| * The weather forecast said last night that it would have rains in Tokyo from early this morning. But at the sunrise (about 5:30,) it had a beautiful red sky. From about ten o'clock, the whole sky was covered with clouds and it had light rains now and then throughout a day. |
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* In evening, I had a call from Mr. Kazuyoshi Onuki, a classmate of the middle school. He said he was a proposer and a general manager of the thanks meeting to Mr. Kazoo Koyama by "the 1941 Tokyo Metropolitan First Middle School Golf Club." But he had a very important meeting of his company so that he left our meeting just after he made a short opening address. On the phone, we talked a bout the book titled as "The White Paper of Education for Senjyu Family " authored by Mrs. Fumie Senjyu, the wife of late Mr. Shizuo Senjyu. He said he was of the same opinion as me. I wrote my comments in a page of September 25th in this travel diary. We agreed that not only Fumiko-san but late Shizuo-san played a very important role for growing their three talented children to excellent artists.
When Hiroshi, their eldest son, made his mind to try the entrance examination for the National Tokyo Arts School, many highschool students tried to enter standard universities at first even though they wished to artists. After they succeeded to enter universities, they prepared themselves for the very difficult examination of the school. But Hiroshi tried only the national art school burning his boats behind him. Shizuo-san, the father of Hiroshi, agreed with him positively. But he failed the examination three times. Mr. Onuki said during that time he worried about his son very much. He said he had no way to help him as a parent. Finally he got through the examination. Right after he entered the school, he started his extraordinary activations in the field of arts.
When Shizuo-san, who stayed in U.S.A. as a visiting professor to a university one year earlier than his family, had his family to come the states, he drove a Chevrolet together with his wife and three children four thousand miles from San Francisco to Texas in two weeks. He seemed to be an fast driver, I think. I had driven almost the same route as them across the deserts in Californian, Nevada, Colorado and Arizona a bit later than them in 1959. While I was staying in Los Angles, my boss of headquarters in Japan, came there and asked me to take him for sightseeing to Las Vegas and Grand Canyons. His available time for the trip is from a Saturday morning in Los Angles to the Sunday evening in San Francisco. We took a plane to Las Vegas and rented a Chevrolet there. We visited the Boulder dam first and took a night at a hotel in Grand Canyon. On the second day, we drove back to Las Vegas from the Eastern part of the canyon through a country road which passed by the Indian protection zone and at last we arrived at Las Vegas airfield after six o'clock. The speed meter of the Chevrolet had a measure of 120 miles per hour top speed. But even though I pressed down the accelerator pedal to the floor, it could hardly get 110 miles, having the fierce shake of car-body. I imagined from Fumio-san's book and also the above mentioned my own driving experience that Shizuo-san drove their car at 90 to 100 miles per hour all through four thousand miles.
Mrs. Senjyu said in her book that her children got fresh and strong impression from the tour. They painted pictures or composed music from a motive of this journey years later. The trip might be a Shizuo's farsighted plan for their children to experience the nature of America by themselves. It is said that NHK is working on a semi-documentary video which looks back their journey together with the sister and two bothers and their mother. I will be waiting for it.