The Boomer Woman’s Podcast, episode 243
Remembering a Strong Mother as His Own Life Unfolded with Robert W Norris
Robert Norris – Bob – comes from pretty strong genetic stock – large extended family whose Depression-era experiences are reminiscent of “The Grapes of Wrath”. His mother was a force before women had many rights at all: proving herself as an athlete, standing her ground as a divorced woman, getting a pilot’s license, playing the organ, confronting military leadership when she felt her son was wronged, and becoming a traveler in later life. So perhaps no surprise that Bob stood his ground as a conscientious objector, traveled in the company of other bohemians, and embraced a life in a country with very little in common with America.
In this episode he talks about
- Maintaining oral traditions in our digital time
- The amazing woman who was his mom
- “Pentimento” memories
- Simpler times when little things were big deals
- Being a conscientious objector
- His travels with “European hippies”
- Finding a place in Japan
We end the episode exchanging stories about exchange students.
Listen below.
Agnes - in conversation with Robert Norris
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About the guest: Robert W Norris
Robert W. Norris was born and raised in Humboldt County, California. In 1969, he entered the Air Force, subsequently became a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War, and served time in a military prison for refusing to fight in the war. In his twenties, he roamed across the United States, went to Europe twice, and made one journey around the world. In 1983, he landed in Japan, where he eventually became a professor at a private university, spent two years as the dean of students, and retired in 2016 as a professor emeritus.
Norris is the author of Looking for the Summer, a novel about a former Vietnam War conscientious objector’s adventures and search for identity in Europe, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and India in 1977; Toraware, a novel about the obsessive relationship of three misfits from different cultural backgrounds in 1980s Kobe, Japan; Autumn Shadows in August, an hallucinogenic mid-life crisis/adventure, and homage to Malcolm Lowry and Hermann Hesse; The Many Roads to Japan, a novella used as an English textbook in Japanese universities; and The Good Lord Willing and the Creek Don’t Rise: Pentimento Memories of Mom and Me, a memoir and tribute to his mother. He has also written several articles on teaching English as a foreign language.
He and his wife live near Fukuoka, Japan.
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