I'm am not exactly tall. My five feet eight inches place me not very much above the average Japanese. But for all the height I lacked, we had a fellow at Naha (and later Kadena) who made up for all of that and more. Quite a bit more. When asked, as none who met him would fail to do, "Just exactly how tall are you?" He would respond, "Four feet, thirty-one inches". Not so much by NBA standards, but still plenty tall indeed. (Not officially a mineman since he was an SK3 [storekeeper], I still count him and Sissom [a yeoman] equally with the MNs since both were part of the mine shop crew. Both sided with the MNs against the AOs in the Kadena bottle rocket war and other adventures. So they both count in my opinion.)
And most all of that height was in his legs. Just about on first sight, he got nicknamed him "Spiderman" (probably by Al Bauer who bestowed nicknames on everyone -- some of which stuck to their lasting chagrin). Spiderman hailed from Texas and was probably happy that at least no one called him Slim. And he had a unique distinction. He counted himself among the original Merry Pranksters who used to haunt the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco during the infamous Summer of Love. Said he personally had known Janis Joplin and all the rest. Had no few stories to go with that. I quite believed him.
Kind of an ex-hippie myself, we were natural compadres. We both preferred whiskey, and also shared one or two other vices of like entertainment category which I will not detail. But if I were not out riding my bike, I would like as not be drinking with Spiderman. Hanneman, his name was (as I just now recall) Robert H. Hanneman III.
So one evening we were in a club. And it was my turn to buy the drinks. I got up to perform my duty and turned about to look straight into the collar button of a shirt worn by the tallest Japanese I have ever seen. He's looking down on an American, and enjoying it all too much. He emphasizes the disparity by placing his hand plam-flat on the ceiling. A ceiling which I could not even touch. I was only mildly impressed.
Spiderman, as his name would imply, was only of slightly above average height while sitting down. So then he stood up, and touched his elbow to the ceiling. The tall Japanese stood agape. The look on his face. It was to die for. Die laughing, that is. I would almost have traded my bike then for a camera with film in.
Spiderman got me a good one once. This was after the move to Kadena. I was just then developing an unhealthy taste for Everclear. I never drank beer because I could not abide the taste. And Everclear had the twin advantages of being cheap and something that no one but no one would borrow off from me a shot at a time. I could enjoy it all to myself, and at only $8 a bottle.
I never drank beer, as stated above. And so I never had purchased much beer, and only during my turn for a round, mostly in the kind of hangout where the beer is rather cheap. So I had only a vague idea what beer should cost. I owed Spiderman a favor, so on my way to the Navy Exchange I offered to buy him a case of beer and asked after what brand he preffered. He liked Heineken. I soon learnt that there was beer, and then there was beer. In 1976 in Japan, real German beer did not come cheap. On seaman's pay it was rather a lot. But an offer is an offer and so I paid up.
Spiderman was both a generous and a very popular fellow once I got back. At least until his free beer ran out.