Friday, March 18, 11:22 a.m. – Reunions

One of the outcomes of this tragedy is that it has connected me again with friends whom I have not spoken with in many years. I believe that a friend is someone who you can go years without talking to but when the occasion arises, within 5 minutes of your conversation it feels like old times.

Because I cut my teeth in media at a daily newspaper, many of my friends are journalists. Most are writers and editors. Fortunately, they have forgiven me for switching over to the Dark Side, the business side of our industry. Journalists have a very direct way of talking with one another.

When I got a call from my friend Rob at a wire service on the Mainland, just days after the quake, he didn’t mince words.

“This is really bad. Really bad,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone.  We could have been discussing a large pothole and he still would have used the same tone. Rob shared with me that the pictures he was seeing in the wire service’s editorial meetings were beyond anything he had ever seen. “We have covered wars from Kuwait, to Iraq, to Afghanistan. We have covered Katrina and other disasters. We have never seen anything like this.”

Coming from Rob, I knew he was serious. Rob is one of those “Looking for Bang Bang” kind of reporters. He wants to go where the action is. I remember him as a young military reporter going to Kuwait in the first Gulf War even though his wife was 8-months pregnant with their first child.

He asked about Yasue and how she was doing. He wanted to know if he could help. I told him we needed food. He said it would be like finding a needle in a haystack but that if they had any correspondents nearby, maybe he could connect the two. We asked the usual questions you ask someone whom you haven’t seen in a long time. How are? Any more kids? What are you up to? Then, we both went back to work. He has continued to keep me updated on what it is like in Japan. What it is really like.