He turned 70 in April this year.
It is "Koki".
He started going to work in the next town shortly before his birthday.
It's a work only in the morning.
He wasn't very enthusiastic about his work, but he was asked by a person and was a little happy to be asked, so he received the request.
He lives alone in an apartment near the sea.
He moved here at the age of 65 and has lived here for five years.
Almost, if not at all, he's not interested in television, where programs featuring thin-smiling talents are the mainstream.
So he doesn't have a TV show to watch at night, and as a result he often goes to bed early.
Episode 2
He was born in 1951.
He was born six years after Japan unconditionally surrendered in the last war.
He feels that the memory has been around since he was three or four years old.
The memory is like a single photo, and it remains in a thin, uncoordinated composition in the depths of the brain, and there is no story.
Memories as words are relatively clear from around the age of five.
The memory of the father's words is overwhelmingly large, but the memory of the mother's words is quite small.
At the age of five, when the memory became clear to some extent, that is, about 10 years after the surrender, Japan had been at war recently, so the remnants of the wartime culture remained strong.
He was naturally childish at the time, so he lived as if he were in a dream, albeit in reality.
Needless to say, he thinks there were various cultures during the war.
He wasn't born in the world during the war, so he felt that way from his knowledge of wartime affairs he knew after he was born.
Episode 3
In his father's words, there is "Yume no Kyusaku".
From his father's point of view, he would have been an unreliable child, just like living in a dream.
His father sometimes ridiculed him as "Yume no Kyusaku."
One day after he became an adult, he found the word "Yume no Kyusaku" while looking at the spine of a book on the shelf of a bookstore.
"Yume no Kyusaku" was the author's name, and the title of the book was "Dogra Magra".
At this time, he felt that his father's words "Yume no Kyusaku" and the title of the book "Yume no Kyusaku" must be connected.
However, that imagination was a little off.
Episode 4
The word "Yumeno Kyusaku" as the author of "Dogra Magra" was originally a dialect of the Fukuoka region and meant "dream-seeker".
At that time, he was just a "sleeping" boy, not as high-class as a "dream-seeker"
But that made him imagine a part of his father's short life.
He didn't think his father had read "Dogra Magra" by "Yumeno Kyusaku", but he encountered the word "Yume no Kyusaku" somewhere in his father's life.
A long time ago, his father was an employee of the former Japanese National Railways, and he must have been to various parts of Kyushu because of his work, and he must have had some relationships with people from all over Kyushu.
Episode 5
His father was promoted when he was young, but he was a hobbyist, especially fond of baseball and music, and he seemed to be better than others because he took it more seriously than others.
In honor of his father, his father seems to have been talented in many ways.
The word "dexterous poverty" is for his father.
When his father died, a uniform of the non-professional baseball team "KOKUTETSU" and a guitar were placed beside the body in the casket.
He remembers his father proudly telling his friends when he played against Kawakami, a professional baseball player who had been suspended during the war.
Kawakami is a legendary person who means "Tetsuharu Kawakami".
Kawakami is from Kumamoto prefecture and later raised the Yomiuri Giants into an invincible corps, but he was an active player during his father's life and died without knowing his subsequent activities.
His father probably met "Kawakami" somewhere in Kyushu as well as "Yume no Kyusaku".
He remembers that the uniform in the casket had vertical stripes on a white background.
Episode 6
His father in his memory was very sick and thin.
His father was tall, had big eyes, and had a tall nose.
It wasn't as dignified as a eagle nose, but it had a beautiful nose with a moderately curved nose in the profile.
His mother was feeding a nourishing diet in a poor household in an attempt to nourish her sick husband.
His mother used to cook hot soup dishes so that her husband wouldn't get cold in a cold winter house.
His father ate the hot soup dish deliciously and made a runny nose ball at the tip of his beautiful nose.
He remembers the scene at that time well.
The scene was a common sight in everyday life, and he always liked the sight in his memory.
His nose, by all means, was given to him by his mother, and although it wasn't ugly, he never thought it was beautiful.
At that time, the whole of Japan was poor, but his childhood home was poorer than the average Japanese family.
It was, of course, due to his father's illness, a pillar of the family's economy.
His father seems to have lived a little richer life on the old Japanese National Railways when he was young, but at one point his father left the company.
Episode 7
I must mention here his mother's parents' home.
His father died when he was 10 years old, so there is less information about his father's ancestors, and overwhelmingly more information about his mother's ancestors.
His mother's parents ran a rice shop.
He heard from his mother that his mother's ancestors were priests who served the Takahashi family of the "lord" in Hyuga-no-kuni during the Edo period.
He visited the tomb of one of his mother's ancestors several times, but was surprised when he read the text on the back of the tombstone of his mother's grandfather.
The lesson of Ieyasu Tokugawa, who opened the Edo Shogunate.
"A person's life is like going on a long slope with a burden on your back.
Don't hurry.
If you are always inconvenienced, you will not feel shortage.
If you wish in your heart, remember the time when you are in need.
Patience is the basis of security, and anger is the enemy.
If you know only to win and not to lose, harm will come to you.
Even if you blame yourself, don't blame others.
Lack is better than too much. "
Although the expression of the first half of the sentence was slightly different, the sentence was engraved with almost this meaning.
The time when this mother's grandfather lived is probably from the late Edo period to the Taisho period, or until the early Showa period.
His mother occasionally talked about her grandfather, so her grandfather would have been alive in her childhood and she would have been loved by her grandfather.
Episode 8
He heard that his maternal grandmother came from the Fukuoka region with her family.
He hasn't heard why she moved with her family so long ago and from the Fukuoka region, hundreds of kilometers away.
However, it turned out that his grandmother was born into a wealthy family.
Currently there is a junior high school in the center of the city.
The junior high school is also the school he graduated from.
