The Gene Pool Out of Which Janey Crawled

These are my parents.

This photo was taken on an August day in 1947, when Dad was 19 and Mummy, 18.

He was part of the American Army of Occupation in Okinawa, Japan. He grew up solidly blue-collar in Carnegie, PA (where we pronounce it, correctly, "Car-NAY-gie." Trust me. You can call the Carnegie Foundation in New York and they will confirm that down there in da 'burgh, we got it right. Take that, you New York snobs.) His father was a coal miner.

My mother was born and raised on a tiny speck of an island in the Ryukyus called Miyako. Her parents married, had a son, divorced, then remarried and set about having four more children. My grandfather was at one time moved by the government to Japan, where his name was changed to S****mura (more Japanese, less Okinawan) and he was a palace guard for a time for Emperor Hirohito. My mother was famous not only for her beauty, but her intelligence.

What is invisible in this photo of that gentle-seeming girl is her fire. My mother is possessed of something that she passed down to all of us, what we call The S****mura Temper. When we are angry, we get "small mouth" and a stubborn jut to our chins. Sometimes we wave our arms and yell. Unlike my mother, I am incapable of sustaining fury -- it blows in and blows out with the ferocity of a July thunderstorm in the mountains. Even now, on days when her mind is fully engaged, my mother will still give me that look -- a mix of condescension and ire that tells me that I'd better watch my p's and q's.

Every time I look at this photo, I feel like Princess Leigh-Cheri inspecting her pack of Camel cigarettes in her attic. (Go read your Tom Robbins. Uh-oh, spagetti-oh.) Something is revealed to me every single time I look at it.

First and foremost, look at these two people and you will never, ever, EVER again question any one of my issues and insecurities about how I look. Looking at these incandescent teenagers, I imagine I can understand how, say, the children of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie will someday feel. Looking at them, I know how Alexa Ray Joel feels.

Look at them! They look like movie stars. I call this photograph, "The Movie Still," because it is so perfectly posed and evocative of that specific time, that specific place, that it almost doesn't seem real.

He is tall and handsome, sandy-haired and square-chinned and what you don't see are his bright blue laughing eyes. From his brushy crew cut to the bottom of the photo, everything about him says "GI Joe." The Army tans, the web belt, even the deck of smokes in his front pocket.

And my mother, well, she's in her wedding finery and doesn't look so much like a Japanese doll as a dewy flower. She is so young she still has baby fat on her face. As the years passed, this would melt away and reveal elegant planes and angles in her features. She is nestled into the crook of his arm, trusting that he will take care of her and save her from becoming the thing she dreaded most -- an Okinawa housewife.

She has no idea of what lies ahead for her, or perhaps she would change her mind and decide to stay in Okinawa. All she knows is that this boy walked into his barracks, saw her ironing shirts, and fell in love. He pursued her. He chased her with the single-minded devotion of a hound. He drove an Army truck up and down her street to try to catch glimpses of her. He went to her father and asked for her hand in marriage, probably in his best broken Japanese. And after her father told him "no" the boy went off to the hills with a bottle and a gun and his despair. Soldiers had to bring him to his senses.

Now will you let me marry her? I've shown how I love her.

No, you've shown that you're crazy. There's no way I'd let you marry her now.

And my mother sat with her father and told him what she wanted. She was headstrong and in love. Finally, my grandfather relented.

You must, he told her, do what you feel is the right thing for you.

So she married him.

My father, he knew the Army was going to send him home. In his youth and passion and his belief that love can conquer every obstacle, he had written an impassioned letter to the Inspector General pleading his case. Pleading his love for this tiny island girl.

So, a few days after this photo was taken, after they had been married by an Army chaplain, the Army put my father on a plane to return to the United States.

Without her.

In the meantime, the Inspector General received his letter. Like his daughter Janey would one day, my father had a gift for blarney and a way with words.

When my father's troop transport landed in Manila for refueling, there was a message from the Inspector General.

Find this soldier, he told his underlings, and put him on the next transport back to Okinawa so he can get his wife and bring her home.

Next August, they will celebrate their 60th anniversary.