24th anniversary

The Californ gold dust lured my great-grandfather's village mates to America in the 1800's. He himself came when it was too late. The gold was gone but lumber was good in Hoquiam, WA. He came and operated a restaurant and had shares in a laundry. He was a man of great strength and so he was nicknamed "Locke Li," meaning that his surname was "Locke" and "Li" meant strength. He came to the US circa 1860, almost exactly 100 years before I did.

The Mayor of Hoquiam went with my great-grandfather to his Toishan villages to conscript 500 men from his Locke clan to come to the US to work in the railroad construction for logging. If you were to hike into the woods in Humptulips near Hoquiam you can still find abandoned railroad tracks. And maybe you would luck out and find an empty opium bottle. Opium was a pain killer that gave very laid back dreams. It was the stuff that the British East India Company sold in China, enforced by the English Navy.

It depends on whom you talk to, but according to my mother, and my mother's prevaricating tongue, we were the original Chinese in WA State - the Locke Family. Regardless, we know that we came from Toishan (Toishan means "to carry the mountain") and the Toishanese were the first Chinese in WA State.

In time, the Lockes spread like brush fire in the State of Washington, branching into the small towns of Hoquiam, Aberdeen, Elma, Olympia, and Shelton, Seattle, Everett, and so on, and branched into California, Arizona, and so on eventually into Chicago, Detroit,and NYC. They worked hard, were thrifty, and banded together for mutual support, and so in time, they "grew" the first Chinese Governor in the US,the former Governor of WA State, Gary Locke, who is currently the U.S. Secretary of Commerce with the Obama Administration.

I am the first poet of the Locke Family, for whatever that is worth, to gain national attention in the US.

Today, however, is the exact 24th anniversary of my father's death. I don't know how to think of it yet, but I will think. He is buried in Lakeview Cemetery, where Bruce Lee is also buried. I was a young man of 37 when he died. Today I am 61, not an old man yet, but definitely not a young man anymore.

It is time to look beyond the tip of my nose and to see a farther vision. And not just for myself or my spouse and relatives and close friends, et al, but to see a longer and bigger vision. Let me ask you, what would you like to see in the world? If it is good, I would like to help.