He heard from his grandmother that the predecessor of the junior high school was a prewar high school for girls, but before that it was a private school run by the "lord" who ruled the region.
The "lord" was no longer a "lord" in the Meiji era, but when his grandmother was a child, "lord" sometimes appeared in school run by the former "lord", and his grandmother saw him.
His grandmother also used the word "free love" in front of him.
Although his grandmother was old enough, he understood that "free love" was an important value for his grandmother.
He hasn't heard if his grandmother was "free love" with his grandfather.
But he felt that she could think that her life with her husband was in that spirit.
Episode 9
His grandmother once told him about the "rice riot."
Since July 1918, rice prices have skyrocketed, and people's living difficulties and anxieties have deepened.
And finally an unprecedented riot broke out.
His mother was born in 1913 (Taisho 12), so at this time his mother is 5 years old.
His grandmother was attacked by a "rice riot" with her young children, her father-in-law, her mother-in-law, and her husband.
His grandfather's rice shop at the time was the closest to Shiroyama, and his business was big, so his shop was the first target.
The people who participated in the "rice riot" held a rally in Shiroyama and ran down the mountain with that momentum.
His grandmother didn't talk much about the "rice riots," but said, "It was scary because the people who broke out in Shiroyama rushed down to the store with the same momentum."
After somehow overcoming the rice riots, his grandmother and his grandfather's couple moved further into the city centre.
The people who ran the rice shop at that time seemed to have lived a rich life.
His grandfather had many "holdings".
Episode 10
After the war, GHQ Supreme Commander Douglas MacArthur began "farmland reform" in 1946, buying land from landowners and selling it to "Peasant" at low prices.
And GHQ confiscated all farmland from landowners who did not live in villages with farmland.
His grandfather falls into this category.
The land was paid in government bonds that could not be redeemed for 10 years, but the land was sold almost for free because the value of the government bonds was almost lost due to the severe inflation at that time.
As a result, many of the landowners fell.
And because the land was sold to peasants at a low price (almost for free), the number of self-produced farmers increased, and the landowner system was virtually abolished.
Episode 11
His aunt once showed him a local newspaper when his grandfather was young.
The newspaper featured a group photo of his grandfather, one of the founding members of the Chamber of Commerce and a director.
His grandmother gave birth to eight children.
The two children from the end were exceptions to the reform of the school system after the defeat, but the first six all graduated from the old system of junior high school or girls' high school.
"The old system of junior high school or girls' high school" is divided into "medium" and "high" in the prewar school system, but they are actually of the same grade.
His grandfather gave all his children some education because of the wealth of the economy, but his grandfather thinks that the children should have the education they need as a merchant. Probably.
And it seems that the children did not have a particularly good brain.
I have never heard of his grandfather where and what kind of education he received.
As he imagined, his grandfather was not very interested in scholarship.
However, since his grandmother studied at a private school run by the former feudal lord, she probably had a "some degree" of value in education.
Episode 12
Today is August 13, 2021.
It is “obon”.
He lit a "mukaebi" and invited his ancestors to his house.
On the first day of the “obon”, people burn pine branches to create flames that allow their ancestors to return home without hesitation.
Many ancestors are returning from the world of “yomi” to the houses all over Japan at the same time, so at this time, a lot of souls are rushing home in a space invisible to the people of this world.
The soul has no weight, volume, color, or smell, so we don't need the image of a crowded train ...
And now, he has successfully welcomed his ancestors, lit the candles and incense sticks on the altar, and is writing this page now.
Episode 13
His mother was the fourth of the eight siblings, but the earliest of the three girls.
Although his mother grew up in a wealthy family, his mother was born into a merchant, so his mother was given a role at home.
There were several maids living in her parents' house, and it seems that his mother did not support the work that the maid did, but his grandmother was a "wife" and was not very good at housework.
It was quite difficult to imagine because he had only seen his old grandmother, but his grandmother had only the role of his grandfather's wife.
That was vaguely understood by him.
His mother apparently studied "housework" at the old high school for girls and was asked to make up for her mother's lack of housework.
After graduating from the old high school for girls, his mother enrolled in a private school in Tokyo with the aim of becoming an early childhood educator.
It can be seen that as a woman at that time, she had extremely advanced thinking.
However, his mother is asked by his grandmother to return to her parents' home in the middle of her schoolwork.
Parents' orders at the time were absolute, so his mother abandoned her dream and returned to her parents' home.
His grandmother studied at a private school run by the former feudal lord when she was a girl, so she might have had some value in education, but it didn't seem to be very certain.
Episode 14
His mother had two younger brothers.
And the son of his mother's older brother (second son) -who had divorced his real mother early-was about the same age as her younger brothers.
The three boys said his mother played the role of their mother in the process of growing up.
This indicated that his grandmother was not involved in the growth of at least these three boys.
His mother, who returned from Tokyo, seems to have replaced the mistress of a rice merchant who had a big business.
His mother's mouth first mentions the name of her younger brother, but she soon realizes it's a mistake and rephrases it.
But the second name she calls is the name of her other younger brother.
So my name was called third.
That happened on a daily basis.
He could understand what the atmosphere of the time was when his mother raised two younger brothers and one nephew in place of their mother during and after the war.
So he never complained about it.
Episode 15
His mother didn't talk much about World War II.
Originally his mother wasn't the type to talk to others.
He only heard from his mother about evacuation and air raids during World War II.
He heard the story of "evacuation" multiple times.
The place where his mother evacuated was a place called "Katada", only about 5 kilometers from her family's residence.
Evacuation is generally a distant place, such as from Tokyo to Yamanashi prefecture, where we have to take a train, and once we go, we cannot easily return. There is such an image.
So he felt that the evacuation that his mother said was different from the general evacuation.
