In a dark, recessed corner of our living room, with many doo dads sitting in front of it, so you can hardly see it, sets a lovely wooden shoji screen ( a four-paneled, decorative room divider) from Okinawa. ( How’s that for a run-on sentence).  It has been a part of our room decor since about 1965, when I brought it home on one if my airlift missions to Vietnam.   That screen has a story attached to it that you’re about to see if you read this lengthy e mail.

We left on a C-130 scheduled 8-day, round trip mission to Nam via Mid Pac.  That means instead of flying the short route via Alaska and Japan, we were heading to the Islands ( Hawaii, Wake, Midway. Guam, Okinawa, then Nam or possibly Thailand)

On the first stop in Okinawa I picked up a beautiful Shoji screen. I carried it off the aircraft at the Philippines, our next overnight stay.  Of course my room was all the way in the back on the third floor. ( Murphy’s Law). We had already been in Nam and thought we were on the way home.  Not hardly.  We were rerouted back to Nam for another cargo delivery. Then back to Clark AB, Philippines. Left Clark heading to Guam when Command Post diverted us again.  Mission comes first. Long story short I got back to Charleston in 22 dsys instead of 8. And lugged that damn Shoji screen off and on the aircraft at least 4 times.  I told Marjorie about 58 years ago we had better use that damn screen forever.

Well. It started as a room divider when Christine, our first, was born. And it was used as a room or bassinet shelter. For Jim and Jeffrey, numbers two and three.  We have found some use ir location for it for almost 60 years now.  As i said at the start of this lengthy story, it is now in a dark, recessed corner of our living room. Thus, the Shoji Screen story.