Leif's Fifth Home - Sagamihara, Japan - Summer 1980 to Summer 1983

With all the photos I've posted of Leif in Japan and all I've written about life there with him, it's hard to believe that I can't find a single photo of the quarters we lived in there. There were so many fascinating things to photograph in Japan, and so many interesting people, but our quarters were pretty dull and apparently I didn't think they were worth a photo. This is the closest thing I've found and it only shows a little bit of the front of the building. I posted a cropped version of this photo when I was writing about Halloween, since this one was taken of the "ghost" that Peter A. and Leif were trying to scare people with on Halloween in 1982. Leif is on the roof over the front door area dangling the ghost over trick-or-treaters and he and Peter A. (wth their dad's help) were making plenty of scary noises. Of course, it was a lot darker than this photo shows.

The townhouse type quarters were in the Sagamihara Army Family Housing Area in Sagamihara, Japan. Our building was the last one, farthest away from the entry gate, all the way around by the back gate. There were three townhouse sets of quarters in a row and we were in the middle unit. The front door opened into the living room, with a stairway going up to the second floor right ahead of the doorway. We had a dining room and a kitchen also on the first floor, and four bedrooms on the second floor. One was very tiny, scarcely big enough for even a bed, and I had some things stored in there along with our digital keyboard that we would go in and play.

It was all very simply furnished with quartermaster furniture (belonged to the army, for you civilians) and we hadn't shipped much over to Japan as there is a weight limit that controls how much can be shipped. However, we had a great time acquiring things during our three years in Japan . . . all of us. The boys enjoyed the Japanese toys, our computer, which we got in 1982, and we got some lovely pieces of porcelain, prints, and rugs.

Our set of quarters faced a large grass area as we were set back off the street. There was another set of four quarters along on side, and the other side had a small wooded area, plenty of space for the neighborhood kids to play.

Behind our house was the fence dividing our American housing area from part of the Japanese residential area. We didn't have any way through the fence or know any of the Japanese on the other side, but there was one family named Tanaka who had two boys that were roughly the same ages as our sons. Once in awhile the Tanaka boys would climb over the fence and come to visit. It was always a challenge because they didn't speak English and our sons didn't speak Japanese, and my Japanese was extremely rudimentary, but they had fun. The older Tanaka boy could solve the Rubik's Cube amazingly fast, something we never learned.

The three years in Japan were a wonderful time for us, as a family, culturally, and in many other ways.

While we were there, Leif learned to ride a bike, played t-ball and soccer, completed kindergarten, first and second grade at the John O, Arnn Elementary School, was in his first stage production, went to Thailand and Hong Kong, did a lot of sightseeing and hiking, and was in his first earthquakes. His best friends were Anil and Atul Phull.

One thing that happened that showed me his truly amazing memory was then when he was in only first grade, his class took a field trip to a silk worm farm. It was a LONG trip with many, many turns on small Japanese roads. He memorized the entire route and was able to tell me exactly how to get there.

Life in Japan had a profound influence on both our sons which lasted all Leif's life.

Leif in the Hideout - Sagamihara, Japan - November 1981 - Age 6

Some of the boys in the neighborhood built a pretty cool hideout out of branches that had been trimmed from some of the trees in the wooded area. I took these photos of Leif peeking out of the hideout and you can see it was pretty large.

Leif's friend Anil shared this memory of what happened to the hideout with me:

I have an interesting memory about this one...I believe that Leif and a friend of his from down the street (with whom I had a falling out) built this shelter. It was very well constructed and I believe it was built over a ditch or crater in the ground so there was actually quite a bit of room to sit inside.

In the picture there is a blue structure to the left and what faintly appears to be Sagamihara's back gate, and from what I remember the shelter was in the "Batman's trail" woods across the street from where we lived (so maybe the blue structure is the Ushijima's old house, and is across the street, i.e. in our court; maybe the car is on the street?).

These guys spent forever building it, then one day when they weren't around I went over to the shelter with another troublemaker, and we were horse-ing around, and pretty much collapsed the thing. I remember walking around and on top of it with another boy saying aloud "this doesn't look that safe, it's not that strong" which quickly became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I believe I was persona-non-grata with Leif and the other boy for some time after that. But I also think that they rebuilt it to some extent.

I don't remember that, but it sounds like the typical neighborhood boy story. They all got along well most of the time, and I don't remember Leif ever not wanting to play with Anil. :)

Boys Fall Clean Up Brigade - Japan 1982

Kids are amazing. If we parents had told them to go out and rake and clean up all the leaves on our end of the housing area, they would have whined and protested, and definitely not wanted to do it.

But something got them started on their own. I don't know which of the boys was the ringleader, or even why they decided to do it, but Peter A., Leif, Anil, Atul and a couple of other neighborhood boys decided to spend an afternoon of hard work in the woodsy area near our townhouses.

We lived at the farthest end of enclosed (fenced) and gated Sagamihara Family Housing Area, a facility for families with a member serving in the military at Camp Zama, which was about two miles away. In addition to housing, which consisted for the most part of row or town houses with some single family houses for upper ranks, the area had a club, child care center, movie theater, swimming pool, elementary school, commissary (grocery store for you civilians), racquet ball courts, Boy Scout hut, and probably more facilities I've forgotten.

Many of the townhouses, at least in our part of the housing area, were arranged around three sides of large grassy areas where kids played, with the fourth side on the street and parking area. Our end only had two sides with townhouses. The third side was a small wooded area that was an even better place to play at times. That's where all the leaves were coming from, and where they had piled up high.

My recollection is that this is the only time in the three years we lived there that the kids showed any interest in cleaning up the leaves or any initiative about doing it, but for some reason, they had a mission that day. Maybe they were going to do something special in that wooded area and needed to have it free of the carpet of leaves. If any of the boys (now all men, of course) who took part remembers whether there was some special reason, maybe if they see this blog they'll let me know.

Anil and Atul lived in the second set of townhouses, the one perpendicular to the street. Ours faced the street. Their delightful Indian family were our neighbors for the three years we were there, and they were good friends of Leif's from the start.

We stayed in contact with them for years after both our families left Japan, but we lost track of each other some years ago. Now we are back in contact, thanks to the internet, but it was with a heavy heart that I had to tell them of Leif's death.

It's hard to hear of the death of a treasured childhood friend, and I thank Anil for permission to post some of his thoughts and memories on this blog. He wrote to me that;

My memory of him remains that of a very unique, creative playmate who had the best Star Wars toys and probably the only Apple computer within a 50-mile radius of the base.

One memory I have was when my parents bought us a set of kites that were strung together in a daisy chain. Leif and I went to fly them on an extremely windy day. We had put together two spools of nylon and watched as we got to the end of the second reel. Leif and I held on to it as tight as possible, and the kite practically dragged us across the lawn before we let go, spool and all. The kite must have been over 500 feet high and drifted off into the horizon. We weren't sure whether we were angry at losing the kite or ecstatic that we'd launched it into the lower atmosphere!

How I wish I had photos of that adventure! I thank Anil for sharing it with me.

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In the fall 1982 photo, left to right: Atul, Peter A. (nearly 14, Anil (behind), Leif (age 7). Sagamihara Housing Area, Japan.