American Day

American Day is a big festival the Americans here in Misawa throw for the Japanese. All the groups and clubs on base can buy tables and sell their food, raising money for whatever they need. There's a parade and lots of fried and sugary foods. Japanese don't use sugar nearly as much as we do, so they love anything sweet.

Jeff was working two booths this year - our command's FRG (Family Readiness Group) and his Second Class Petty Officers Association. I'm never able to go to FRG meetings because I work, but said I'd be willing to help as needed.

Jeff got there at around 6am. I, the non-morning person, arrived around 9am. All the tables were set up right outside the main gate. I tracked him down at the Second Class booth, so I hung around and chit chatted. I said I'd be more than happy to help them (the FRG had more hands available anyways) so I dug right in. Jeff left to work at the FRG booth while I assembled dozens of philly cheese steak sandwiches.

We got into a decent routine. The guys took care of grilling and taking orders.

And I assembled. Jeff tried to help me out when he came back from the other booth, but by that time I was in a groove and he was just getting in my way. I pushed him over to taking orders. That's him on the right.

It was surprisingly a lot of fun. I saw a lot of friends stop by and our booth was nonstop. The boys did good - the booth caught everyone's eye and had people coming for a closer look. They made a huge profit, and sold out of Philly cheese steak.

This year each booth had a state and had to base its theme on the state's movies. I wish I'd taken pictures because some were pretty good. But when I took a break, I was just hungry! I loved Illinois - it had Wayne's World! The FRG had Maine, so they served fish and chips. The Enlisted Spouses Club had some delicious funnel cake, their movie was Dirty Dancing -- is that Virginia?? This booth was obviously Philadelphia - hence the Rocky theme. They even had music playing.  I told Jeff their planning and prep definitely helped. A lot of the booths just had a poster or two and really didn't stand out in the crowd. This one did.

Maybe next year I'll get some pictures of the other booths!