Chapter 34 San Francisco duster (2)

Then, with the duster in my arms, I said goodbye to the friendly people and boarded the plane back.It was early summer, and the fluffy mass in front of my eyes made me feel very hot. At that time, the plane to Japan was not available every day, so I first flew from New York to San Francisco, stayed in San Francisco for a day, and flew back home via Hawaii the next day.The people who greeted me in San Francisco saw a bunch of dusters in motion and immediately recognized me and greeted me.Turns out someone from the New York office had called them and said "the duster is going," so they recognized me right away.

There was still a day to go, and I wandered the streets again.The hotel I stayed in was still the same one when I came here, and the scenery in front of me was still the same as when I came here.As I walked, I came to the door of the grocery store again, and the dusters that touched me that day were still lined up in the store.At this time, I finally thought of: "I actually didn't need to buy it at the time..." I knew from the beginning that I was going to come back here again, so wouldn't it be nice to buy it when I come back?That way I don't have to work so hard on the long trip.

I deeply reflect on how stupid my behavior is.Also, probably because I was always running around with a duster, my duster seemed a bit dirty and squashed, much worse than the dusters in the store now.The uncle in the store came out. The uncle seemed to remember me. Seeing me staring at the duster, he asked: "Do you still need a duster?" He must have thought I was a persistent fan of dusters. I thought, "Uncle would never have imagined that these days, I took such a long trip with that pile of dusters in my arms." I shook my head. "When John Manjiro returned from the United States, he brought a camera as a gift for his wife and a sewing machine for his mother. Compared with it, my gifts are too unreasonable."

Nearly three decades later, when I proudly said, "The first time I came to America, it was when the St. Lawrence Waterway was opened," Americans would open their mouths and ask, "Excuse me, how old are you? "Especially to young people who think the St. Lawrence Passage is as old as the transcontinental railroad, opened a long, long time ago. Those dusters, a memento of the joke, had been in my house until recently, but they had completely changed their color, and were gray like an old lady's hair.That dazzling color only exists in my memory. ① Katsu Kaishu (1823~1899), a politician in the late Edo period of Japan, was familiar with orchidology (that is, Western learning) and military science.Fukuzawa Yukichi (1834~1901), an outstanding thinker and educator in modern Japan, and the founder of Keio University. In 1860, a Japanese delegation including Fukuzawa Yukichi, captained by Katsu Kaishu, sailed across the Pacific Ocean on the warship "Kamirin Maru" and visited San Francisco.