Friends and VJCC members since 1963. Guess who?

Perhaps because it is such an integral part of our lives, no one is quite sure what year the first Festival took place. A half dozen telephone calls and a few shouts of “Hey, do you recall…” by Jim Akioka to anyone passing the VJCC office yields a vague period of time in the early 1960s. Perusing old financial records of one organization shows income from a June carnival as early as 1961. The only year the Festival did not happen was in 1971 during the Center’s largest remodeling project – construction of the gymnasium. Jim, along with Alan Matsuzaki and Jim Nakagiri pouring over old photo albums and anniversary booklets, managed to provide me with a framework to view how the Festival has evolved through some of the physical changes at the Center.

The Community Carnival, as it was known in the 1960s before the word “carnival” became uninsurable, was the kick-off to summer for all the kids in the area. Weeks before the carnival we attended ondo practice and tried on last year’s kimonos for adjustments. The Center parking lot was entirely dirt and gravel with the exception of a rectangle of cement in the southeast corner – the basketball court! If there was any chance the dancers could stay clean, it was by circling that basketball court. If the gravel and dirt parking lot was a headache on laundry day, imagine how a year of mud puddles could complicate the annual booth set-up.

Until 1971, when the gym was completed and the parking lot was upgraded to asphalt, wooden booths – 2x4s and plywood – were built and fitted to the changing contours of an always rutted, sometimes muddy parking lot. Beside that challenge, there was another major obstacle for booth builders to overcome – thievery, between each other. Evidently, booth building was viewed by some as a type of competition. According to Jim Akioka, if completing your booth required “borrowing” parts, anybody’s pile of wood was fair game! A headache for some, a challenge to others, booth building eventually went high tech.

In the early 1980s, the old wooden booths were abandoned for the metal booths used now. With much foresight and skill, volunteers cut and welded the metal framework that would fit together the same way every year. While the fun of stealing each other’s wooden planks was missed, the speed in which the new booths went together and the way they stood firmly on the ground made constructing the Festival much easier on everybody.

On June 13, one week before the 2004 Annual VJCC Festival, volunteers will unearth the metal frames stored in the gym basement and assemble them into 20+ food, game and courtesy booths arranged around the parking lot. The bulk of the work will be done in hours thanks to the hard work of seasoned set-up veterans of over 40 years all the way to first-timers whose help is equally welcomed and appreciated.

From Friday until opening time on Saturday, members from all the VJCC affiliate clubs and organizations will work tirelessly putting together exhibits, setting up tables and chairs, preparing food, and assembling cooking and game equipment. Before a nickel is pitched, before a goldfish is bagged, VJCC members will have already made a gift of hundreds of hours to you and to me.

For 20 hours over the next two days, friends will have the opportunity to gather. Stories will be shared while we work, play and eat together and catch up with each other’s lives. Viewing exhibits and watching demonstrations, we will share our interests with one another. Most importantly, the Festival will bring our pioneers, our peers and our children – past, present and future – together to create more of the memories that root us in this community.