I believe the guy I mentioned reminded me as Huggie Bear was actually Yumi. It is hard to believe all the stories written after I first wrote up above about the way Bar Row changed after 2002. When we were there, there was none of the nonsense going on like people getting in fights or worse. We rode our bicycles wherever we had to go & never worried about someone ripping it off or our safety.

I spent half of my service career overseas and never had a problem. My tours were spent in Europe and as long as on realized they were a guest in a foreign country, you were treated as a guest. Italy, Greece, Germany, England, Austria, France, etc were all great places to go….unless, one acted like an
‘ugly” American.

In 84, they locked down the gate at night between bar row and the dorms that housed the single folk. My memory tells me it was to curb folks doing their drinking off base. I sat myself down at a meeting with the brass and tried to argue against it. I was a young Sr Airman and I’m sure I didn’t make a great showing of it. The result was the base turned an easy walk to a cab ride or a car drive. To me that was a top-down dictate guaranteed to up the DUI count. I expect you might see a numbers jump around that time.

The 49 Club, The Chicken Shack, Yumis. What was the name of the upstairs bar where a young Japanese girl would play keyboard and sing songs like “Sunny” and you could play chess at the bar?

From Yogi’s we hopped on our bicycles and back road past the train station to the main road, took a left on the main drag back towards Yokota AB. Just before reaching the street know as AP Alley, we stopped at a place run by a woman named Toshuku and her two daughters. One of the girls could stick a 50 yen coin in her nose & her sister couldn’t which for some stupid reason made her feel jealous. Toshiku and her daughters were all gorgeous. We stopped there for an hour or so for a beer or two and then went to AP Alley. There was a huge bar/club not far from the main road that ran in/out of the Yokota AB main gate. If you were coming from Yokota, you would simply make a left and the large place was just on the right. Joe knew the owner and we started talking. For some reason, this Japanese man reminded me of the character named Huggie Bear on the Starsky & Hutch TV show. He seemed to know everything that was going on around Fussa. It must of been 3 A.M. by then. I do not recall the name of the owner & by then I was barely conscious as a result of the shochu and the beers I had at Toshi’s place and this place, which also had a dance floor. I remembered a story my friend Joe had told me many years ago when we were in England together during our active duty Air Force days at RAF Chicksands.

Joe was first assigned to Misawa AB in the early 60′s and eventually Yokota AB where he was stationed on & off for about 20 years. He retired from the Air Force at Yokota and ran the slot machine maintenance shop. Anyway the story was about a guy who was looking for some prostitute who had a unique talent named Jeannie Rose. It seems this guy’s father first met Jeannie Rose during an R&R from Korea back in the 1950′s and during Vietnam, the old man told his son about Jeannie’s talent. Jeannie, so Joe told me was famous for humming the Star Spangled Banner while providing a guy oral pleasure. So this guy asked Joe if he knew about Jeannie Rose. Joe knew exactly where- someplace near Tachi, I believe, and ended up taking the guy to see her. Joe was waiting in the Jeannie’s living room while drinking something he almost choked on when he starts hearing Jeannie hum the Start Spangled Banner…

So anyhow, I ask the club owner if he knew of Jeannie Rose & he says that Jeannie owns the bar right next to his. Holy moly- what are the odds of that? So we quickly finished our drinks and walked next door. Jeannie is now an old, heavy-set momma-san. There is a small bar with 4-5 stools. In the bar is a Japanese couple and Jeannie was standing behind the bar. I really didn’t want another drink of anything as I was still rather lit from the shochu earlier. I just wanted to take pictures of us & with Jeannie Rose. We ordered a round of drinks- for four of us ( Jeannie, the girl, Joe & myself) was about $100…yikes! It looked to me that Jeannie and the young woman were drinking club soda- ka-ching! The young lady it turns out was what my friend Joe told be was a companion woman. She is not necessarily a prostitute as much as she is to simply provide single gentlemen companionship or conversation if they are alone at the bar- it was good for business. I figured something was up after the Japanese gentlemen got up & left, leaving the young lady by herself- it seemed odd as I thought they we a couple. I realized even more was odd when this gorgeous woman places her hand on my inner thigh…hello! It was then when I got up and we started taking pictures of Jeannie, Joe, and myself. I happened to have a business card on me & Jeannie gave me her autograph which was simply signed by her putting on fresh lipstick and kissing the back of the card. That was back in April 2002. I imagine Jeannie has gone up to hummer heaven…. Every time I hear the Star Spangled Bangle, I wonder about Jeanie and how she ever got the idea to do that.