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Sleeping on Potatoes

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`Sleeping on Potatoes is the metaphor for the bumpy and lumpy ride I had in my formative years,' Dr. Carl Nomura explains in the preface to his debut publication Sleeping on Potatoes: A Lumpy Adventure from Manzanar to the Corporate Tower (Erasmus Books, Washington, 2003). Nomura then extends this metaphor into a vivified mosaic of his life's experiences by bringing them to view through the eyes of a child and all the way up to a person with aspirations.

Starting informally with his mother Mizuko's story, a Japanese woman who married Nomura's father because `she heard that in America everyone was tall', Dr. Nomura creates a series of true, non-fictional, real life stories that border on the line between short story and personal essay. Reliving in linguistic light the hardship of poverty, a heartless father, the humiliation of being forced to move into relocation centers during the Second World War, and the travails of disease and bereavement, Nomura throws his readers into a joyous shock with the amazing optimism of his attitude and his lively humor that arises spontaneously from the interaction of situation and language. One instance is from his school days: `we thought her name (Sister Perpetual) fitted her because she beat us perpetually'. Certainly not to overlook the fun of fishing and poker, and giving smoking up for good when an angry woman comes inches from your face and calls you a `polluting pig.'

Though a doctor of philosophy in Solid State Physics, and an important figure in the corporate world of technology, it is Nomura's flair of seeing things as matter of course that lures one to appreciate his magnanimity. Not going a braggart, he opens a window to the philosophy of life-contentment, be it a doctorate in physics and excellence in management of small businesses, or using a bathroom 200 feet away from his bed in a trailer. Life is joy if you have your guts tuned to its frequency of vicissitudes.

Marking Sleeping on Potatoes as a book to amuse would be a reader's pitfall. It is a book enormous in its scope, though not in its volume (250 pages). By no means is this the adventurous story of a single person, reflecting on his past. It is the story of many characters that endured and fought against social injustice and untoward circumstances-from women like Mizuko and Louise, to the sufferers in relocation centers, and the motherless litter of cats who were lucky enough to make it to Nomura's house. His heart touching memories of Mox, the neighbor's dog, harbor all the richness and beauty of life. Nomura traces the causes of discontent in marital life, discusses issues associated with terminal illness, and informs on linguistic and the cultural relativism of English and Japanese native speakers.

Now in his eighties, retired and coping with prostate cancer, Nomura's lumpy ride has not come to a pause. It is bumping all along with new interest in learning and doing things and new ways of adding to the richness of his life. With his new wife, children and grandchildren, pets, garden, books, and the untamed freshness of mind, Dr. Carl Nomura lives as if he is immortal.

I will always be thankful I met Carl Nomura in the sixties. He was professional inspiration to me and encouraged me to leave industry and get my doctorate. Now I know what he went through as a young man after reading his wonderful book. So you may think my review is biased. It is not.

The book is simply fantastic! I could not put it down. I have passed it all around my family and recommended it to many friends. How could one man go through all that and wind-up a super engineer, manager, farmer, and now author?? He is blessed and we are blessed to share his memories.

Carl Nomura has a delightfully wry sense of humor, which bubbles to the surface at surprising moments, to bring a chuckle or a giggle to the dust & dirt of the American experience of being the wrong kind of people.

SLEEPING ON POTATOES: A Lumpy Adventure from Manzanar to the Corporate Tower, is a memoir which needed to be told. It is written with brief, luminous strokes, alarming & wry, telling of one man's path through the unique American white water of prejudice, as well as the best revenge -- of living the good life & thriving!

Rebeccasreads highly recommends SLEEPING ON POTATOES as much more than a memoir, it is the sum of one feisty & interesting Spirit's sojourn on earth & how he'd like to be remembered.

The Smell of Freedom

Carl Nomura is an honest recorder of life. His memoir, Sleeping on Potatoes, is a frank and often revealing celebration of experiences, and hopes for more of them. He examines his childhood, education, marriage, his children's childhoods, his jobs and his seniority.

