Katsu Shintani:  

I first went out of Japan in Aug., 1962 through American Field Service, now AFS, when I was a senior at a private high school in Hiroshima. When I arrived at Honolulu for fueling, I met John Wayne at a drinking bar at the airport. In fact, I did not know who that tall guy was. Some of friends later told me he was John Wayne. Next I landed at Los Angles Airport and then moved to an orientation venue at UCSB. I remember I was so amazed a melon was served at a university cafeteria, as a melon was seen only at a hospital at that time in Japan. It's a sort of a standard to bring a melon to those hospitalized. After the orientation of about a week, I flew to Tampa, where I met my first host family, the Smiths. They drove me to their home in Melbourne Beach. At about the half of my stay in US, I moved to the second host family, the Holzers in Indialantic. Such wonderful host families. I've been keeping in touch with both of them. I revisited them whenever I had a chance to travel to Melbourne. When the school started, I went to Mel-Hi and registered some classes, such as English, American History, Chemistry, Physics, Speech, Math. I registered Physical Ed., but very soon I realized my body was not strong enough and dropped out. Since Mel-Hi had a unique class management called (I think) "Phase System" where class is not by age, but rather by proficiency. So, my classmates are not only those of Class 63, but rather Class 63, 64 and 65. I fully enjoyed club activities in the evening. I quitted smoking about 10 years, and my smoking habit started from one of the evening club activities. Somehow, I liked the taste of cigarole.(?) I do not recall going to a school library in Japan, but certainly I learned a lot at the Mel-Hi library....Expand for more