A Chink in Your Armor (satire)

I grew up in a small town called Aldergrove.

In that town in the late 1960s, everyone knew your business, except my family was Japanese. Within earshot, the racists who resented us would mutter, "Dirty Jap!"

Little did they know, few of the Japanese Canadian were disloyal to Canada, which shows you how little they knew us!

Once in high school, one of the more ignorant white kids might mistake me for Chinese, and call me "Chink". This amused me so much that I quickly retorted, "That is because I am a chink in your armor!"

Indeed, the Asian immigrants of Canada fit in the chinks in the multicultural chain mail coat of the white majority, though sometimes a racist incident may shake off the flakes of Canadian society.

Thankfully, my memories of high school are rather selective, for there are stories that lay buried in my subconscious to inspire a few of my articles on this blog.

Though I may tell these small-town stories in metaphorically symbolic terms using mytho-poetic language while shielding the guilty from embarrassment to protect the innocent from harm.

Oh, there shall be no naming of names, but in order for me to come to terms with the demons of my past, this marks the beginning of that journey through a small-town world that I thought I had forgotten.

Having a chink in your armor means that if the lance of Truth meets its mark, the ignorance about Japanese Canadians will fall away.

For I am but a Canadian born Japanese who may have some truth telling to give life to future stories on his blog.

The Pool of Fresh-Water Shrimps

Between 1972 and 1976, fresh-water shrimps in a mason jar was brought to my alma mater, Aldergrove Secondary School, now known in PC terms as Aldergrove Community High School.

Oddly though, no rival high school in School District #35 ever called us assholes.

I guess scatological terms of endearment were frowned upon as they are today, except in the politically correct times of the post-modern era, defenders of morality are apt to add "community" to prevent the stink of scatological terms.

Anyways, I digress.

At one time during the 1970s, fresh-water shrimps used to abound in an unknown pond, supposedly near the high school.

While it is unknown if over the next 30 years, pollution got so bad in Aldergrove that the shrimps died out, it is more probable that development might have polluted any fresh water springs in the immediate area, possibly due to contamination by fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides.

I am not even sure if frogs are known to still make their loud mating calls at night in the area.

Small Town Memories

I lived in Aldergrove between 1960 and 1980.

By the time we left, the CAF base was 10 years away from filling in the missile siloes, and the townhouse complex off of 273rd Street near Creekside Elementary was filling up with people escaping from their issues with urban life west of Langley.

We moved get away from kids hanging out in our carport.

My parents ended up in North Delta with me -- my sister'd tied the knot a few years earlier. When my mom caught her raiding the freezer, it was time to establish order...