The picture below was taken on the April 29th. We continued cutting grasses to the fields.
The 2nd patriarch, my grandpa, used to live until I went to the U.S. and started taking an MBA program there. I bet most people like grandma over grandpa, but I liked grandpa better. The reason was simply she was really harsh to her grand children, although she was really nice to my mom. Actually, she probably used to hate kids in general. She used to row a boat, which used to be the task for the first son, for the head boat of dragnet fishing guild. I guess she grew up in a really severe environment, but it could not be a reason for her to say directly to us "that's why I hate kids" all the time.
(Picture: The path of the picture above actually is turning to the right, and the picture below was taken from the turning point. On the left, there's the only rice field which is still active around here, and the path goes right beneath it. From the starting point of the path, here is about 80 yards and there's about the same distance from here to the edge of the fields.)
By the way, my grand mother passed away on the day I graduated from the high school. If I summarize, she used to be really kind in heart and feminine in certain ways. She used to curse all the time, but I guess she tried to discipline us.
Oh, it was not about my grand mother, this was about grandpa. He had three sons, and I had 7 cousins (2 of them actually were born almost 10 years later) so 5 of us used to go fishing with him in summers, and I didn't hear even a complain about taking care of the kids from his mouth. He just kept smiling all the time and took care of the children without our parents.
(Picture: It's around the way right underneath the active rice field. The dent in the middle is the right edge of the path.)
My grandpa was a drunkard for sure, but his drinking habit was like one cup for the breakfasts, another for the lunches, and three for the suppers. Not like the 1st patriarch who drank and slept on every single street in the island, he never fell asleep while he was drinking, and I suppose it was because he was a soldier in the world war 2.
I heard he used to be a corporal in the army's intelligence unit. When he got drunk, he always used to sing war songs back in WW2. At nights, he used to play Japanese chess with us while drinking.
For lunches while fishing, he used to skillfully dress small fish on a small wood plate and made Sashimi, and to drink a cup of liquor hidden in the bottom of the boat. I still remember the taste and it was really yummy to bite rice balls with Sashimi on a small piece of a wood covering a fish cage.
He perhaps didn't like talking about the war, but the only exception was the story about him having proposed to a Chinese lady and tried to take her back to Japan back then in front of my grand mother. If I think about it, the proposed lady probably was a so-called comfort woman, and he was unique enough to do that kind of stuff quite seriously. Well, he might have been just simple to live like that.
(Picture: The path after cutting. Thatch tends to grow easily on the way once it was rice field's footpath, and they are really hard to cut. In addition to that, 3 inches diameter trees stop the cutter blade from spinning. My mom opened up the path like that. It looks just greens on a canvas of kid's drawings, but it's still a path.)
When I became around 12 years old, I used to go to grandpa's and help him gather and dress sea urchins every year. I used to do this until I graduate from the college, and my grandpa, my cousin and I used to gather 5 to 6 kg of them for a day.
It's kinda fun to gather urchins, but it is really the pain in the ass to take out the meat out of them, and we used to wake up at 2 in the morning and do the same thing over and over again until 7 o'clock while listening to the radio.
I think it was 600 dollars in total for a day in average. And, this was about when I started drinking and smoking every night with my grandpa. During the season, grandpa's daily 3 cups went up to 5 and he started trying to moralize me every time, but I always taught him over and made him sleep being defeated just like my grand mother used to do to him. In the next morning, he just ate peeled tomato with a cup of Shochu just like everyday while watching and smiling at my cousin and me eating urchin rice bowls (he didn't have enough teeth to bite down tomato with skin).
(Picture: The path we cut in the morning. You can barely tell it is a path after cutting cleanly, but it is a descent path, and you would realize if you walk along.)
My mom always told me that the war destroyed everything, but my grandpa never has taken the leadership of navvies like the 1st patriarch. He just lived as a fisherman, and he passed away.
I would suppose he was the only normal patriarch (except for the war) among 5 of us who just spent his time just as it was. What great about him was that nobody could take as much turban shells and abalones from the boat using his sticks, and he never bragged about what he could do, but he probably was a great mason at the time.
My father once had a job in the island and had to break a stone wall that was on his way thinking he could build it back in seconds. However, it turned out that even using 5 men for 5 hours could not make a wall that would not fall apart as it was.
My father, nothing left he could do about it, finally took his father and grandpa took a glance on it and put it back in 30 minutes. The wall became strong enough to stand just still even with the stompings of 5 men all over it.
(Picture: a wall that my grandpa made. They are everywhere along every paths of the fields, and they haven't moved even a bit for so long. The path my mom opened up was perfectly preserved from falling apart.)
My grandpa passed away on the date I started my MBA program. I suppose he never changes his 5-cups-a-day drinking even in the other world. I hope he would sing war songs when I go where he is in the far future, drinking the fifth cup.
When my grandpa went to stay in the hospital for the last time of his life, I heard he was bringing the literal crap in a bucket and broke his shoulder, which was invaded by cancer, by the stick to carry the shit.
He was someone who was really difficult to describe in an entry because of the lack of stories that I can brag about of him, but he was probably strong enough to normalize even the pain that would break his shoulder bone in the middle of shit.
When I was about to leave to the U.S. to take an MBA program, I went to visit him in the hospital. I thought it was the last time to see him alive, but my older brother said that my grandpa said "this is the last time I see him" even though nobody told him he was terminal. He knew when he was dying.
Grandpa, when I go where you are, I would bring some fish and Shochu fresh enough for us to drink a little more than usual, so please prepare for the war songs to sing for your fifth.
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