Ladies, Grave & Tree-Cutting
○ Mon, Jan. 9th.It's Coming-of-the-Age Day today.This national holiday next year will mark the 20th anniversarysince I turned 20. So, I will have experienced two decadestwice since I was born. Comparing to the first two decades,I feel the second two decades have been passing more quickly.Never did I expect that I would keep myself single with nochildren at the age of 39 when I was 20.I have had four ladies I strongly wanted to marry in the past20 years: The first one was a young lady living in Tokyo.She was a young artist with big round eyes.She and I worked in the same building.One day we met and I fell in love with her at the first sight.We had dating several times. My boss helped me a lotin this love matter. But she already had hersteady boyfriend when I had a dating with her.I once attempted to take her from her boyfriend,but she became pregnant later and I had to give it up.The second lady was a student-nurse.She was and is now very famous among my students.When I saw her for the first time in 1997,I was astonished at her beauty!!!She was a student of mine at that time.We had a very good relationship with each other.However, six months later, I had to put an urgent end to the relationship between her and me for several reasons.Even still now, I regret that I shouldn't havejumped to the conclusion.The third lady was younger than I.When I saw her for the first time in my life,I was stunned, wondering how cute she was.She was a extremely cheerful cute young lady.she was a good pianist. She and I had a very goodrelationship. She took my English lesson because shewas supposed to study in the States.We enjoyed four months long lessons.I remember that we had a great time when I droveher to Hakata to buy Hakata dolls for her future host family.The story about the 4th lady can wait. Sorry for this.Now, as some of you might notice, I have a lady I love.But I have to give her up. This is certainly an impossible case,even though I want to try my best.----------------------------------------------In the morning today, I dropped by my parents' house.Then, a shocking news caught my ears.I didn't know this, but according to my mothera new convenience store, which is seven-elevenwill be built and open mid-February.The new shop is just close to my mom's store.It will be about 100 meters off from our storeon the opposite side of the street.There is another old shop near ours, about 30 metersaway from us. It's a liquor shop. The new shop is just acrossthe street from the liquor shop.My mother looked to be unhappy.Even though we haven't got as many customersas before now, the new shop to be open soon willsurely attract our existing customers.On the other hand, I think that this fact will be a goodopportunity for her to decide to close our shop.(I will talk about the history of 末次商店 someday. The history of 末次商店 can be traced back to pre-world war the second.)Honestly speaking, I do want my mother to closeher shop. She had seriously bad knees and has big troublewalking now. I would like her and her husband to spendthe rest of their life in more relaxing manner.After dropping by my parents' house,I went to our grave to pray for good business in this year.Our grave has one big problem.There are several trees around our grave.The trees have many long branches and they hangover the grave. making it dark even in the daytimeand preventing it from getting the sun.So, I decided to cut the trees down within this dayin order to give the sunlight to the whole graveafter going to the grave. I returned home to get a sawand other tools. Came back to the grave and began tocut the trees. Luckily the trees have few leaves nowdue to the winter season. So all I had to do is to cutjust the branches without leaves.It was a very simple, but heavy work.I needed over one hour to finish my job.I've heard that if our grave is dark, the atmospherein the house is also dark. On the other hand, if our graveis exposed to bright sunlight, our house is also blessed withbright atmosphere. That's why I decided to cut the trees down.Winter is a good timing for me since the trees have few leaves.It is easier for me to work on it.After this job, I had an English lesson with my deshi.In this lesson today, we watched some scenesof TITANIC, one of ex-popular movies and learneduseful expressions together.I am strongly hoping that she had a good timeand get inspired to study more.I will send you all useful expressions later by e-mail.--------------------------------------------Ken Suetsugu