It is true that Katada is a small village at the foot of Mt. Atago, where ancient human bones and ancient tombs are scattered, and it seems that it was quite rural during the last World War.
His mother said there was a villa owned by her father in Katada.
He imagines that there are many holdings owned by her father around Katada, and that her father owned a villa for the purpose of managing those holdings.
Unfortunately, the place where his mother was born was an important industrial city in the region, so it was the target of an attack by the US Air Force.
Like other cities, it was indiscriminately attacked by the incendiary bombs dropped by the B29.
Seen from the B29 in the sky, Katada is a geography that was ignored because incendiary bombs would be wasted even if it attacked there.
Episode 16
While having a villa to evacuate to Katada, my mother is hit by an air raid in the center of the city.
Immediately north of his mother's parents' residence, there was a river with abundant water, where a geisha-playing boat floated, and there was a dock for ships carrying goods from the Keihanshin region.
At that time, there was no dam for hydroelectric power generation in the river, so it seems that the river had a considerable amount of water.
It seems that his mother's father used to eat and drink with a local geisha on a houseboat floating there, and his mother recounted her father's memories one day.
Episode 17
His mother's parents' home was affluent, and she was educated herself, so she was asked to marry someone of a certain status.
However, she didn't seem to like the marriage.
His mother once told him how to get used to his father.
She says she wanted her spouse to be smart.
He asked his mother why.
The reason was "I wanted a smart child."
And her "smart person" was his father.
Episode 18
The older brother just above his mother introduced her to his father.
The older brother just above his mother knew well that his father was an elementary school classmate and his father was very smart.
Her older brother, who is just above his mother, goes to old junior high school after finishing elementary school, but his father couldn't go to junior high school.
Because his father's father died early and his father's house was not very financially capable of going to junior high school.
It was quite economically difficult not only for widows but also for ordinary households to go on to the old junior high school and the old high school for girls at that time.
It is said that the enrollment rate at that time was less than 8% for the former and less than 5% for the latter.
His father was clearly recognized for his talent in elementary school.
It seems that there was a person who offered to help the son of a widow who had the ability but could not go on to junior high school.
His father's mother declined the offer.
His father regretted that time.
Episode 19
His father's mother was from the countryside just a little bit.
She had thin and beautiful skin and a nice face.
She was an urban, well-balanced and beautiful figure overall.
Her later years, perhaps after her husband's death, seemed to have been a nightcap habit every night.
He has never seen her drink before going to bed, but she had that kind of skin, like when she drank and her skin turned cherry-colored.
Although there are differences between men and women, he actually feels that his skin is close to her.
It is exposed on human skin, and the back of the hand, which is the most noticeable next to the face, and the feeling of the skin are very similar.
She was arguably "beautiful" in appearance compared to his maternal grandmother.
His father's appearance was undoubtedly an inheritance of her genes.
Episode 20
He remembers riding the back of his father's bicycle to his paternal grandmother's hometown.
He and his father stayed there overnight.
He hardly remembers that night, but quite clearly remembers his father catching a spider on their way home.
He thinks that remembering clearly was a shocking event in its own way.
The spider is called "Syorokumo" in this region.
The standard language is "Zyorougumo", which is a large spider in two colors, black and gold.
His father broke a tree branch by the side of the road and caught "Syorokumo" with a spider web and put it in a paper bag.
Thinking back now, it can be thought that his father knew that there was a fine "Shorokumo" there and caught it on their way home.
Episode 21
His father's mother was from a place far from the city, where it would take half a day to ride a bicycle, so he probably had a paper bag with the spider on his way home.
Upon returning home, his father inserted a spider branch into a gap in the outer wall of the house.
The outer wall of the wooden building at that time was a construction method called "yoroibari", in which wooden boards were stuck from bottom to top, and rainwater flowed down from above on the boards, preventing rainwater from entering.
Since the wooden board warps due to sunlight and rain, there was a gap for inserting the branch.
The next morning, when prompted by his father, he went out and saw a shiny, brand-new spider web.
And he saw "Syorokumo" sitting in the middle with dignity.
Episode 22
His father sometimes caught insects such as mantis and threw them into spider web.
"Syorokumo" quickly approached an insect trapped in a spider's web and splendidly wrapped a spider's thread into white food.
"Syorokumo" sometimes renewed its nest.
He had seen a big, beautiful and new nest in the morning.
There was a persimmon tree right next to the outer wall of the house, but maybe the spider blows a long thread in the wind to reach the persimmon tree.
When the end of the spider's thread got entangled somewhere in the persimmon tree, the spider taut the thread and set about building the nest.
There was a lightning-like jagged pattern in the center of the spider's web.
It was like drawing a round DRAGONS around the home base of the Chunichi Dragons franchise stadium, which was dignified.
Episode 23
The spider laid a large egg at the end of summer.
The egg soon reached an important moment.
And the spider cubs scattered like "kumonoko-o-tirasu".
Before being eaten by natural enemies, the spider children all fled hard to themselves as soon as they were born.
They left with the wind.
Episode 24
By the way, there was a space like a flower bed along the outer wall of the house where "Shorokumo" was released.
In the summer, it was a field of "Aoi", "Asagao" and "Hosenka".
The "Asagao" was the flowerpot "Asagao" he planted in his elementary school class.
When it was summer vacation and he brought the flowerpot home, his father replanted it in the soil.
Asagao fully opened its power and quickly made itself taller.
It grew like "Jack and the Beanstalk", but never reached the sky.
Still, it bloomed wonderful flowers.
The secret weapon his father used at this time was "chicken droppings."
At that time, "chicken droppings" was often used as a reasonable fertilizer.
The smell was a little strong, but at that time "human dung" was also popular, so the smell of chicken dung was well tolerated.
Episode 25
There was farmland between his house and the house next to the south.
