LAS VE­GAS.—Does anyone come to Vegas with­out thinking about visiting a casino and gambling even a little bit?

According to one article I read, the answer is “Yes.” The article pointed out nine of the places where these non-gaming visitors visit the most.

1st place: Topping the list is the rare white tigers which were part of the Siegfried and Roy Show which was disbanded after Roy was mauled by one of the animals. The white tigers are on display at the Mirage Hotel and can be seen without paying admission.

2nd place: The exhibit of the world’s most expensive cars at the Wynn Hotel where the most popular vehicle is a $700,000 sports car.

3rd place: The Liberace Museum.

4th place: Mandalay Bay’s shark reef is the largest in North America and features 15 types of sharks.

5th place: It’s a little out the way, but Lake Mead, the largest man-made lake in the U.S. draws a lot of tourists. Boating, swimming, water skiing and fishing are the most popular attrac­tions.

6th place: Las Vegas Spring Pre­serve National Historic Site which is a $250 million world class attraction and displays the true origin of Vegas.

7th place: The insanity ride at the Stratosphere, 900 feet above The Strip.

8th place: Also located near Lake Mead is the Hoover Dam, a historic landmark.

9th place: The Red Rock Canyon National Conservatory area. The area’s popularity was probably enhanced by the opening of the Red Rock Hotel and Casino. (Oops, this was supposed to be a non-gaming site story).

Well, it’s safe to say you won’t find a report on these attractions in my column because I’ll be too busy trying to beat a slot machine.

Well, maybe I’ll take in one of the Last Vegas 51s baseball games. The 51s are the minor league team belong­ing to the Dodgers. And because the Dodgers send a lot of their injured players to the 51s, maybe I’ll see some familiar faces on the roster.

Heck, maybe if we Dodger, fans are lucky, I’ll be able to see Andruw Jones playing for the 51s instead of stinking up Dodger Stadium with his pathetic bat. He’s so bad that Dodger announcer Vin Scully doesn’t even tell his listening audience how many times Jones has struck out this season.

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Except for a week I was hospital­ized about 14 years ago, I haven’t missed a column since I joined the Rafu even if I was on the road in far away countries.

Of course, being in a foreign coun­try provides me with a lot of material to pound out a column, but I had to drag my portable typewriter with me.

Today, it’s the laptop replacing the old typing machine but while it’s easier to transmit my column back to the Rafu, gathering up material of interest can get kind of difficult.

So I pack my briefcase with mate­rial that helps, letters from readers, articles from other sources, etc.

Being in Vegas offers another chal­lenge, too. It’s hard to sit around trying to write when the gaming tables and slot machines are waiting for me and my donation.

The following is a piece sent to me by a reader who signs his name, “Mauiboy.” Since it touches on a sub­ject which has been in the limelight a couple of weeks ago, I decided that the readers might be interested by a dif­ferent angle on the former relocation center located at Manzanar.

It’s a bit lengthy. (Hooray). It goes:

“The following was written by a guy named Bob Lefsetz who writes e-mails to the folks in the music industry on a regular basis. Usually he rants about what’s wrong in our industry, sometimes he raves about a new CD and sometimes he just writes about whatever is holding his attention at that moment. He’s a wonderful writer and usually on the mark with his ob­servations.

“Here’s his story: ‘We’re home. The plan was to stay in Mammoth until Wednesday, skiing tomorrow, on my birthday. Alas, our plans were foiled.

‘Oh, the mountain is open, it’s just that they’ve hit a skein of unseason­ably cold weather. So, what was slush on Saturday, before we hit the slopes, has been rock solid with ice.

‘My spirits sank when this morn­ing’s ski report said it was 22 degrees at the base lodge and 9 on top with 48 mph winds. The day before was the windiest I’d ever skied through. It’s supposed to be sixty degrees on Saturday but before that, there will be no above freezing temps in the mountains.

‘So we loaded up the car and drove downhill.

‘And downhill it is. Mammoth Mountain is at the peak of the Sierras. Looking down the summit can induce vertigo, it’s 8,000 vertical feet to the valley below. Having no schedule to adhere to, we took a detour to Convict Lake, where Felice has scheduled my birthday dinner for tomorrow evening. Positively staggering. The mountains came down like Alps to a lake with waves like those on an ocean.

