First, I must apologize for not writing in this web page for some days now, but life has taken some unexpected turns. On Monday night, I learned that my grandfather, Robert Hookey, had passed away due to a heart attack. In the last five years or so, his health condition had deteriorated to the point where walking took a superhuman effort. Plus to make matters worse, he had already departed into the gray sea of Alzheimer’s remembering long-term memories, while forgetting shorter ones.
My grandfather lived an extraordinary life. He was a first generation American, born in New York to Newfoundland immigrants in the early 1920s. It was by chance that he ended up American (and later my father and indeed myself). My family, the Hookeys, were originally traveling towards New Zealand, but stopped in New York, had children, and eventually stayed in the States for the rest of their lives. As war in Europe and Asia brewed, and the U.S. seemed to be edging closer to the conflict, my grandfather enlisted into the United States Marine Corps at the age of 16--lying about his age--only a few days before Pearl Harbor. He stayed in the Marines for nearly 31 years, serving in the Second World War, Korea, and Vietnam, amazingly rising from the rank of private to lieutenant colonel. He retired from the Marines and worked for BART for a few years, before ultimately retiring from a working life in the late 1970s. He did on and off community service for the Ceres Police Department in his later years.
My grandfather lived a painful and violent life, one which I hope to never have to live. Many of those war wounds never truly healed. He still suffered from war wounds and botched surgeries, as well as emotional pain, often crying about events that had occurred sixty years before. I just discovered this online article from the Santa Cruz Sentinel newspaper from around two years ago which briefly discusses him, and also contains a short interview with my father, Dusty, who incidentally is named after one of my grandfather's war buddies who lost his life in World War. II.
There will be a service for him on Saturday at my house in Santa Cruz, which I will attend.
I will never forget him
On Monday afternoon, my roommate and I visited the California State Capitol building in Sacramento. I gave her a kind of guided tour of the building, as I've been there so many times. Since she is from Japan, I had to explain to her the federal and state systems the best way I could. 
If you have never been to the Capitol, and live in the Sacramento-Davis region, I highly recommend it. It's probably one of the most beautifully made buildings in the entire state. It's a place which I'd love to work in someday. As you can tell by the picture, I'm so small compared to the Capitol. 
I also recommend the California State History Museum too if you haven't been there either.
Today on campus, two giant gray walls representing the Israeli occupation of the West Bank were put up today on the Central Quad outside of the Memorial Union, liking it to aparthied in pre-1994 South Africa. Below them, Leftist activists which included the daughter of a Holocaust survivor as well as Palestinian-Americans set up tables and distributed leaflets and information about the security wall being put up around high concentrations of Palestinians. 
They told me as well as two other Muslim girls that they weren't necessarily interested in preaching to the choir, but rather talking about what was happening in this part of the world.
I've been aware of the wall for some time now, so none of the news really struck me as anything new. But what really caught my attention were the arguments that sprouted around the erection of these two walls. I now regret that I didn't record these with my camera, not because of the politics, you see, but because all sides involved were so impassioned about what they believed. Jewish students argued with Muslim students. Jews argued against Jews. Muslims argued against Christians and Jews...you get the picture.
Arguments went over everything: Is the PLO trustworthy? How much American money has helped Israel? How many wars have Israel started--no, no, you're wrong, Israel was invaded, and never started any wars. Arab governments are oppressive. The Jewish state is oppressive. Is suicide bombing justified--no, no, it's murder, and how dare you say that...
I hardly said a word in these arguments, and just preferred to watch people argue and scream at each other. I started chatting to others like myself who were doing much the same thing, standing around and watching people explode with anger at each other about a distant, small country on the other side of the world whose importance can be measured through body bags, destroyed homes and burning buses.
Even if life can never be simple, I will always think of what Rodney King said when he responded to the Los Angeles Riots in 1992: "Can't we all just get along?"