There were a lot of cabbage in the spring.
Many white butterflies were flying in the cabbage field, and there were many white butterfly larvae.
The fertilizer for cabbage was human dung.
Of course, farmers do not use raw human dung as fertilizer for vegetables.
They once put human dung in "Koedame" and then fermented human dung over time.
The farmer dug a hole in the field beside the agricultural road to make "Koedame".
And they put human dung in it and had a simple wooden lid.
Therefore, many "koedame" lids were exposed to rain and wind and decayed.
He broke through the rotten board and plunged his foot into the "Koedame", which was filled with human dung.
A truly indescribable feeling was transmitted to his brain.
He doesn't remember how he washed his feet, but he still remembers the feeling of breaking through the board at that time, more than 60 years later.
Episode 26
According to the Joseon Tongsinsa during the Muromachi period, "Japanese people use human feces as fertilizer, and the production of agricultural products is very high."
The history of using human feces by Japanese people is so long.
Even in the Meiji era, human feces were a valuable fertilizer and were bought and sold at high prices.
After World War II, GHQ, led by Douglas MacArthur, ordered the Japanese government to discontinue human fecal fertilizer because Japanese salads contained a large number of human fecal bacteria and parasites.
However, even around 1955, there was still a poster in the school infirmary, "Let's avoid eating raw vegetables for good children."
Human feces used as fertilizer are usually used after being stored in Koedame and fermented because the crops will rot if used as they are.
However, parasites lurking in vegetables grown with human feces fertilizer became a problem.
He was born in 1951.
He, of course, ate vegetables grown on manure fertilizer every day.
Sometimes he wiped the vegetables in the field with his clothes and ate them as they were.
At one point, his anus became itchy and he complained, "Mom, itchy anus."
His mother put him in a down position and took off his pants.
When she said, "Kaityu is here," she picked up Kaityu, who had a slight appearance in his anus, with her fingers and pulled it out.
The feeling that Kaityu was being pulled out was like a small poop coming out.
It's a very nostalgic memory, and it's a trivial matter, but this incident at that time is an episode that feels the very reliable affection of his mother.
Episode 27
In the summer, "Aoi（hollyhock）" and "Hosenka（rose balsam）" bloomed every year in addition to "Asagao（morning glory）" on the side of the house.
"Aoi" and "Hosenka" are especially meaningful flowers in his life.
It doesn't mean that the flowers are beautiful, but it is a special flower that overlaps with the memories of his father and mother who spent his childhood.
The flowers of "Hosenka" were pale and small, but in the fall, they had cute seed shells that suitable for"Hosenka".
It was a closed shell of a pleated skirt made of wide fabric.
When he picked the shell while feeling the small protrusions on his fingertips, it popped and a small black seed popped out.
It was a much smaller seed than "Asagao", but the splattering phenomenon made him feel something strange, and he often mischievously picked the shell and let the seed pop.
Episode 28
The flowers of his three memories died in the fall.
From autumn to winter his mother sometimes used the place for "araihari".
His mother used to sew Japanese clothes to help her family before he was old enough to go to kindergarten.
His mother was always sewing by the brazier.
It seems that his mother had some customers, and she was always sewing their kimono.
That said, the whole of Japan was poor at that time.
So his mother's sewing was often re-sewing of old kimono.
However, it was a wise tradition of the Japanese people from ancient times, and it was derived from the spirit of "mottainai" that values things.
He thinks that the technique of "araihari" was one of the typical techniques.
His mother probably learned the technique in the "kaseika" of an old high school for girls.
It may have been one of the backgrounds of old Japanese society as a "good wife and wise mother."
Episode 29
In the process of re-sewing, which begins with unraveling the kimono, there is a process of washing the fabric of the kimono and drying it in the sun.
He didn't remember the scene very clearly because he was young and uninterested at the time.
His mother stuck a cloth soaked in glued water on a long plate to dry the cloth.
In the other scene, a bamboo strings was used to apply tension to the cloth in the side direction to dry it.
Bamboo sticks were used at regular intervals (was it about 10 cm apart?), And the cloth was stretched laterally to smooth out the wrinkles.
It was like a dragon's belly.
In the vertical direction of the cloth, both ends are sandwiched between pieces of wood, and he remembers that the tip of the string tied to the piece of wood was fixed to a tree or the like.
So the cloth with bamboo sticks was blown by the wind, sometimes spinning and fluttering.
Around 1955, many people still wore kimono as daily clothes, fashionable clothes, and official clothes.
He thinks it was a "mumps", but there was a picture taken at the "Araihari" place when he got sick with his sister.
Of course, the photo is monochrome, but both of them are wearing flannel kimono nightwear.
Episode 30
When his mother washed and dried the cloth and was able to re-sew the customer's kimono, she set about re-making the kimono by the hibachi(brazier).
Was the tool called "pincushion"?
Just as she sat on the tatami mat and sewed, there was a red round cloth ball at about the height of her elbow, and the red round ball had a sewing needle and a pin.
He thinks the tool was made of wood or bamboo, but he can't remember how the tool stood.
And as a nostalgic tool for his mother's sewing, there was a kote(trowel).
There was no iron.
Of course there was no sewing machine.
His mother used to make kimonos by traditional hand-sewn.
The metal part of the trowel holds the cloth and makes a crease there, but the crease should be made lightly, and the area held by the trowel was also very small.
Moreover, the metal part of the trowel was very small because the heat of the trowel was obtained from the charcoal in the hibachi(brazier).
Episode 31
His father had an aunt.
He thinks the aunt is probably the sister of his father's father.
His father's aunt came by bus from afar during the festival.
She always hung a chicken in her hand.
It was a gorgeous food in his house once a year.
The place where my father's aunt lived is now a residential areas in the region, an area lined with new homes, but at the time it was far from the center of the city.
