The following article is a copy and its translated version of a Instagram/Facebook post that I wrote during my bike trip in Minnesota between Augst 31st. and September 3rd.– a short travel for visiting my former major professor.
The following article is a copy and its translated version of a Instagram/Facebook post that I wrote during my bike trip in Minnesota between Augst 31st. and September 3rd.– a short travel for visiting my former major professor.
It’s really scary to get overtaken by cars and trucks— especially by the huge 18-wheeler semis—on narrow country highways, though every single driver cautiously keeps distance when passing me.
車やトラックに追い抜かれるのは本当に怖い。狭い田舎の街道では巨大な１８輪トレーラーが格段に恐ろしい。どのドライバーも通り過ぎるときは注意深く距離をとってくれはするんだけど。
I started my bike trip rather late like 10:20 this morning, because the bike’s rack for the package needed some more adjustment though I did it once before.
I thank Jackie a loooooot for everything!
The following is a translated version of my former post “何十年経っても、なぜかそこに居る” on August 2nd (1st in the U.S.), 2020. In the article, I wrote about my major professor Lyle Laske, who was literally my all-time “major” influence. Regrettably, my greatest mentor and dearest friend Lyle passed away exactly two years later. I recently received an invitation from his family for a memorial open house to celebrate Lyle’s life– with the message “Bring only your cherished memories to share.” I am afraid I cannot make it to the celebration on time, but I would like to share my memory of Lyle with his daughter Letitia, son Andrew, other family members and friends. In order to do so, I quickly translated the article written in Japanese into English. There could possibly be misspellings an/or mistranslations, but Please be tolerant of such inappropriateness.
Although I don’t fish, I’ve got a minnow-shaped fishing lure made by a Finnish company called Rapala– the lure that is always around within my reach. (This small-fry-like bait may or may not be of minnow, though)
It was thirty-five years ago or so; my undergrad major professor at Moorhead State Univ. (present MSU at Moorhead) in the States, Mr. Lyle Laske used to take me out to lakes of Minnesota. One day, he took the fishing lure out of his tackle box and gave it to me. He didn’t even mean to drag me into fishing, but just wanted me to know how interesting and beautiful the form of this curtly simple lure was said he.
Ever since, this minnow has never swum in the water but always kept watching me over.
addendum:
No other person who has lived more intellectually and with a corroborate style (in the formal and/or spiritual meanings) than him is known to me. What I have learned from him, who grew up close to forests and lakes as a son of part-time hunter in Wisconsin, are so much and invaluable. Admiring him for his way of life and wishing to be like him one day, I have lived my life. However, it may end up in an unfulfilled dream… Well, I would like to live, keep trying to be up to it while the minnow’s eyes wide open watch over me (and if I do something wrong, the loon might warn me with its shrill call.)
『アラバマ物語』の続編で、新たに出版されたハーパー・リーの小説『さあ、見張りを立てよ』について書かれた記事を読んだら、長く忘れていた短編小説が思い浮かんできた。
The story I recalled is Erskine Caldwell’s “The Strawberry Season”. I read it when I was a junior high student, about the same time I saw the movie version of “To Kill a Mockingbird”.
その短編はアースキン・コールドウェルの『苺の季節』だ。読んだのはまだ僕が中学生のときで、同時期に映画化された『アラバマ物語』を観たころだ。
While “– Mockingbird” opened my eye to the social absurdity, “The Strawberry –“ awakened my pubertal sense.
『アラバマ物語』に社会的な不条理への目を開かされ、『苺の季節』には思春期の感情を呼び覚まされたのだった。
I read “The Strawberry –“ only once or twice, though I liked it very much. I hadn’t returned to the story ever since, because … I somehow imagined then the green relation between the protagonists, a young boy and a girl, wouldn’t last as the strawberry picking season was to end soon– too sour-sweet a situation for me to bear. I was simply too young, then.
僕は『苺の季節』がとても気に入っていた、とは言うもののほんの一、二度しか読んでいないのだけど。以来ずっとこの小説を読み返していない。というのは、、、なんか、こう、主人公の少年と若い女性の青っぽい関係は苺摘みの季節と共に終わってしまったんだろうな ― という想像をすると、そんな甘酸っぱい状況を受け止めるには切な過ぎた。当時、自分はまだまだ若すぎたんだろう。
Coincidentally, these stories’ background setting was the Deep South, but I do not know if it had something to do with my early interest in American literature.
偶然だけど、この二つの物語の背景はアメリカの深南部（ディープサウス）。ただ、そこに若かった僕のアメリカ文学への興味と何か関係があるるのか、は判らない。
—–
I just now read the“The Strawberry Season” this time in original English. After all these fifty years, the story is again sour-sweet as before; I am simply too old, today, though.
今しがた『苺の季節』“The Strawberry Season”を、今度はオリジナルの英語で読んだ。何だかんだ言ったところで、５０年経ってもこの物語は以前と変わらず甘酸っぱい。自分はもう歳を取りすぎてはいるものの、、、
追記：最初の英語投稿からもう丸６年。あれから僕は『苺の季節』も『アラバマ物語』も、その続編の『さあ、見張りを立てよ』も読んでいない。だいたい、大人になってフィクション、つまり小説というものは（アメリカでの英語授業で読まされたものを除き）数えるほどしか読んだことがないのだ。
『苺の季節』の前後にはオー・ヘンリーの短編を読むくらいだった。高校に入ると中の良かった同級生たちがやたら文学の話をするので、北杜夫の『白きたおやかな峰』を読んだが、小説と呼べるものはそれくらいだった。長じても『スミスのかもしか』や『2001:A Space Odyssey』くらいしか思い出せない。紀行文やエッセイ、技術書は山ほど読んだけど、、、
関係ないけど、今「大人になって」と書いたが、もう大人になってから５０年以上経った。この投稿の本文中にある「５０年経っても」というのは中学生の頃から数えての話だ。あの頃の５、６年の隔たりの大きさを考えたら、この６年は何の進歩もないまま、あっと言う間に過ぎ去った。いまだに「もう歳を取りすぎている」を更新中。
