My memory of Tachikawa (立川) where I was born
First of all, I don't have any intention to write a novel. I should clearly mention that I am not qualified.
Now that my life gets shorter, I have decided to keep a record my life.
It was probably 60 years ago when I saw Japanese women occasionally came to meet my mother who was a chef at a restaurant where she had lots of customers from Tachikawa Air Base. One common thing among those women --- they had married with US citizens. Knowing that there were many US bases in Japan, such a scene must not have been rare... Well, I'm wondering whether the plural form is accurate or not...but let me stick to my memory which might have been concocted though.
While it might cause unnecessary speculation, my mother was called Mama-san by Americans of Tachikawa Base. She just had a western food restaurant but with a Japanese name, coincidentally consistent with her somewhat fanatic belief in "leave Asia, enter Europe" (脱亜入欧), which definitely influenced me. She repeatedly told me that Americans were fair, which definitely tells something but obviously does not require any annotation here.
My mother told me with some picture books about railroads in US about gigantic steam locomotives of Union Pacific and Southern Pacific most likely based on her knowledge acquired from Americans in Tachikawa Air Base. She bought me books about various world locations.
It is noteworthy that she read me stories by Mimei Ogawa (小川未明), which has caused me to retain my image of my mother attached to those torn and discolored books.
Most likely under her direction, I started going to a catholic church, which didn't last long. She made me try many things such as music studio for playing a violin, drawing class... it is very evident that I did not enjoy them...
She developed an exercise book for arithmetic with pictures she drew by herself. She probably loved colored pencils, and bought me 60 colored pencil set, out of which Benikaba (紅樺色) #A24B44 was my favorite.
She was very keen that I should master the Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets (Ogura Hyakunin Isshu), and it interested me a lot... 8~10 years later at the senior high school, I had no problem in games of Hyakunin Isshu. Apparently I had some skill in memorizing things. It was not difficult for me to commit the Periodic table of the chemical elements by Mendelejev into my memory even at the elementary school. Once she found that I had an unusual interest in chemistry, she bought me advanced books of chemistry, a kind of material science, with lots of pictures.
My house being close to Tachikawa Air Base, there were some "half-blood" classmates in the primary school where I learned. One had family name Cleveland, another had first name James. Surprisingly I am unable to recollect any of Japanese classmates in Tachikawa, which might tell my unpatriotic attitude on a superficial level.
I still have an eidetic memory of my father looking at me from the corridor of the kindergarten on my first day in either 1961 or 1962. The best memory of my father, however, is linked to a rainbow after a summer shower while he took me by a bicycle. My father later told me that I had asked him to take me out by a bicycle in order to see a rainbow again.
He was very dexterous with his hands, and liked building plastic models for me when we lived in Tachikawa. After my mother lost her memory around 1999~ 2000, he started chalcography and artificial plants using his skill. Contrary to my father, I am depressingly awkward, and I've never been able to build a plastic model in a decent manner.
15+ years after the end of WW2, I saw people without legs or hands begging in the street of Tachikawa, which brought me uncomfortable feeling, and the scene remains in my memory as a monochrome photograph. My mother explained what had happened during the war, which I could hardly comprehend except for that she had worked in Nakajima Aircraft Company (中島飛行機) during the war.
In the early 1960s, there were electric locomotives of old style in Tachikawa Station where I also saw chocolate-colored electric railcars. Other than that, I don't recall anything about Tachikawa Station. One thing I'm sure is that it was completely different from the current flourishing station.
There's Tachikawa Velodrome (Tachikawa Keirinjō), a bicycle racetrack established in 1951 for "Public Sports". For a kid, I had no idea why there were so many short red pencils scattered on the road to the velodrome. Obviously it contributed to keeping Tachikawa City financially sound, and I believe it still does today.
After my parents closed the restaurant, my father started working with a brother of my mother. He sometimes used a pickup truck for commuting. Our dinner time was almost always around 8 pm because of my father's commuting. I felt strange that the life style of my family was different from the "average".
The photograph of USAF C133 Cargo Master taken in June 1967 is a kind of my precious memory of Tachikawa.
Much later in May 1988 at dawn in Karachi Airport in transit to Amman of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, I found myself hypnotized as if I were in Tachikawa Air Base. I plan to write my experiences in travelling around (mainly Middle East and Eastern Europe) in a separate article.
My family left Tachikawa in June 1967 under a reason which could be called "孟母三遷":
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/孟母三遷
In fact, it was not just a single occasion for my mother to make such a decision. Two years later, she changed the registered address of my family in order to prevent me from entering into a local school in the ward notorious with delinquencies. Luckily I entered into a junior high school attached to a national university in 1970 followed by a senior high school attached to the same university. My memories in the 6 years at the junior & the senior high school are bitter though, which I would not describe. To put it simply, I was a perfect étranger like Harry Clifton in "Only Time Will Tell" by Jeffrey Archer. I was so relieved with my entry to a national institute of technology in 1976 as if being emancipated from the 6 years of studying in a froideur environment. I specialized in mathematics at the institute, which is a separate topic I wish to visit.
After my mother developed dementia of the Alzheimer and got admitted to a hospital, I suspect it was when I worked in an Israel based company, my father handed me a letter which my mother had written as her testament to my father to convey her wish about her burial, which was a bit peculiar, but indirectly to me especially to my children who were yet to be born. It was written in 1984 or so after I started working in an American company.
Then at my father's deathbed in January 2018, I learned from my wife and the sister-in-law about additional "secret" of my mother...my father was probably hesitant about telling that to me, instead conveyed it to my wife and the sister-in-law. It made me recollect a gloomy memory of visiting either Kawasaki or Tsurumi with my father when we lived in Tachikawa… My father never explained its purpose…
My father, 17 years younger than my mother, was born in Nagano Prefecture and suffered tremendous hardships after having lost his mother when he was only ten years or so. I have no idea where my father met my mother, but I suspect it was in Tachikawa.
When his father (my grandfather) passed away, my father was admitted to a hospital due to a traffic accident. I attended the funeral of my grandfather in Shintō style, and saw "野辺の送り" (funeral procession) for the first time in my life.
There were great many photographs of my parents taken when we lived in Tachikawa, however, most of them appear to have been lost before my father passed away and only a few remain in my hand. I remember there was a photograph of my mother which reminded me of "Lakeside" by Seiki Kuroda.
In September 2021, after I decided to be "jubilado", I visited Tachikawa, 54 years after the move. I walked from Takamatsu Station of Tama Monorail to Kumano Shrine, a playground for me long time ago, and then found the primary school. It was a very sunny day, which was helpful to prevent my memory of Tachikawa from being unnecessarily darkened. Continuing to walk the narrow road, my memory unfolded, and finally found a house in a corner... Looking around, I found houses with nameplates that suddenly brought me back to half-century ago... That was the house where I started my life, saw Japanese women married to Americans, learned lots of things from my mother, who instilled a determination to work in an international arena in my mind but also sealed off things which had better be silenced.
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