“Haraboji*, are you as famous as people say?”
the little girl next door asked me one day - this was before she
began to go to primary school.
“What do you think fame is?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“It isn’t anything good,” I told her.
This year she’s in second year middle school.
Studying a poem of mine in her textbook
she said she knew the author well.
“So, what did you tell them?” I asked.
“I said you were an ordinary haraboji and that often you looked like a boy playing on your own.”
I was delighted by this reply. “You did well,”
I said in praise. “Thank you.”
I felt lighthearted all day.
* Grandad.