..I always made sure to sign up for roller skating!
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FROM the Publication ‘So you are coming to Japan’ by
US Fleet Activities, Yokosuka Japan
“Skateland” Roller Rink is in Building B-29, behind the Fleet Gym. The rink has a large floor, skating music, soda fountain and approximately 250 pair of clamp-on skates and 250 pairs of shoe skates available.
Also on base was Barracks C which housed the base library, all sorts of hobby shops, music listening room, 16 bowling alleys and many other assorted activities including the ‘Benny Decker Theater’.
Don’t forget Club Alliance, a Navy EM Club, located outside the main gate (about 3 blocks).
I ‘lived’ in Yokosuka (home ported) 1960-62 and was in and out between 1957-60 and looking at this map there are places I never ‘heard’ of.
Library, hobby shops etc etc.. and all other kinds of ‘normal’ things....didn’t sell booze, I really wasn’t interested...<: <: <:
It is really a shame, all the time in and Cities in the Far East and about all I ever saw of any of them was the waterfront and bars withing walking/crawling/short cab ride.
Hit Bangkok in 1959 & 1961, Hong Kong several times and never took a ‘tour’....oh well...
Dad was a purchasing officer for the Army at something called “the Japan Procurement Agency.” A lodge buddy observed the US footprint in Asia ran on triplicate and quadruplicate paper documents. He theorized there would be room and financial opportunity for a paper mill and he had a connection to the royal family in Laos. In early ‘61, we took crash courses in French, the second language in SE Asia, got visas and made plans to leave Japan for Laos.
A pack a day of Camels brought a halt to this new Asian adventure. Dad suffered a heart attack and instead of Laos, we came home.
Yeah. I know. You are not alone in this. I will say, on my last deployment, I decided when I went ashore a few times to just go off on my own, as far away from the port as I could go in a day, and just look around.
One of those times I was in Taranto, miles from the ship, and I come across a crowd, gathered around a passed out sailor in a gutter. Sheesh...here I am, trying to get away, and couldn’t. I couldn’t just leave him there, so I got one of the Italian civilians to give me a ride back to Fleet Landing on the back of his motorcycle, and I took the Shore Patrol back out there with a truck.
Those were nice people. Didn’t even take the money out of his wallet, which was in the gutter beside him. Now, if he was in Naples...
I saw "Fantastic Voyage" there, and that was around the time I kind of thought that maybe girls might not be the enemy...
(after seeing Raquel Welch in these scenes...)
I remember the theater seemed way to small and hot when they began tearing the antibodies off of her white wet suit...)