July 20, 2023: Hot and Humid Summer, Funny Stories (2) （蒸し暑い夏、面白い話（２））

I have another story that always makes me laugh when I think back. I could not remember how old I was when it happened. But it was about a motorway. At that time, Japan had just one major motorway. That was the Meisin Expressway which was built mainly for the Expo. At that time, I heard that a second major motorway was being built. It was called the Tomei Expressway as it would run between Tokyo and Nagoya. In Japanese, Tomei consists of two Kanji characters, 東名. The first character, 東, means Tokyo and the last one, 名, means Nagoya. I was very excited about it and fantasised about it a lot. But While I was doing it, I mistook the meaning of Tomei for transparent. And I fantasised about it. I wondered what would be the transparent expressway. I also imagined that it might be made of transparent tubes, as I had often seen in cartoons. If so, I wondered who would be driving at what speed. They were beyond reality. But I did not
think that they were unrealistic and a pie in the sky. In fact, I enjoyed doing it very much. But one day, I was suddenly brought back to earth. I knew that what I had fantasised was wrong when I read a magazine. It clearly described what would mean the Kanji characters of the Tomei Expressway, and I found that it had nothing to do with transparency at all.

　思い出すと、いつも笑ってします話がもう一つあります。その時、ボクがいくつだっだのかは思い出すことはできないのですが、高速道路に関する話です。その当時、日本に高速道路は、万博用に建設された名神高速道路しかありませんでした。その時に、第２の高速道路が建設中という話を聞いたのです。東京と名古屋を結ぶ東名高速道路です。東名高速道路の東名は、漢字２文字で、東は東京を、名は名古屋を意味しています。この話を聞いてボクはワクワクして、様々な妄想をしました。ところが、妄想中に、東名をを「透明」と勘違いして、「透明高速道路」の妄想をしてしまいました。例えば、透明高速道路とはどんな代物かと考えたり、漫画でよく見た透明のチューブでできえいるのではなどと空想しました。そして、そんな道路を誰がどのくらいの速さで運転するのかも考えました。
　すべてが現実離れしていたのですが、非現実的で絵空事とは思っていなかったのです。それどころか、妄想を楽しんでいました。ところが、ある日、突然、現実に引き戻されました。ある雑誌を読んだ時に、自分の妄想は間違いということを知ったのです。その雑誌には、東名高速道路の「とうめい」の意味が説明されており、「透明」とはまったく関係ないことがわかりました。