My grandparents are settlers, which means they moved from different countries and eventually immigrated in Hawaii in the late 1800. My Dad was born in 1909, the youngest of 5 children and my Mom in 1951, only girl in her family. Their marriage was arranged to keep the bloodline. My Dad and my Mom’s father are first cousin. Mom’s parents are especially interesting as both of my greatgrandmothers Kyung Mo Eh (pronounced Lee and Julia Lamson) were religious reformers. One being a strong Protestant, and the other a Catholic. Much of my greatgrandparents influence was to raise either my Dad as a minister or my Mom as a nun.

Growing up in beautiful Hawaii island,  my Dad who retired two months after I was born was deeply involved in his social community club called Lion’s Club.  My Dad being the president of the club affected our lives tremendously in how we lived. My parents were always busy with their community projects- saving and rebuilding parks, building community bridges or roads, raising funds for polio vaccine and cataracts. There was always some sort of travel and party going on in their lives, and basically, their social activity took them away from us, me and my three siblings. 

Constantly leaving us behind with four hired domestic helps, a cook, a housekeeper, a nanny and a driver made our lives so abnormal. I don’t ever remember tasting my mother’s cooking or help me put on my school uniform or socks. I’ve only often seen my parents rushing through the doors on the way out or on the way in the house late or early mornings. My Mom was always my Dad’s wife first, before she was our motther, and this truly made our lives as little children more difficult.

 The club’s demand on our parents also made my parents relationship shaky and caused alot of domestic issues such control from my Dad towards my Mom and my Mom’s emotional unstability and dependency on my Dad. I think that my Mom grew tired of the active lifestyle and was seeking her independence from my Dad. This lead to alot of fights between my parents and were headed to divorce.  The situation made it worst when my parents sold our beautiful home and caused my Mom to run away, but only to realize later that she went to New York and joined a fundrasing team called MFT. My Dad had hired a lawyer at around this time for the sole custody of us his children, and also as a way to make my mother return home.

I was 7 years old when my Mom left my family- my Dad and her four children to joined the Unification Church. Aside from my parents social club, my family was a strong Southern Baptist Christian. Most of my relatives who were Baptist were against my mother when she joined the Unification Church. The greatest accusation of my christian relatives towards my Mom was that she left my Dad and her children to be with another man… like a pimp from the Unification Church. It was an ugly rumor that hurt her children alot, my Mom being called a prostitute for the Unification Church, selling her body on the street to make money for the church.

Three and half years later while my Mom was still on an active mission in the church when my Dad passed away. During that three and half years, we also live with our grandparents for a little more than  two years. My grandmother who was a strong Catholic taught us- particularly me, a life of prayer, service and attendance to God. Every morning my grandmother woke up before sunrise which is around 4:00 am and faces the sky and kneel as she opens her arms to heaven, bow, and prays.  My grandmother’s image praying never left my memory until today. She believes in the power of God that watches over his children. She believes that God sends his angels to protect every living soul on earth good and bad. She believes in a gentle God filled with kindness and mercy. She believes that all humans have a God like quality of kindness and mercy in their hearts, and that these quality serves a great purpose of healing the world from every hurt and pain.

My grandparents own a little farm, and every farm animal which we use to kill and eat must be taken care of with kindness and kill with gratitude.  My grandmother would always serve the best portion of a meat to a guest who comes to her house whether that guest is friend or a stranger, she always served the best meal, fruits or sweets. She would give her best bedding and her nicest room to whoever came and visit. My grandfather was a very stern man. He always made sure that we get our responsibilities done in his house. My sisters, brother and I all have separate choir which my grandfather directly watch or oversee that we did our choirs properly or correctly. At meal times, we always gather and ate together, breakfast and dinner, and there was always some sort of a table lecture from my grandfather before and after every meal. We had curfews, we were only allowed to wear skirt and dresses in the house.

After my Dad passed away, the US government knowing through my Dad’s lawyer that my Mom left my family had to ensure that we had a guardian. Upon my Dad’s will, my Mom inherits a pension and child support from my Dad for all of us until we were old enough and become independent. My Mom returned to our lives and she brought me and my sisters to live in New York at the New Yorker Hotel. This brings our life to a new chapter.

