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I Remember
By Abraham Lincoln
Some 'remarkable people' have crossed my path over the years.
My mother kept us alive when all hope must have vanished during the
Second World War. My wife, these last 60 years, has been a
calming influence on my life. I think of the dogs I have called my own,
by personal name, who have kept my blood pressure low. Miss Beatrice
Brown, my country schoolteacher who taught generations of kids in the
small village where I lived.
The Army set me straight with soldiers and companions like Jim DeMarco
and Captain John V. Azevedo. He called me the other day and we had a
long talk about old times in Japan when he was a young Captain and I
was a young Corporal.
One man that I met is Paul Broman. He was in Japan at the end of the
Second War and returned home, to Minnesota, but came back to Japan with
his brother to do missionary work.
The two of them wandered Japan without being able to speak the language
and with no job skills almost starved. Fortunately, Paul met a Japanese
lady who married him but made him promise that he would never speak
English in their home. He never did.
They had 10 natural children and adopted 12 off the streets. I believe
they are all college graduates, and most speak several languages, and
all are smart like their father was.
He did retire as CEO from his company, Grape City. He wrote that his
company now has offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Xian, Delhi, Bombay,
Yangon, Kuala Lumpur, Hanoi, Sydney, Singapore, Mongolia, Seoul, Osaka,
Nagoya, Tokyo and Sendai, Japan, and in Seattle, Washington.
Among the clients his company does business with is Microsoft. The
flavor of his company, Grape City, can be seen at:
http://www.winestudios.com/
Paul has managed to make me think about my future existence more than
once and he has read my rants about religion, politics and life, and
always gave me advice on how I should live. We have had many online
discussions about our futures and while he is a religious fellow, he
never pushed his belief at me. I liked that about Paul. This remarkable
person is one I met because of my being on the Internet.
One of his sons saw the website and because it was about my Army
experiences in Japan, he thought his father, a former soldier in
occupied Japan, might be interested.
Paul and I met by Email and have been friends ever since. Sadly, Paul
has suffered a stroke and that has left him in an all-new world in his
Japanese home tended by his wife and children. The company he founded
so long ago is still flourishing.
© 2012 – Abraham Lincoln. All rights reserved.
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