Toast to Life 38 (Good Things, Bad Things)

This week, on September 29th, I had two good things. It was on the way back from an inspection received at a clinic in Makuhari, Chiba prefecture.

"K" (pseudonym). It was near JR Chiba Station, and it's a Japanese bar I used to go to when I was working at the Chiba branch of the Mainichi Newspapers. This is the only place left in my life that I can say "my place". The inside wasn't wide enough even for compliment, and the couple, master & mom, used to worked together, now who must be over 70s. The last time I went there was with a man who ended up at No. 3 in the prefectural office. When we were there, probably in around late 2000s, I remember he had a hangover from the previous day, and hardly drank at K. 

For me even then, I visited the bar for the first time in a while. Frankly speaking, however, I was disappointed to find that there was no menu of "chicken cartilage" and "raw oyster."

My inspection at the Clinic finished at around noon, and I wondered to stop by the bar on the way back home with a rental car.

Went down south on Route 14 and turned left at the "Nobuto" intersection toward JR Chiba Station. The bar should be on your right (south side). On the side was no "K". I was disappointed. 

"Is it gone? Maybe. The time has passed, we both have become old. On top, this Corona virus spread." 

The famous Chiba monorail runs above the road. I drove the car under it and made a U-turn before my reaching to the Chiba station. 

Then, "K" (pseudonym, pseudonym) came up on the left side, all of sudden.  It was just before my car joining back to the Route 14. 

At K, the design of the signboard changed, probably many times as time goes by, but the shape of the title ("K" in "hiragana" Japanese characters) remains the same. It was right after noon of the day. 

The shutter was down and closed, and no one was there. A paper post notified as like "because it's Covid-19 spreading, alcohol will not be served for the time being." This is the same phrases you see everywhere in town. (Now today is Oct 1st, I hope the bar is full of customers coming back.) 

I was inspired to leave a note. I started with "I'm Sato, and used to come here when I worked for Chiba Bureau, the Mainichi Newspapers", and briefly wrote down my history, my return to Japan last year, and my current contact information. It suddenly occurred to me that my current name card should be inserted along with the memo, and so did I before leaving.

In that evening, when I returned to home, I got a call to my cell phone with an unfamiliar number. "I'm S of K in Chiba. You came here today, right?" The withered voice just delighted me so much. He said he has gone over 70. With the telephone call, we warmed up the long-lasting relationship for the first time in 15 years. He talked about various things such as the difficult things posed to his industry due to the Covid-19, but decided to do as much as he/they could, even though he once thought he would close it. He also said that he has been keeping my old cell number for a long time in his phone. "I dialed your number, but it turned out to be the old one, and a different person came out. I thought, 'no, it's no good, we have come to a dead end.' Then I found the name card with your memo, to find your current cell phone number! Bingo!" Thank you, thank you.

From me, I talked over the phone various things but in short, such as being in Singapore with my family and returning to Japan last year because my health condition collapsed. 

I then asked him to let me talk to his wife, too. She started her talk, like "did you have a daughter, Sato-san?" Wow, you remember well. "Because I heard that." Did I say that to you before? "Yeah, you told me." It must have been when I went your bar with the senior official of the prefectural office, after 2005, the year when my daughter was born.

"Girls are welcome. She will be back to you." Right? I have a son, but he's a mommy kid. "It's okay. When a boy gets married, he goes to his wife. Your daughter should be okay." 

Recalling that the couple had no children, I was troubled by adding next phrases.

"Please let us know when you come next time. I'll prepare delicious food for you. Do you still practice having alcohol?" Just a little. It's a lot less than I used to. "Oh, that's okay... I will prepare a hot...(next word I thought was a word "tea")...sake." Oops. 

After "K", I also stopped by my former workplace, the Chiba Bureau of the Mainichi Newspapers. It should have been near JR Chiba Minato Station. I was a little lost, but there was. It's the same as it used to be. 

When I was there in the first year (1992), the branch building was the previous one. But during my time at the Mobara station, located on the navel of the prefecture, the then new bureau was rebuilt. It's been 30 years since then.

The bureau looked an old one with shabby walls, losing their colors. A car was parked in front of the building, probably of a reporter's after his/her graveyard shift. Then, looking behind the building made me surprise. In the hinterland, the condominiums were approaching to the wall of the Bureau building, which used to be a huge, baseball park-like, parking lot.

So, back to my inspection. I visited a hospital specializing in traffic accidents, called "Chiba Nursing Center" (photo above). It was the place I received "PET" examination (not covered by insurance) for brain tumors. The hospitals/clinics doing PET are quite hard to find even in the Tokyo metropolitan area. At the previous consultation in last September, my attending doctor MD Tabei told , "somewhat worrisome findings" on my MRI image, so he introduced me the Center. 

Result? "Please ask when you see your doctor next time. I'll send him the images by then." "Oh, your next is October 12th," said the Center doctor. This is "the carp on the chopping board" (sorry about the old Japanese saying), disappointing.

(The photo on the top was of two-merged ones. On the left is my son in 2012 in Singapore, and he was curious on ants marching in lines. On the right is me, in probably my elementary school G4 or 5. Continued)