Boyhood 4
The grandfather often put the boy behind his bicycle and took him to a festival in the neighboring town. The bicycle carrier was hard and uncomfortable to sit on, but the changing colorful scenery from the bicycle surprised the boy. One warm spring day his grandfather took the boy on a bicycle to a cherry blossom festival where cherry trees were lined several kilometers along the riverbanks like pink haze, which covered until the bottom of the banks, and seamlessly from there yellow rape blossoms spread to all over the huge fields. To the boy it was so unrealistic that it looked like a picture book world.
The grandfather was calm, and like the boy’s guardian deity, he watched over the boy and when the boy quarreled with other children, he took the boy to the children’s house and scolded them. The boy’s father said that his father worked as an agricultural inspector at the agricultural cooperative, wore a suit, perfume and a hat when he went to work, and bought ice cream on payday. The grandfather didn’t talk with his spouse so much. But they didn’t have a fight either.
The grandmother made a school lunch for the boy, did laundry and took care of everything in place of his stepmother. While the boy’s father went to work, the grandfather used to go out to the fields to do farm work. The grandmother grew vegetables in a field that stretched out in front of the house. When the boy grew up a little, she often took him by bus to his relatives in the town. There was only one bus per hour, and sometimes they couldn’t wait for the next bus and walked along a national highway with a view of farm houses surrounded by bamboo grove and rice fields to the next bus stop.
At that time, the town was full of vigor and vibrancy with many shops. The grandmother also seems to like the bustling atmosphere of the city, and before going out to the town, she carefully tied her hair with hair oil and smelled like camellia. On the boulevard, various shops proudly lined up for kilometers on narrow roads. When there was a festival, the boy and his grandmother walked around the stores and stands. When he found something he wanted, he had a fit and threw himself on the ground and kept holding his grandmother’s hand and cried loudly until she bought it for him. She had no choice but to take out her wallet, paying attention to other’s eyes.
The uncle and aunt ran a tailor shop in the central street of the town and were thriving with four or five craftsmen. As a elementary school student, the boy spent about a week at his uncle’s house in his summer vacation. The craftsmen sat around the large rectangular table at the entrance and worked from early morning until late evening.