His title refers to a life-molding time when, soon after Pearl Harbor, at 18, he and his Japanese-American family were incarcerated at Manzanar, an internment camp in a dusty high-Sierra desert of California. He detested the insult of the camp and escaped by volunteering to help worker-short Idaho farmers. It was exhausting stoop labor, thinning, weeding and topping sugar beets in the fertile crescent of the Snake river.

When the job ended eight months later, instead of returning to Manzanar captivity, he volunteered for potato warehousing work in a huge root cellar. He sorted and bagged potatoes, and at night slept on the filled bags. He recalls wriggling the spuds into a form-fitting mattress, and the awful smell of rotting potatoes. But, he writes, "After only one day, we got used to the odor and never smelled it again."

Well, I drove my family through southwestern Idaho, years ago. Crossing the Snake river from Oregon, we came on a "Welcome to Idaho" billboard and were at once engulfed by the stench of rotten potatoes. My kids screamed, "Phew, Idaho!"

At Nomura's words I smelled it again myself and wondered how he could acclimate to, or ignore, that awful scent while I can still smell it. Of course, as he hints a page or two later, what he smelled was different from what I smelled.

What he smelled was better than Manzanar.

This honest book holds many revelations of significance in Nomura's life, and in our own lives as well.

Sleeping on Potatoes:

A Lumpy Adventure from Manzanar to the Corporate Tower

By Carl Nomura

2003 Erasmus Books

ISBN: 0970194730

Reviewed by George Katagiri

Portland, OR

Carl Nomura's writing style brings to life his unique perceptions of growing up and encountering his world. His descriptions are so vivid and captivating that it is often difficult to put the book down.

Nomura tells about being born in a boxcar somewhere between Deer Lodge and Three Forks, Montana. At retirement, he is the Corporate Senior Vice-President of the Honeywell Corporation. In between these two events are numerous adventures of (1) growing up in poverty, (2) climbing the corporate ladder, (3) rearing children, (4) getting along in marriage, and (5) the joy of loving and being loved. It is the journey along the way that is captured in the book.

Noteworthy are his memories of growing up. The descriptions of living with a domineering and abusive father makes one wonder how he survived his childhood. His drive to succeed stems from his ninth grade algebra teacher, who suggested that his mental capability was marginal and that he should not enroll in geometry but pursue courses in the manual arts. This spurred him on to teach himself mathematics, which became one of his favorite subjects.

Later in life, he encountered problems in his marriage. After consulting with marriage counselors and trying to gain insight through group therapy, he finally gave up on external help. His children got together and conducted sessions which resulted in the most constructive advice in solving his problems.

Carl Nomura is an exceptional person. Rather than following the footsteps of others, he blazes his own path. When he retired, his counselor advised him to wait a year before making any major decisions. Most people would heed this advice, but not Nomura. Shortly after, he held a huge garage sale in Minneapolis, sold his house and moved to the West Coast. The descriptions of how he makes decisions are consistently humorous and reflects the maverick character of a man who achieved much satisfaction and success in life.

Besides being amusing, this is an inspirational book.

Nomura's sparse style of writing is not unlike the character of a differential equation expressing the essential. He cuts to his distilled memory and leaves the residue of honed understanding through the filter of life experience. His life is an engaging tale; to me it seems a Horatio Alger story of the Japanese American community. He was born in a boxcar in Montana, was dislocated to Japanese internment camps and made the journey to Corporate Senior Vice President for Honeywell Corporation. Now he contributes to his community in Port Townsend, Washington in very beneficial ways, besides enjoying his own interests, family and travel.

His story brings greater understanding and deep appreciation of the diversity of our American culture by his unflinching exposure of his own family history. Nomura recounts with accuracy the emotional pain, isolation and dislocation from traditional Japanese culture in the struggle for the promise of a better life in America. He voices his life experience with insight and humor, which is the great expression of the commonality of the human experience seen through the filter of a kind mathematician.

