| １．Return to Hometown
The end of the war saved his life from the serious illness at the coal
mine, and he came back to his hometown in late 1946.
Then Kyozo started his next life in Shingu Hospital, but staying in the
hospital was no more than boring to him.
He left hospital after one month without the doctor's acceptance, and then
Kuma began to care for him at home.
The bed on the second floor with a good view of the sea gave him a lot
of relaxation in the circumstances of refreshing air and sea breeze. Though
turning back to nothing, the couple have their children, Yoriko, Kyota
and Kyoji. They have already grown up so rapidly.
The children were glad and romping around for their father's return. Poor
but peaceful life came back to the family.
Kuma goes to the field on a hill, leaving the store and her children to
the helper Sanae. Sanae, a niece of Kyozo, is a widow with a child. She
is working as a clerk of Wozumi Store before noon until dusk.
The seaman can never stay still at home. Getting out of the bed room, he
walks on the sand beach from Miwasaki to Sano with a thin bamboo stick
in hand. He has a clear intention to search for a spot where turtles lay
eggs poking the sand by the stick. Turtle's eggs going to be hatched under
the sand along the beach of Kyozo's walk are the most unlucky. They have
no other choice than to be dug out by a natural enemy.
For Kyozo, turtles' eggs used to be an important nutritional source to
him on Thursday Island in Arafura Sea. It is all the same here, but most
of the time, there are no turtle eggs lined up in a fish store though its
meat is seen.
Therefore eggs along the beach were destined to be a sacrifice to their
natural enemy.
He does not hunt them extravagantly. He finishes it with the satisfactory
amount to him and his family because he knows the natural blessing well.
Turtles' eggs and meat blessed Kyozo to come back to life.
The eggs, soft and as large as ping-pong balls, are kept in a sand box.
Kyozo eats four or five pieces at a time on boiled rice and barley with
a bit of soy sauce at every breakfast and lunch.
Kuma and the children also love such a dish.
The trouble is that the eggs left in a sand box became the shape of baby
turtles after a couple of days and baby turtles crawled out from their
soft shells in a week. Kyozo ate them in any shapes with no care.
Kyozo loved turtle meat much more. He ate them stewing like sukiyaki with
a lot of vegetables from the field. The children recognized its good taste
and vied with their father.
- - - - -
Yakuzas and some tough guys did not want to eat turtle meat though they
knew its good taste. They worried about some hidden sexually transmitted
disease. Especially syphilis was said to be brought to light forcibly once
this meat went into the body.
2. Back to His Usual Life
Such peculiar days brought Kyozo back to life smoothly. The fast speed
of recovery was much superior to the hospital's diagnosis.
He began to go to the sea and dive in less than half a year. Aside from
Kuma's worry, he restarted his hobby in the sea to chase games around Suzushima
Island and offshore.
With the underwater gun he swims wearing only fundoshi (toincloth) around
Suzushima Island near the fishing port.
When coming back after a while of diving, a lot of games are in the bottsuri
box.
During a severe life after the war, the games were, just like before, served
at dinner as well as taken to neighboring families and Sanoh parents. Kyozo
got back to his previous carefree life.
The seaman's territory is not only around the small island. He often rows
a small temma boat alone, to the offshore. He dives to search for any fish
place like sea beams, tuna, bonito, ..., and with his underwater gun catches
such fishes as fishermen would capture by nets or reel rods.
3. A Story of an Underwater Gun
As a man of ingenuity, Kyozo has not been able to overlook present inconveniences
or tiny matters about everything in life as well as tools since the days
in Arafura Sea.
The improvements he did include several inventions. He never wanted to
get a patent for anything. So afterward he has even forgotten such inventions
himself.
But the invention of an underwater gun deserves recognition. Here I would
like to refer to how he invented it as a shooting tool for fishes. This
news was reported by main newspapers even in English.
In the year 1933, he returned from Arafura Sea and started to live in Miwasaki,
his hometown. He viewed the sea, thought of fishes swiming under the rock
shore and coastal waters, and then thought over how to catch the fishes
while diving.
A certain image came to the mind of the man of ingenuity very easily. It
was a whale-shooting gun. It was not only a gun, but had a spear chained
with its bamboo stick different from whale-shooting.
Immediately sitting down in the room, he takes out a sheet of graph paper
among his usual tool set, and draws his image with colored pencils and
a triangle on it.
During the time he is in a different world, not accepting anything, even
tea serving by his love.
After his image is completed on the paper, the next task is the procurement
of materials of the parts. Each of them is specialized with his idea.
The role of a whale-shooting gun as a spindle is played by a thin bamboo
tree, which has to be strong and straight. He is sure to get it at a near
bamboo grove.
What Kyozo calls "chokkiri" is a fishing spear. As for how to
shape it from a metal piece, he consults Seiroku Urata, a black smith at
his same age. It is interesting that stammer Seiroku has been an intimate
friend with quiet Kyozo since their childhood.
Kyozo begins his work at his friend's workplace of bellows familiar to
him. The master Seiroku teaches his apprentice, looking at both of the
tool picture and a metal piece of a two-wheeled cart.
As of an elastic cord, a key material for the purpose of a bowstring, he
found a suitable one, could be useful to be cut for the right length, at
a general store in Shingu.
It is the turn of the black-smith master about the job for each of these
parts to be fit well. He, stammering, teaches Kyozo saying like "チョチョチョッと、こここんな風に"
(Look, ... like this way", in a stammering voice.) The apprentice
stares at the skillful fingerpoint of his boy friend and nods one by one.
They are in the world of childhood.
The careful finish to complete the whole work is quite easy to him as planned
because he is good and used to such a job.
Five underwater guns and five times of chokkiri, they should be good enough
for now.
The underwater gun might have been an epoch-making invention as a shooting
tool in the sea at that time, while it would have been quite a big trouble
to fishes. He was not willing to do useless killing, but quite a number
of fishes were thinned out.
Though no one knows how this matter was spread, several advices requesting
to apply for an international patent both from domestic and overseas came
over to Kyozo. But this kind of thing is just not in his nature.
"I don't like only for us to be in life."
Saying so, he did not have any reaction, and had nothing to do with it
at all.
There are his several other invetions. A mowing machine of seagrass is
among them.
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