‘Back on the highway, we sauntered down to Bishop. Where we made a stop at Erik Schat’s Bakery for some gelato. And then some chocolate chip cookies. Hell, it’s my birthday tomor­row and I was hurting, our plans hav­ing been blown.

‘On the road again, we were caught between towering peaks and the desert, trying to see through a bug embedded on the windshield. And when we got to Manzanar, I told Felice I wanted to stop.

‘It was almost five. We had hun­dreds of miles to go. But I’d driven by this Japanese internment camp so many times without stopping. This time would be different.

‘There’s not much there. You notice a guard tower and a structure that looks like an airplane hanger. You get the feeling they removed all the evidence, so we wouldn’t be confronted with a low point in America’s history.

‘But turning off the highway onto a dirt road, we passed a guard shack and then started driving past markers...delineating where all the buildings had stood, back in 1942 when Japa­nese Americans, some even citizens, were herded onto this godforsaken landscape.

‘We were stunned how large the camp was. But what shocked us wasn’t the cracked concrete, the remnants f the building that once stood, but the cemetery. Out here in the desert, people had given their lives for...?

‘Completing the loop, we stopped back at the airplane hanger, which turned out to be a school/gymnasium, built by the “prisoners.” After the war it had been a location for Lone Pine functions, but when our country finally faced its past, decades later, they turned it into a museum. Of what once was. There was no one there. Only two rangers and us. It was like stumbling on a museum in the future. After all the humans had perished. It was like we were visiting from another planet, another era, another century, which it was.
“The displays were akin to those in all war museums. Recounting his­tory, ill-formed decisions which led to human pain. But with no one else in attendance, the rangers had not started the movie. They could show it to us. The museum was open for another hour. It was either exhibits or film.

‘We chose film.

‘Funny how everything’s more se­rious when the lights are out. That’s the power of movies, they can take you away. To another time and place. When the Emperor of Japan allowed his subjects to emigrate, which many did. In the late nineteenth century, they came to America and started restau­rants, businesses, families They built their lives. Until the U.S. government took it all away.

‘Parents sold possessions for pen­nies on the dollar. One mother smashed all her dishes, rather than give them away. And with tears in their eyes, they were taken to the California des­ert, blistering hot in the summer and bone-chilling cold in the winter. With a wind. One of the prisoners testified the wind never stopped blowing.

‘They were told it was for their protection. But then why did the soldiers have bayonets at the end of their rifles? Why was there barbed wires? Why, when a protest about the indignities finally arose, did the guards shoot and kill?

‘Not only was there depression but dissension. Everybody didn’t get along. Unrest formented in the camp.

‘Ultimately you could leave if you had someone to sponsor you, if you could prove that you would not be a burden on your new community. Af­ter pledging fealty to a country that mistreated you and if you didn’t???? If you didn’t renounce the Japanese Emperor? You were shipped to another camp in Oregon. Many were ultimately deported back to the old country.

‘Kids pledged allegiance to the flag. But there were no flags in camp school. They played sports against local clubs but they were always the home team.

‘Finally with the war over, the prisoners were given a ticket wherever they desired and the princely sum of $25. If this is the American dream, I want no part of it.

‘We may live in the greatest country in the world, but that does not mean our history is not littered with indigni­ties, injustices. Hell, did you read the New York Times about the Pentagon disinformation campaign? Utilizing retired military men?

‘Who is running our country? And for what purpose? And if you just scare people enough, what will the do? Whose lives will they sacrifice in order to feel safe themselves?

‘When the lights came up in the theatre, we were ushered to the lobby, it was time for the museum to close. But before we left, I detoured to the bathroom. On the wall of the men’s room, I was confronted with a display. Of a latrine at the camp. With all the toilets in a row, no dividers in between. I can’t imagine being able do my busi­ness under those conditions.

‘And business is exactly what those entombed in Manzanar couldn’t do. How many lives were ruined for an unjust, ridiculous cause. No Japa­nese American was ever convicted of undermining the American cause, of aiding the enemy.

