" LITTLE DRESSMAKER "

    She was the daughter to one of Japan's most respected families, descendant to the Aoyama bloodline that ran 54 generations and cut deep into Japanese history. The Aoyama family originated in the Kyoto area where legend has it the family provided protection to a prince from an imperial dictator and established royality status in history. Kay always enjoyed a lavish lifestyle that comes with the upperclass. Young, beautiful, college educated, she had the world at her feet but unfortunately the world didn't include her family. She met an American serviceman and a love affair would force her to make a painful decision and one that would shape my future forever. There was high tension in Japan after the war and a relationship with an American was definately not acceptable as far as the Aoyama family was concerned. Kay's choice was a one simple, end their relationship immediately or give up lifetime of security, family fortune, and be banished from her family forever. My mom gave birth to me in a U.S. Army hospital in December 1955 and moved to the United States a year later. It would be 22 years later before she return to Japan and reunite with her family. This is the proud woman that would raise us, shape us and who would constantly remind my brother and I where we came from. I remember when school was out for the summer and all the kids were out playing, we could hear them from the window, we had to study out of those Highlight workshop books for a couple of hours each morning before we went out to play. It felt like prison. We were always pushed to be best whether it was school, sports, running for class president, playing in the orchestra or just the way we dressed. Mom made all the clothes that our family wore and we always looked good. It was only when I got to high school that I had to tell mom I wanted to wear jeans and look like the other kids. You know, growing pains. When my dad suffered an almost fatal heart attack there was alot of uncertainty as to our future and our financial well being. Amazing how life takes you on a rollercoaster ride and you don't know if your going up or down. My mom started making custom dresses for one weathly lady out of our house. Someone important saw one of my mom's dresses and wanted to meet its creator. That person was the personal assistant to none other than Hollywood movie superstar and Golden Globe Award winner Kim Novak. Ms. Novak was one of the hottest film actresses in the 1950's and 60's, Columbia Pictures version of their Marilyn Monroe, so popular she graced the cover of Time Magazine in 1957. She starred in many Hollywood movies including "Strangers When We Meet" with Kirk Douglas and Walter Matthau, "The Man With The Golden Arm" with Frank Sinatra and by far her most famous role,the 1958 classic thriller written and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, "Vertigo" which co-starred James Stewart. Oh my God! I'm a 12 year old boy, almost a teenager and my mom is friends with one of the most famous Marilyn Monroe look-alike movie stars on the planet. Maybe it's why this period in time is so clear to me. My memories of Kim Novak include driving to her beachfront mansion south of Carmel with my mom to deliver a dress and seeing this unbelievable two story house with wall to wall windows on the beach side showcasing the Pacific Ocean in all its glory. We took care of her pets when she went on movie shoots including her talking magpie bird which was pretty chatty unless you threw a blanket over its cage. What I won't forget was the time this famous star came to our ordinary home in Pacific Grove for a Thanksgiving dinner my mom cooked. My moms talent, class and charm shined like a diamond in the rough in this new business. Thinking that she had something with a future and my dads approval they made a montumental decision. They would open a dressmaking shop and start their own business. They settled on a little shop above a busy candy store in Carmel. My dad would handle the business aspect, order overseas the expensive fabrics that her clients demanded, and help my mom cope in this new universe. This was the Carmel of the 60's where stars like Clint Eastwood could be seen driving his beat-up pickup truck just hanging, who many years later would became the Mayor of the town. During the summer when school was out my brother and I had to come to work with mom because she wouldn't leave us home alone. Those were happy times for Jay and I because Carmel became our playground and it was every kids paradise. "The little dressmaker" with a heartbreak past was about to enter the world of the rich and famous and yet forced to make another choice in her life that would guide our family like someone following a bright light in the dark. When word got out that Kim Novak was one of her clients the flood gates were pushed wide open and the list of impressive clients seeking her talents grew rapidly. Ms. Kruckshank, not even sure of the spelling, but do know she was one of the richest women in the area, was a regular dress delivery destination. Maybe her most famous client next to Kim Novak was Pebble Beach's Ms. Morse of Samuel Morse fame. At one time this family owned the Del Monte Company with owned the Pebble Beach property. When my mom told her that she was going to quit the business Ms. Morse who's money was unlimited, offered any financial assistance if she would just stay. In the last months of the dress business another superstar, Doris Day, who lived in the Carmel Valley would seek her services but the choice between her own fame and fortune and sacrificing everything for the one you love was a choice she had faced so many years ago and would face again. What you don't know was she had another dream, one that kept her away from Japan for so many years but one that would allow her to return with honor. The following year we would move to San Jose.

AROUND THE WORLD

We moved to San Jose in 1970 because my dad was in the process of getting his college degree from San Jose State after 20 years of service in the U.S. Army. My father was born Gerhard Alexander Fenzke in Germany in 1927 but spent his childhood growing up in Chicago. My dad was a very good man who was very strict but fair and he instilled in us that we should judge all people equally regardless of their race or beliefs. He was a staunch Democrat and was very interested in politics. He joined the military out of high school, reached the rank of Master Sergeant and stayed in the Army until a massive heart attack almost took his life and forced him to retire and start a new chapter in his life. Being in the military we were always moving somewhere every couple of years. My dad was stationed in Tokyo, Japan when he met my mom, Kyoko Aoyama a beautiful young woman from one of Tokyo's most respected families. While my mom doesn't talk about the details of their relationship I do know because he was an American this love affair was forbidden and my mom had disgraced their family name and soon would be exiled from her family and country. I was born in a U.S. Army hospital in Tokyo in 1955 and we moved back to the States the following year. It would be more than twenty years before my Mom would come back to Japan. My brother Jay who plays an important part in my life and this story, was born in Manhattan, Kansas in 1957 and then we were off overseas to Germany where my Dad was on his new tour of duty. After living in Munich for several years and having memories of bad weather, visiting castles and all those square apartment buildings on base where we lived we finally came back to the States where we settled down in Monterey, California . My parents bought a small house in Pacific Grove and this is where most of my childhood memories are stored. After my Dad's heart attack he left the Army and embarked on a life long dream that would take our family to San Jose and eventually Santa Barbara.

JUST LIKE "THE O.C."

Sitting on the couch watching the second season of "The O.C." with my daughter Kara (we just finished season one last week), a show I never really cared about but for some reason became hooked as I watched this story of a kid with a past entering into a new world. I thought about my own teen years and realized why I liked this show. My life back then was like the O.C. with all the drama one could handle . When I turned to Kara and said that I was Ryan she smiled and said " sure dad". She didn't realize I was serious. I guess I should have said I was Luke also. When we moved from San Jose to Santa Barbara in the middle of my junior year in high school, life was over as far as I was concerned and I would become that outsider Ryan from Chino entering an unknown world far from the comfort of my past. Little did I know at the time how dramatic this change would become in my life. But before I take you on that long journey of heartbreak, success, true love found and lost, and enormous failures and redemption I have to describe life before Santa Barbara.