His house was a little east of the city center, but his father's aunt's house was far west.
When he was able to ride a bicycle, his father planned a "touring" with him.
It is "touring" using a bicycle.
The destination was his father's aunt's house.
It is now a new residential area in the region, with new homes lined up, but at the time it was a countryside away from the city centre.
Since there was only one bicycle in his house, he rode behind his father's bicycle to his mother's brother's house in the center of the city.
His mother's brother ran a large store to some extent, so there were bicycles for business but rentable.
He toured with his father on an adult bicycle.
He rode his bicycle hard on the bumpy agricultural road to his father's aunt's house.
This was the only "touring" between him and his father, both in the past and in the future.
Episode 32
His father's aunt always came from afar with a chicken hanging in her hand.
It was a gorgeous food once a year in his home.
During the summer, "Asagao," "Aoi," and "Hosenka" were in bloom in the flowerbed, where his father stabbed two sticks and tied them with a string to tie the chicken legs.
The chicken was hung upside down and decapitated for human food.
There was a yellow round ball in the chicken's belly called "Kinkan", which was given especially as a nutritional supplement to his father's lean body.
Kinkan is an immature egg or egg source in the ovary or oviduct of a female that has finished its role as a spawning chicken.
Kinkan is an orange ball with a diameter of about 3 cm, so it is said to have been named because it looks similar to that of a mandarin orange.
At the time he didn't know what the kinkan was, but he knew that the golden round food was delicious.
At that time, chicken eggs were so expensive, at least for the economy of his home, that he rarely saw them at his home dining table.
Moreover, the golden ball taken from the chicken that was alive just before is still vividly remembered in his memory.
Episode 33
At his elementary school athletic meet, there was a boy who ran very fast, and the other children said that the cause was "Nakayama-kun's house feeds chickens and always eats eggs."
A mysterious old woman living next to a public hall once brought a basket full of eggs to his father.
At that time, the mysterious old woman was saying something to thank his father.
The basket full of eggs at that time still remains in his mind.
Of course the eggs was probably given to his father first, but he doesn't remember if he was given it either.
That's why chicken and eggs were precious at the time, but his father's aunt brought a live chicken from afar and the ingredients were thoroughly cooked.
And they were eaten as nutrition for his father.
Of course the chicken would have been his meal, but above all he remembers the delicious meal of chicken soup filled in a bowl and the chicken oil floating on it.
Episode 34
His family lived in a rented house.
Belonging to the oldest category of his memory, his father shared a room with a tatami mat craftsman who was hospitalized for the same illness when his father was hospitalized for tuberculosis.
A tatami mat craftsman who became close to his father during hospitalization suggested to his father.
"I hope you come because there is a vacant space next to my house."
And he imagines that his family has moved next to the tatami mat craftsman's house.
It was when his father had tuberculosis in Osaka and came home-town with his family of four.
So his family should have had almost no baggage.
The tatami mat craftsman had a big body, a loud voice, and no hair on his head, but his face was scary and he was a dashing person.
He thinks the tatami mat craftsman liked his father.
A tatami mat craftsman called his father nicknamed "Take."
He imagines that the tatami mat craftsman was a person called "Sasaki" who was very, very kind.
He remembers Mr. Sasaki sewing tatami mats.
When tightening the thread, Mr. Sasaki pressed his elbow against the tatami mat and pulled the thread, but Mr. Sasaki was pulling very strongly, and Mr. Sasaki's muscles from his shoulders to his arms were very strong.
He writes this article with gratitude to Mr. Sasaki and his wife, and praying for souls.
Episode 35
Mr. Sasaki had a girl named "Masako" and a boy named "Naoki".
"Masako-chan" was more than 10 years older than him, but at one point she disappeared.
As he knew later, "Masako-chan" left her hometown with "syudan-syusyoku = group employment" after graduating from junior high school.
"Group employment" began in Japan when the "Masako-chan" generation graduated from junior high school.
At that time, there were no companies in rural areas where young people who graduated from junior high school and wanted a job could find employment.
However, factories such as the textile industry in other prefectures needed such young human resources.
Episode 36
"Naoki-chan" was renamed to "Shoichi" by his father, Mr. Sasaki.
"Sho-chan" was renamed because of the unlucky number of strokes in his original name, "Naoki."
It was Sasaki's relative's uncle who said that the name "Naoki" was unlucky, and it seems that he was not a profession of fortune-telling, but just a person who was good at fortune-telling.
He called the renamed "Shoich" "Sho-chan"
"Sho-chan" was a few years older than him, so he wasn't a playmate.
When "Sho-chan" graduated from junior high school, he entered a private high school in the neighboring prefecture.
"Sho-chan" used to go to school by steam locomotive every day.
At that time, there were three prefectural high schools in the hometown of "Sho-chan", but there were no private high schools.
"Sho-chan" was a post-war "baby boomer generation" and there were many students in the same grade who could not enroll in prefectural high school.
Therefore, if they failed the entrance examinations of the three schools, they either got a job or entered a private high school in the neighboring prefecture.
"Sho-chan" studied cooking at a private high school in the neighboring prefecture and later became a good cook on a ferry ship.
Episode 37
Mr. Sasaki actually had another daughter.
He thinks her name was "Sacchan".
"Sacchan" was a daughter born to Mr. Sasaki and his former wife.
Her voice was high and nice, and her face and body were round.
Perhaps she was working in a bar and the husband of "Sacchan" was a petite and beautiful man.
Even from the eyes of a child, "Sacchan" seemed to fall in love with her husband.
"Sacchan" has returned to her father's house to give birth to a child with her husband.
Mr Sasaki had another house next to his home.
"Sacchan" gave birth to a baby girl there.
Her midwife helped "Sacchan" give birth to a baby.