He tells his story, even including poetry, which supports understanding and intimacy through his selected descriptions of challenging moments about his cultural heritage, marriage, family and career. In the end the real meaning and importance of life is about relationship.

But most of all I think this book, Sleeping on Potatoes is worthy of recognition for his dedicated and talented effort to build links of understanding between cultures, family, relationships and the poetic spirit of a curious mind.

This book is a winner. Sleeping on Potatoes is more than a winsome collection of captivating stories. This anecdotal history of Carl Nomura depicts a personal odyssey. Nomura's unusual journey, from a railroad boxcar through internment camp, to physics labs and corporate boardrooms, seems to have honed his gifts as observer and storyteller. The ability of the human spirit to take on life's challenges is revealed with candor, wit and mystery. Nomura believes that life is a journey filled with adventure and opportunities for making courageous decisions that can make a difference in one's life. A great read - it was difficult to put down.

"Sleeping on Potatoes" is an endearing, highly poignant true tale of a Japanese boy growing up in the Depression/World War II years in America. This was assuredly the worst time in U.S. history to be of Japanese descent, and the Nomura family was subjected to the harshest of those new realities.

Furthermore, if being forced to live in the remote, godforsaken relocation center, Manzanar, was not enough punishment for a family, Nomura's playboy father proved to be an inept parent and guide. As a child, he was spoiled beyond good reason by his over-indulgent family, thereby growing up with only the skills of a dancer, singer, gambler and heavy drinker. Additionally, he was a cruel task master who was brutish not only to his children, but also to his wife who bore the biggest brunt of his frequent and harshest physical abuse.

Unquestionably the family survived due to the daily heroic efforts of Nomura's mother, Mizuko. After the death of both her own loving mother and grandmother, she had little recourse other than to marry, at age 15, to almost any man who would have her just to escape the bleak existence of living with a grim, cold-hearted step-mother. Unfortunately, once Mizuko was married, she realized that not only was her new husband malevolent, but also that his promises were empty, leaving her with the stark and terrifying reality of raising a houseful of children by herself.

Your heart will break over and over as you read this book. No one should have this kind of childhood. But, such a dreadful upbringing did not produce an unhappy, troublesome boy. Instead, Dr. Nomura turned out to be the kind of person who inspires us all; the kind of person who we hope to become, but never quite achieve.

Through numerous self-effacing vignettes, you will learn how the author's life evolved through its emotional peaks and valleys to eventually emerge from misery to contentment. This is one of those motivational stories that allows us to see the rare enduring, stick-with-it fight inside another human being. The never-give-up attitude, obviously instilled by his mother, got Nomura to where he is today - a fulfilled father, grandfather and accomplished business executive who is sitting back and enjoying the abundant fruits of his labor.

This is a story in which Dr. Nomura teaches us to joyously find the silver thread in every dark cloud. It is difficult to put down.

"Sleeping on Potatoes" by Carl Nomura is a book that should be read by anyone who feels that life has dealt them some tough breaks, or anyone who likes to read inspirational writings.

Carl Nomura is a man who endured some of the worst breaks that life can dole out, yet approaches every hardship as an opportunity to better himself.

He is humorous, intelligent, experienced, incredibly interesting and someone most of us would relish meeting some day. His understanding of various personality types and how to deal with them, have served him well throughout his lifetime. His honest approach to situations and his enthusiastic reactions to problems that would otherwise cripple most people, as well as his ability to put these situations into an easily readable and often funny format, makes this book one which is difficult to put down.

I found myself in tears over the circumstances that Carl and

his family had to endure. Yet, at the same time his explanations made me smile and laugh out loud.

One of the best books I've read in years.

Sleeping on Potatoes What a joy this book is to read! We as a people complain a lot about things of no consequence, but so many people have endured really difficult situations quietly. This is one of those quiet stories that will lift your spirits. Not only did Mr. Nomura survive the internment camps of WWII, but made the American dream come true as well. The plus is that one does not expect to laugh out loud! His story should be mandatory reading!