Growing up as a young teenager, I was 14 years old going on 15 that year when we first lived in OWP house in Astoria, then due to some mother figure struggle my Mother had with a Japanese sister named Mrs. Hessel, my mother reluctantly moved us to  New Yorker Hotel. My Mom’s worries for us teenage girls living in a big city was actually a sign of weakness from her and her little faith. New York - Manhattan was the biggest playground a young girl could ever have. New Yorker Hotel was like a magical building for me at that time. I can disappear in and out of the building elevators,  slide down between the escalators to the basement. Play basketball in the terrace room hide and seek from the fourth floor down to the lobby.  I would scream my heart out laying in the middle of the floor in the grandball room and no one would hear me. I would stand upside down on my head infront of the mirrors on the fourth floor hallway to see my hundred multiple image reflection through the mirrors. Ride the backdoor elevators and smell all the stinky trash on almost every floor. Climb the stairs from basement to 40th floor until I loose my breath and then go down on the other side of the staircase that swirl. Scare the secury guard, find missing little children, in and out of the revolving entrance door at the lobby. It was heaven! At night, I would stroll the city streets until 2 or 3 in the morning under the mustard color lights that brightened the street with a mysterious glow. Buy my favorite milkshake or caramel/fudge sundae and apple pie across the street at McDonalds. I thought life was beautiful!

At round that time, I also started studying martial arts called Won Wha Do, and slowly became more inolve in HARP and CARP activity. Then I was introduced to Camp Sunrise, the first one I ever attended was in Barrytown. There that I later learned I was someone they called Jacob, and where I felt unwanted by many parents and where their children also avoided me because I was not a BC, and I was a possible horrible influence to the other BC’s. Actually, it was at Camp Sunrise where I first saw young girls and boys smoking cigarrettes and drinking beer. At that time, I didn’t even know what cigarrettes and beer were like. I’ve never seen the stuff around me in reality. I’ve probably seen it in a billboard or something but to actually see it infront of me and with kids my age was different. I didn’t really enjoy my first expereince at CAMP Sunrise with the kids my age.  But what I learned from the adult, DP lectures and all was spiritually opening me about the life of being or becoming a Moonie. Besides this and my many expereinces listening to True Father’s speeches and lectures in Belvedere and WMC finally made me understand the life I am being prepared to lead.

I can’t list how many leaders and families or centers I’ve had, live in or with. Every place is different, every leader, families and brothers and sister I’ve worked with I’ve come to accept as my “life teachers”.  Some have their memories sketched here in my heart. Other’s I chose to let go and only remember the lesson learned from those expereinces. I learned that the greatest gift we can give to others is to be or become an inspiration. There is no better way to lead our own lives and influence others through inspiration. The work of inspiration comes both in good and bad expereinces. As they say, it takes rain and sunshine to create a beautiful rainbow. I am rather an optimistic person. I believe that there is a silver lining on every cloud, and every rain that drops carries with it a positive life energy.

Today my life have been blessed with a wonderful husband and four beautiful children directly from the love of our TP’s blessing. I am forever grateful to those people I met along the way, all the encounters that came across my path then that brought me to today. Indeed, God always watches over me.

My name is Connie Dee Sato, wife of Kazuyuki Sato, daughter of Esther & Vincent Cuizon, sister of Cathy Lynn, Laverne and Benjun Cuizon. 

My first known name by which all introductions were made was… “Hello, my name is Lewis Caboose.”

I first knew myself as the end of the line, the last child born of my parents, a very lovingly wanted child prodigy some fourteen years younger than my next older sibling. Yes, a “child prodigy” because I was to be a natural study at being a farmer.

I was country-sired, country-born, country-raised, and totally country-immersed child of my 38-year old mother and 51-year old father.

I knew my two older brothers and my sister as being of a different nest even though they were indeed my natural siblings. They had grown as young children in the big city of Washington, D.C., about 1300 miles due north of the farm in Alabama. They had been born before or during the Great Depression, and my Dad had worked construction work to provide for his new family.

At my birth, their ages were 14, 16, and 17 respectfully. Indeed, my sister at 17 held me on her lap at her high school graduation. I was just 18 months old. And my next older brother, Jimmy, tediously (for him) made peanut butter, butter and jelly sandwiches when I was only old enough to make a mess at the kitchen table.

An even more uncomfortable experience for Jimmy occurred once when he was asked by Mom to take me along on his date with the girl he eventually married. I was 5 when he was 19. Talk, talk, talk. Not at all helpful to his idea of a date. I am sure.