Mr. Sasaki's wife's attitude toward "Sacchan" was cold.
He has never seen "Sacchan" since then.
Episode 38
Beyond the house where Sacchan gave birth to a baby, the houses were lined up in a mess.
There was a narrow living road between the houses, and at the dead end there was a goat.
He tried to see if the goat really eats paper.
Unfortunately he doesn't remember the result.
It was just behind the workplace where Mr. Sasaki made tatami mats.
The house next to Mr. Sasaki's workplace had a dog named "Kuro".
Except for the shepherd at Mr. Matsuo's house, most of the dogs at that time were mixed breeds, and "Kuro" was also a black-haired mixed breed dog.
Rabies was commonly known at times when society as a whole was unhygienic.
There was also a scene in which a "dog killer" dispatched by a public institution such as a public health center caught a stray dog with a wire ring.
"Dog killer" was a professional worker, and the appearance of going toward the dog was amazing.
For unknown reasons, at one point he was running down the narrow living road behind Mr. Sasaki's workplace towards the goat.
"Kuro" ran after him and bit his thigh from behind.
He still remembers that horror.
He doesn't remember if "Kuro" was caught by "Dog Killer".
Episode 39
The kitchen of the rental house where his family lived was a dirt floor.
His mother cooked rice with a "kamado", but she also used a "shichirin" to cook.
The rental house was near a large river flowing through the region, but about a kilometer downstream was a harbor, and there was a pier for a small ferry to the island off the coast.
The pier was made of wood and was built using fairly large timber.
He went down to the beam of the pier, soaked his feet in the water up to his knees, and searched for river crabs.
The river crab was called "Tsugani" in the region, and it had soft hair on the scissors and was big.
He went down under the pier with a small harpoon called "kanatsuki".
He was catching crabs with "kanatsuki" to eat river crabs called "Tsugani".
Whenever he returned home, there was no family member.
He had set fire in the shichirin, and put water in the kettle, and boiled water, and put "Tsugani" in boiled water, and ate it.
The taste of that time is still engraved deep in his mind, and it is a very nostalgic memory.
But that meant he was catching the "oyatsu(=snack)" himself in the river because his parents didn't give him a oyatsu.
Episode 40
He got some pocket money from his mother, but he doesn't really remember much.
No, he thinks he got it, but he doesn't remember.
But he thinks he caught crabs in the river and dug up the potatoes in the fields, baked them, and ate them because his pocket money was small.
He went to a “dagashiya(=cheap candy store)” when he got some pocket money.
At that time, the whole of Japan was poor, so especially in the countryside, there was no custom of "oyatsu".
He thought "oyatsu" was a habit of a rich family.
"Oyatsu" had the image of a kind of fine sweets prepared by a housewife at home.
Unrelated to "oyatsu", he used to go to a cheap candy store with a small amount of money.
There were two cheap candy stores in his area.
One is a store run by an old man next to the graveyard.
The other store was run by a scary aunt, about 50 meters away from the store next to the graveyard.
He always went to a cheap candy store called "Shiraishi" next to the graveyard.
Episode 41
The cheap candy was in a large glass container, which had holes large enough for customers to put their hands in and take out the required number of candy.
And, for example, it was sold as 1 yen per piece.
He always bought "suzume-no-tamago(sparrow eggs)".
One was 0.5 yen.
The money he used was a ten-yen note and a one-yen note.
He could buy 20 "sparrow eggs" for 10 yen.
He thinks there were other types of cheap candy, but he only remembers "sparrow eggs" so much that he can't remember.
The old man's shop sold children's play equipment such as "koma (= tops)", "menko" and "bidama (= marbles)" and simple fishing gear.
Episode 42
Children need play equipment because they are alive to play.
He made his own play equipment, just as he caught and ate crabs himself.
Stilts, water guns, enomi guns, rubber guns, shrimp harpoons, bird traps, bamboo dragonflies, etc., all the play equipment was made by himself.
He didn't have anything, and it was too expensive to buy, so he made most of it himself.
He played in the river almost all day during the summer, but always with shrimp harpoons.
When he was six years old and went to school, the school obliged students to study at home until 10 am during the summer vacation.
He had no choice but to put up with it at home until that time, but at 10 am he went to the river as if he had been unleashed.
Episode 43
The shrimp harpoon was one of his proofs of being wild.
He removed the spokes of an old and unusable bicycle and bent one end of the spokes with pliers to "trigger" it.
The other side of the spoke was sharpened with a file to make it thinner, and a "Gagari(=Kaeshi)" was added to prevent it from coming off when it was stabbed by a shrimp.
It wasn't just the wisdom of children, it was based on the experience and wisdom of seniors.
Episode 44
And he cut one thick bamboo and one thin bamboo from the bush on the bank of the nearby river.
A thick bamboo with a diameter of about 10 mm is the main body of the harpoon, and a groove is dug in the direction of the bamboo fiber.
The length of the groove was the range of movement of the spoke harpoon.
Then, a thin bamboo was inserted into the tip of the thick bamboo to improve the accuracy of the direction in which the spoke harpoon pops out.
Energy was also a tube of worn-out bicycle tires
The tube was folded in half and one end of the tube was fixed.
It was fixed to bamboo with a wire.
Episode 45
The other end of the tube was hooked on the bent part of the spoke and the tube was pulled to apply tension.
Of course, the tension was potential energy.
This cheap handmade harpoon was a good friend of his summer vacation.
When the harpoon hit the shrimp, the shrimp rampaged and the feeling was transmitted to the hand holding the bamboo.
Between the bank stakes was a "Rakuma(=Long-handed shrimp)" that resembled the color of the shiny river stones.
"Rakuma" with its tactile sensation extended forward and with fine scissors was lurking.
