on State Street.
9 Dec 2006	Random Thoughts For the past 10 days our attention has been riveted on the travail of the James Kim family of San Francisco.
2 Dec 2006	Random Thoughts Just as I thought the PlayStation high tech game buying frenzy was finally over, another shopping craze began on Black Friday...
28 Nov 2006	Random Thoughts A few months back when it was announced that a book would be coming out authored by O.J. Simpson, entitled If I Did It, a wave of revulsion swept over most of the country.
18 Nov 2006	Random Thoughts Basketball coach Bobby Knight, formerly of Indiana University and now at Texas Tech for the past few years, has to be the U.S. Army General George S. Patton of the basketball world. Both are known for their volatile temper.
14 Nov 2006	Random Thoughts Thanks goodness the elections are over, and I am certain that the mail carriers are equally relieved.
4 Nov 2006	Random Thoughts One has to be almost a masochist to watch the San Francisco 49ers play on TV. Win or lose, and especially the latter, I watch from the opening kick-off to the final down.
28 Oct 2006	Random Thoughts It is hard to believe, I find, that I saw my first World Series baseball game over 60 years ago in Detroit when the Tigers played against the Chicago Cubs in a seven-game series.
21 Oct 2006	Random Thoughts Lately it’s almost getting scary to pick up the phone or read the obituary column in the paper. So many of our good friends have passed away recently — Rosalyn Kiwata, Anne Saito Howden and Tokuo Murakami.

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