But even worse, for the sportsman that was Jimmy, was when he invited me to go hunting with him. I dared not talk on a hunt. I was mindful of others even at the age of six probably because of the pragmatism that naturally occurs for one who is often relating to older persons. But so serious was I in preventing the kill, I did the next best thing–broke every branch and rustled every bush so as to spook and chase away any deer or rabbit that could possibly be in the entire woods.

Jimmy married, joined the Navy and was hardly ever seen again. Oh, he had short visits home. But he married before even meeting my one request of him–that he send me a jackrabbit from his Naval tour of duty in Anchorage, Alaska.

By 1958, my sister and my eldest brother were also long-gone from the household as they too had married.

So, at ten, I was still the engineer in the final rail car. “Lewis caboose” indeed knew a great deal about maturity.

My real pleasure in life was my Mom’s good cooking. I ate so much that it was great pride for my Mother that I could order from the adult menu when going to a restaurant even as a small child.

Now, we were farmers and the only time my family ate in a restaurant was when we had out-of-town company who usually wanted to enjoy the specialties of local eateries. But the food at the farm left little to desire. With huge meals prepared to feed those who worked in the fields, I had more than enough at our table.

So, with all that food and my love of food and the reward that food represented, I was the largest kid for my age in more ways than one. In the first grade, we sat at tables. But by the second grade, the desks were way too small. And so I had to have a third or fourth grade desk to berth my body.

And how does size matter in the games children play? My first learned poetry was: “Though sticks and stones will break my bones, words will never hurt me.” I was teased and I could not run fast. So, I used my weight to create fear. Those who did not treat me nicely could always be caught by a fast-running friend and held fcr what I might do to them. Still, my nature was good. I was not with any mean bone in my body.

I would pretend that it did not matter that I was always selected last in every team ever chosen. I not only could not throw a baseball, but I could not catch one either. And fat boys do not run too fast… So, my image in sports was anything but good.

My Dad always wanted a baseball player in his three sons. Am I good enough? No. Not in my Father’s desire that I be the child who could play ball among the best as he had done prior to his injury received in World War I.

Then there was also the child prodigy–the one who would inherit his Dad’s farm that had indeed been inherited by his Dad from his Father, my paternal grandfather, whom I had never known.

From a walk in the fields, Dad knew from his fatherly conversations that my love did not extend to seeds, sprouts, weeding, irrigation, fertilizer, insecticides, and all that goes into raising and indeed harvesting a crop.

Perhaps as a truck driver, I would carry the harvest to those who ultimately buy it as either a raw or a refined commodity. But I did not have the heart of a farmer. And my Dad could see the writing on my heart.

He sold the farm, his invested love of thirty years, so that his last son and the son’s mom–his wife of thirty-three years–would not have the burden of a farm upon his death. When the farm sold, he was 59 and knowingly aware of severe heart problems.

For what were to be his last two years, we lived the vacation-style life of my father’s childhood dreams. Sportsfishing on Fish River. Yes, really, the river was “Fish River.” And its tides were known to move only just a little faster than the people who lived on its banks. (Actually, that translates into the people hardly moving at all.)

At 10 years of age, I had the keys to an 11-foot fiberglass boat with a 25-hp outboard engine, properly outfitted with steering wheel, remote gear-shift and battery for self-cranking. And early mornings found both my Dad and I out fishing on Fish River.

Am I good enough? As a fisherman? No. I was just along for the ride and the chance that I could offer a helpful hand to my Dad.

I did have my own rod and reel, and I learned how to cast my lure under low-lying branches so as to trick that (always imaginable) large, big-mouth bass into considering a free meal.

And I remember my first really big fish story. It was of my having caught two or three very large bass fish. Only when I could not stand my lie any longer, I did finally admit that the fish had been given to me by some fishermen who liked catching but not eating fish.

Am I good enough? Am I good enough to have caught fish even more grand than the best caught by my Dad? No.

My Dad died in the Winter of 1960-61. I had just turned 12. Mom was 50. To be continued.

I was an average kid in school, and had a desire to become either a missionary in Africa or an airline pilot when I was in primary school. In high school, things changed and started to enjoy acting in my theatre class. I then had this crazy idea about acting, that I would not act the character but become that type of person by remembering that type of person whom I had met. I figured that if I travel I would probably meet all kinds of people and would fill my mind of all kinds of people, which I could come back to, when I had to act as that type of person. I would then revolutionize the acting business.

I started my traveling in three stages. The first two were done during my summer months in High School. To be continued