"Rakuma" is the local dialect in which he was born and raised, two long-handed shrimp with scissors.
He is 70 years old and still calls the shrimp "Rakuma".
Episode 46
When he became an adult and became able to move by car, he once played "Chongake" in "Mimi-river" about 30 km south.
"Chongake" is one of the traditional sweetfish catch in the area where he lived.
While diving into the river with a mechanism that hooks a fishing hook on the tip of a thin and short bamboo, pull the bamboo toward the swimming sweetfish.
And it is a very primitive sweetfish catch that is hooked on a fishing hook.
Since "Chongake" is often performed in relatively shallow water, it was performed in the middle reaches and tributaries of the river.
He caught sweetfish brilliantly when he first tried "Chongake".
However, the technique of hooking sweetfish swimming in the river was very difficult.
He made many mistakes and finally succeeded in hooking the sweetfish.
Episode 47
Also, at one point he had caught a bucket full of "Rakuma" by hand when he went camping upstream of "Kitagawa".
He wore underwater glasses, dipped his face in the river at the depth of his knees, and slowly lifted a slightly larger stone looking for "Rakuma."
According to Archimedes' principle, stones in water are lightened by the weight of water equal to their volume.
However, the sound of stones hitting in the water is transmitted many times louder than in the air, so if we don't lift the stones carefully, "Rakuma" will escape.
Why is the sound of stones hitting stronger in water than in air?
He somehow understands that it is probably because the density of water as a fluid is many times higher than that of air.
Even if we are lucky enough to discover "Rakuma", of course, "Rakuma" will not be caught by humans without resistance.
"Rakuma" tries to escape before being caught, and if caught, uses the "Rakuma" scissors to make a final blow to the enemy.
He caught a bucket full of "Rakuma" in a short time, even though he was a little bit pinched and hurt.
Those things were based on his childhood wild play in the river.
Episode 48
He procured all the materials used to make those play equipment on his own.
The boys at that time were really strong.
The cause was definitely poor.
He was busy playing himself and rarely played with his younger sister, two years younger.
He had no idea where and what his sister was playing in the daytime.
He now thinks that his sister was playing "playing house" with Mayumi, the daughter of a nearby fishmonger.
I can't help but regret it in the future, but I needed underwater glasses in addition to the harpoon to catch the shrimp.
The children said "Ichigan(=single eye)" and "Nigan(=two eyes)", but he wanted a "single eye" but the "single eye" was too expensive for him to buy.
"Single eye" meant one lens glass, and "two eyes" meant two lens glasses, but after all, the performance of "single eye" was superior.
So he used "two eyes", but he wasn't dissatisfied.
The "two-eyes" wasn't as cool as the current swimming goggles, it wasn't easy to use, and it was a "two-eyes" with glass fitted on a very poor quality rubber base, and it quickly became cloudy in the water.
When he actually dived into the water, he rubbed the “Yomogi(=mugwort) against the glass to prevent it from fogging.
The mugwort was everywhere like air, so he tore the mugwort and rub it against the glass.
Episode 49
On the bank of the river, wooden stakes for the purpose of revetment called "bank stake" were pierced into the riverbed, and there were gaps of about 10 cm between the stakes.
Shrimps, eels, and fishes lurked in the gap.
Since the "bank stake" was constructed all along the riverbank, there were small fishing reefs as long as the "bank stake".
So he played with the fishes that lived in the "bank stake" from morning till evening.
He used to put his head in the water of the river and expose his back to the sun, so he had his back skin peeled about three times during the summer vacation due to sunburn.
He also fished.
He fished "gomokin" and "goby" and they are still nostalgic friends.
Episode 50
He fished and caught shrimp, which was also a place where seawater would come in at high tide, so there was also a "black sea bream".
He soaked in the river to his waist, stirred the sand at the bottom of the river with his feet, muddyed the water downstream, held nylon string in his hand, and fished " black sea bream ".
He still doesn't know why, but " black sea bream" came into the muddy water and bite into the bait.
Such fishing know-how was based on the teachings of seniors.
It wasn't " black sea bream ", but at one point he fished a nice little fish and brought it home.
His mother cooked the fish into "segoshi" and fed him.
The river fish that I ate with that vinegar miso was probably the most delicious fish of his life.
Episode 51
His father was dexterous (and poor), but he also made bamboo dragonflies well with a knife.
The bamboo dragonfly made by his father flew high above the roof.
He has also been taught by his father how to make a model airplane.
The model airplane flew in the sky powered by a rubber cord.
If an airplane powered by a jet engine is called a jet airplane, an airplane powered by a rubber cord should be called a rubber airplane.
He has never seen such a rubber cord used for a model airplane since that time.
Hook the propeller on your finger, rotate the propeller around to store energy, and when you are ready to launch the model airplane into the sky, remove your finger from the propeller to dissipate the energy.
The model plane flew very attractively to his eyes.
It flew with a beautiful wake when the aircraft was well-balanced even after the energy was used up.
Episode 52
The main structural part, which could be called the backbone of the model airplane, was made of light wood with a rectangular cross section, and the outline of the wings was made of thin bamboo sticks.
（rectangular：長方形 cross section：断面）
The tips of the wings were curved.
A small aluminum cylinder was used to connect the straight and curved parts of the bamboo sticks.
The model airplane kit had straight bamboo sticks but no curved bamboo sticks.
So the curved part was gradually bent by applying heat with a candle.
When he hurried to bend the bamboo sticks, the bamboo sticks were burnt and broke.
Episode 53
He thinks Mayumi-chan, the daughter of a fishmonger who was supposed to be his sister's playmate, was the same age as him.
She was a quiet girl who had no presence in elementary school.
Rather, he didn't care about her at all.
Mayumi-chan had two older brothers.
Mayumi-chan's family had the same name as the old powerful family in the area, but he didn't know it much later.
