Touching Ground Zero

Touching Ground Zero brings together stories of a journey that began over fifty-years ago, culminating in a series of projects and creative constructions published in a variety of formats From the age of twelve in 1961 I moved with my family to Japan and then Hiroshima and those experiences indelibly touched and marked everything that was to follow. I write elsewhere of being an impressionable twelve year old, a victim of the racism and ethnocentrism of the Cold War, fall-out from world of holocaust, the century of death and world war. For the next thirty years my family lived in Hiroshima and continue today to be touched by those formative experiences. My parents worked with local churches and were deeply involved in developing and sustaining Grace Rehabilitation Center for disabled, productive adults. My own family moved to Hiroshima in 1980 where Kitty and I were teachers for eight years at Hiroshima International School. Our children Isaac and Serene, attended Japanese schools and the International School. Both are teachers and years previously worked for Concordia Language Villages. Isaac taught for several years at Kyoto International School; Serene returned to Hiroshima last summer to film the sacred and a-bomb scared "Peace Trees" of Hiroshima, whose photographs and drawings grace this text.