The Po Show

Happy Birthday Daddy

Today my dad would have been 80 years old. His name was Harry Hideo Iwamoto, born Hideo, but he came to be known as Harry. He was the Harry who grew Harry's Berries.

He was born in Tamana, in Kumamoto Prefecture, in Kyushu, Japan. It's the southern-most island in Japan, and the people there are renowned for being particularly stubborn. He certainly was. He was the 5th child out of 8, the first of his siblings to be born in Japan after his family returned from California. My grandfather had made a ton of money farming in America, went back to Japan with his wife and children, built a fine house that my father was born in, and became a bigshot in the village. So my dad was born into what passed for privilege at that time.

He was a naughty little boy, always getting into trouble. He was told by his father never to set foot in the kitchen, that if he wanted something he was to ask his mother or sisters. He loved catching cicadas in the summer and he didn't particularly like school.

He was smart though, and wanted to be a doctor. While he was in high school, however, Japan ramped up its ongoing militaristic endeavors (how's that for a euphemism?) and officially entered WWII. His two older brothers went off to war. When he was 17, he tried to run away and join the army too, planning to lie about his age, but my grandfather went after him and hauled him back home. He finished high school in 1945, before the war ended, and left for medical school. But then his father contacted him, saying that his older brother was dead (the oldest had already been killed), so could he please come home. He was now the eldest son, the new heir to the family name. He went home, the atomic bombs were dropped (Nagasaki was just a prefecture away), and the war ended.

There was no food, so he started farming his father's land. He told the story of how at one time they literally had nothing to eat but a few bags of sugar, which they mixed in a glass of water, drank down, and went back to work. Things improved some in the next few years, and his friends were hanging around nearby villages trying to meet girls. They tried to get him to come along, but he said, no, he was going to marry the girl next door. And he did. She was his cousin (in these villages everyone was related, but they were REALLY related, as their mothers were first cousins), and she had grown up in America.

My parents lived in my grandfather's house, which they were to inherit in time, and had three children. My father farmed, and became active in local politics. He loved to talk, loved to impress people. He was courted by older politicians and encouraged to run for local office.

Then in 1957 he went to the United States as part of a "young farmer" program, to learn about American farming techniques. He was impressed, but even more impressed when they were taken to see an American elementary school. It was so open, so different from the propagandistic education he'd received in wartime Japan. You have to remember that post-war Japan was in pretty crappy shape still, and he believed his children would have a much better chance if they grew up in America. Also, he was very tempted to go into politics, and he feared he would cost his family more than they could afford by doing so (being a politician in Japan means spending a huge amount of money on gifts for constituents and other expenses).

My mother still had dual citizenship, so through her the family could emigrate. At that time, immigrants from Asia were still highly restricted (they were completely banned from 1882-1949), so it was only because my mother was a US citizen that they could move here. My father's father was beyond upset that his eldest son was leaving the country, as he was supposed to be the heir to the family name. In fact, my father had already changed his last name (that is a whole other story that would need its own post) to that of my maternal grandfather, which had been enough of an upheaval. But my dad was determined to take his family to America, so they boarded a boat in 1958, bound for Los Angeles.

My maternal grandparents had already moved back to California after the war, and my grandfather was gardening. My dad started gardening with him, speaking no English whatsoever. In time he and my mom opened a nursery, selling plants to other gardeners. They moved out of my grandparents' house and into the house that was my first home.

He decided that he wanted to farm, and that he wanted to farm strawberries. He didn't actually know anything about growing strawberries, but he packed up the family (I was a year old at the time) and moved us all to Oxnard, where people grew strawberries. He started with a small piece of rented land, looked in the trash of other growers to see what kind of fertilizer they used, and he grew berries. After a few years, he was hired by American Foods, a big shipping conglomerate, to oversee their strawberry production. But he was always meant to be his own boss, and he eventually went back to private growing.

He was wildly successful at times, devastatingly unsuccessful at others. That's the gamble of farming, when you are at the mercy of the weather and market prices. On his 80 acres, millions of dollars of seed and equipment and other supplies were at stake. I still can't stand the sound of rain, because it makes me flash back to watching my dad chain smoke all night long during spring rainstorms, listening to the sound of his berries wash away.

He had a particularly bad couple of years in the early '90s, that resulted in an avalanche of debt. He lost the lease on his land, and had to move to a very small new farm. It was terribly depressing for him. But he looked to the future, and hoped to build up his acreage again.

In 1993, I was working on my Master's thesis at the University of Hawaii. I was doing an oral history of my mother's life. I came home to Oxnard for 3 weeks and intensively interviewed both of my parents, as well as other family members. My dad looked thinner, and was very tired. But it was incredible to hear his stories of his life; I learned so many things about him that I had never known.

Two weeks after I got back to Hawaii, I got a call from my mom. My dad had pancreatic cancer, very advanced, and they were operating the next day. The surgery to remove his pancreas was successful, but he was going to be in the hospital for awhile. The next day, I got a call again that he was not doing well, and that I should come home. They could not stop his internal bleeding from the surgery and his blood pressure kept falling dangerously low. There were no late afternoon or evening flights to CA, so I went standby on an early morning flight. My father in law picked me up at LAX and we went straight to the hospital. When we got there, my brother in law was outside to meet us in the parking lot, and he told us that my dad had died 30 minutes before.

He was only 66. His father had lived to be 84, and his mother had lived to be 95. Everyone lived long in his family, except for him. The causes of death listed on his certificate were pancreatic cancer and cirrhosis of the liver. He had made it through the surgery, but his blood could not clot because his liver had been fucked up by years of heavy drinking. I tell people that my dad died of pancreatic cancer, but it was really booze that killed him.

He's been gone for too many years now, and we all miss him. On the Harry's Berries boxes (that go all around the country, to some of the finest restaurants; I once saw the box sitting behind Wolfgang Puck on one of his cooking shows), it says "In loving memory of Grandpa Harry, May 29, 1927-August 8, 1993. Thanks!" He would have totally loved that.