Mayumi-chan's family may have been a descendant of a venerable family.
Episode 54
Mayumi-chan's two older brothers were very enthusiastic about flying a model plane.
The two were, of course, older than him, but looked a little different in type from some other boys of the same age.
The two were serious about flying a model airplane, not just playing, but as if they were doing a science experiment.
The two made him feel that they were in solidarity with a model airplane.
He was turning the propeller with his finger to store energy in the power elastic cord, but the brother of the fishmonger's son used a tool called a "winder" to energize the elastic cord very efficiently.
Since they used the winder efficiently, adjustments such as the balance of the aircraft and the tilt of the wings for the flight were rational.
His model planes were not as good as that of the fishmonger's sons, as they flew model planes while studying with their close brothers.
Episode 55
There was a community center near his house.
The model plane was flying in the open space of the community center.
Now when he sees it with the eyes of an adult, it is small, but at that time, the grounds of the public hall seemed large to the eyes of children.
He enjoyed a lot of play in the community center square.
One of them is baseball, which was called a triangular base.
The triangular base was devised so that it could be played with only the ball even in a small space or when the number of people was small, but they used a bat.
Although the yard of the community center is large, it is limited, and the ball that was hit by the bat often flew out of the yard, so the damaged adult got angry.
Episode 56
There was a shrine in a corner of the community center where it was not clear what was enshrined, and an old house where an old woman who seems to manage the shrine lived.
The house where the old woman lived was small, but it was surrounded by the old wooden fence and vegetation, and it had a very strange atmosphere.
The old woman occasionally came out of her house, but she seemed to live independently of the world, and the children in her neighborhood never approached her.
The ball could hit the old wooden fence and puncture it, or it could jump over the wooden fence and enter the premises of the old woman's residence.
After confirming that there was no old woman, the children quickly entered the wooden fence and vegetation of the old woman's house and took out the ball.
The boys occasionally played in a shrine where they didn't know what was enshrined.
The boys played innocently while singing a nursery rhyme with the lyrics "zouri kakusi tyunenbo".
He also remembers nursery rhymes with lyrics such as "rosia yabankoku kurobatokin".
Episode 57
He played a lot when he was a kid, but he thinks the one he played seriously was tops(=koma).
The size of the top was so large that it protruded from his palm at that time, and the shape was like crushing a lemon vertically.
The core was made of lead, and the part to be embedded in the top was a square pyramid.
The core was heated so that it would be embedded in the deep part of the top, and it was stabbed while hitting it with a mallet.
The core was thick, so when he hit it hard with a mallet, the top often broke.
The opposite side of the core, that is, the part in contact with the ground, had a cross section that was simply cut with a metal cutter.
So when he turned the top with a new core, the top turned awkwardly.
Episode 58
The top he played is a fighting top, in which he threw a top in the form of a baseball pitcher's underslow to defeat the enemy's top.
The top was heavy, and he threw the top so hard that the string that turned the top was made of sturdy hemp.
At that time, hemp that was no longer seen was sold in stores.
The hemp he had just bought was so hard that he couldn't twist it, so he first softened the hemp.
If the tip of the hemp string is not wrapped tightly around the core of the top, the string will come loose when the top is thrown, so it was necessary to make it thin.
And the other side of the hemp string gradually becomes thicker.
And he made a ball on the last part of the hemp string to prevent it from coming out of his hand due to the impact of throwing a top.
Furthermore, the tip of the hemp ball was made into a fluttering decoration by tearing the hemp into small pieces along the fiber.
He had unraveled it before making the hemp string, but the new hemp string was hard and difficult to use.
So he had to use it for the hemp string to fit snugly and comfortably.
When used, the hemp string became a texture like an old rag.
Then, it became a perfect top string, and eventually it broke.
His father helped him until he was able to make the hemp string to spin the top by himself.
Episode 59
As the lead core of the top was used, the tip became round and curved.
Not only was it curled up, but it was rolled up a little outward.
It became like a rivet.
When the top was turned, it turned without shaking, but when the energy of the rotation was low, it turned around like a drunken man.
At that time, the outer circumference of the lead core is gradually scraped by the soil.
The soil on the site of the community center was fine-grained soil, so the lead core of the top was polished by the soil to give it a smooth luster.
Some children also played in more radical fighting tops.
The children slammed their tops against the enemy's tops.
The tip of the lead core of the top was sharpened to crush the enemy’s top.
He didn't like this play and didn't.
Episode 60
Poor at the time may have been the cause, but he didn't have a habit of brushing his teeth.
Not just him, but the children around him as well.
Or maybe the adults didn't pay much attention because they still had baby teeth.
So there was a lot of tooth droppings around the children's teeth.
Children said that tooth droppings are also effective against insect bites.
He believes that children can't believe that without any information, and that it was due to the ignorant wisdom of irresponsible adults.
At one point, children were making noise as bees built a nest above the entrance to the community center and bees were flying around it.
He brought a ladder that was nearby, hung it, and then climbed up, and grabbed the nest and threw it away.
He was stabbed by bees in several places.
He still remembers the pain at that time, but he scraped the tooth droppings with his nails and smeared it on the stabs.
He doesn't remember if he told his parents that he was stabbed by bees.
The old children were strong.
Episode 61
Suddenly a Christian church was built on the other side of the road bordering the community center.
Looking at the church from the front, it was an extremely novel building with an isosceles triangle.
The family consisted of an American minister, his wife, and his son.
It may have been one of the American occupation policies, as it was only about ten years after the war.
Or maybe the Christian church thought it was an opportunity for missionary work.
People who were completely unrelated to Christianity went to the classroom on Sunday with curiosity.
He was invited by "Sho-cha" to go once, but not next Sunday.
The church was dismantled and disappeared before he knew it.
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