‘Unless you’re a skier, unless you’re going to Mammoth Mountain, chances are you’re never going to be on Route 395 passing Manzanar. It’s completely out of the way. Hundreds of miles from Los Angeles and Reno, on the other side of the Sierras from Yosemite. But if you find yourself on that highway, take that turn, open that can of worms. Learn about man’s inhumanity to man. Only by studying history, by never forgetting, do we have a chance of preventing a tragedy like this in the future.’”

So there you have it. Another “out­sider” person’s opinion about what relocation camp life was all about.

Sort of runs along the lines of the front page story in Saturday’s edition of the Rafu in which five Japanese Americans talked about their experi­ence about internment camps during World War II.

I was in Santa Anita. And later sent to Heart Mountain, Wyoming. Nobody ever asked me about my camp experience.

Over the years since our internment I have heard and read so many stories about that period of our lives. However I have never read or heard any opinion other than those who seem to concoct the same old lines like they’re reading from the same script.

Why is that?

If I told my story, I would guess it would end up in the “round file” be­cause only those who seem to tell the same old line of B.S. are quoted.

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Well, I see that the Kazuyoshi Miura case is on the front page again. (Saturday Rafu).

I’ve been asking around about the case with a number of people I figure have the connection but nobody seems to be able to answer the question.

The question is, how did Attorney Mark Geragos, get hooked up with Miura?

Geragos is usually involved in high publicity cases, but I don’t quite understand how he can represent a person he has never met and who is incarcerated thousands of miles away on the Island of Saipan.

Hopefully, the next time there is any information on the progress of the Miura case, there will be some infor­mation about the connection between Miura and Geragos.

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Well, after I return from this trip I have another one scheduled. It won’t be as far as Vegas, but Lancaster is about a two-hour drive from Gar­dena.

Since it will be a Saturday, the traffic shouldn’t be that much of a problem.

The dedication of the monument to honor the Japanese Americans who settled in Lancaster many years ago is scheduled for 10 a.m. so I assume I’ll have to leave about 7:30 to make it on time.

Since I’ll be back on Wednesday from this trip, I’ll have a couple of days to unwind before hitting the road again to Lancaster.

Hopefully it won’t be too hot. Usu­ally the weather in Antelope Valley is warmer than it is in the Ellay area.

I’m told that a number of VIPs form the Japanese community will be in at­tendance.

Hey, maybe we can share a ride. With the price of gas what it is, doubling up might be a good idea.

If anyone is planning to make the trip for the dedication and is looking for a ride, give a call and maybe we can double up.

Dayle DeBry, who is in charge of the event says she doesn’t think most people in the Antelope Valley realize the extent of the history that exists at the Lancaster Cemetery. The memorial to be dedicated holds the stories of 13 Japanese families who came to the Valley in the mid-1900s and early 1920s.

The names listed on the memorial include: Okimoto, Ekimoto, Ishikawa, Kobayashi, Matsubara, Nishimoto, Sakaguchi, Sugimoto, Uyeda, S. M. Uyeda, Wakamiya, Watanabe and Ya­manaka.

On the westside of Antelope Valley, Township 8N between 70th and 80th Street West, nothing remains of the thriving Japanese community that was so full of life in the early days. Section 21 was named the Japanese Section on the early maps of the 20s and 30s. The 13 families listed on the memorial lived in the Japanese section.

The children attended classes at Rog­ers School at the corner of 90th Street West and Avenue B. Most of the children born were Nisei.

The 13 families built a small com­munity hall together. Later, the building was used to teach Japanese to the Nisei children. They hired a teacher to travel from Los Angeles to teach all day Sun­day. All school-age children attended school every Sunday. Buddhist service was conducted by a priest from a large Buddhist Church who would come visit­ing about once or twice a year.

Today, only the Ekimoto family still resides in Lancaster.

So, the dateline on my next column will read Lancaster.

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George Yoshinaga writes from Gardena and can be reached via e-mail at horsesmouth2000@hotmail.com. Opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of The Rafu Shimpo.