East of the USA

It is a short distance, slightly more than 100 km, from Toronto to Niagara Falls. The Great Lakes - Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, from the west to the east - are interconnected and Niagara Falls is located at the point where the water flows down from Lake Erie in the south into Lake Ontario in the north.

The water in Lake Ontario then flows into the St. Lawrence River and travels towards north-east. It flows by Montreal and disappears into the Atlantic Ocean. As the five lakes are all as huge as an ocean, I supposed that in this region there is not any problem about water resource. However, according to the information from someone, most part of the water in these five lakes is salt water and fresh water is found only in the northern part of Lake Superior, of which I am not sure if it is true or not though. There is a bridge at the downstream rim near Niagara Falls. The west end of the bridge is in Canada and the east end is in the US. Probably because Niagara Falls can be seen better, both tourists and hotels are found more in the Canadian side and the US side seems to be forlorn. In the Canadian side there is a promenade running parallel to and by the very side of the river that flows down into the fall, one can see the river water falling down into the deep plunge basin within touch of your hand. However, the vicinities of the cascade are fully covered with the splash of the falling water, not a few tourists wear rain suites. I am OK in leather jacket and pants. Indeed the water fall is of a grand scale, however, I was not so much impressed, having the feeling that this was exactly the same as in the screens I had often seen in the movies or on TV. The Us side of Niagara Falls is New York State and the neighboring city Buffalo is quite a large city. There is State University of New York in Buffalo. Before this travel I was interested in the city, because one of my old friends Machiko Matsui studied at the university after thirty years of age. She passed away in the spring of the last year by breast cancer. Buffalo is, however, not a cozy city. The residential area of the city is split away by the crisscrossing wide roads. I had a helpless feeling even when I tried to cross the street to the store on the other side. The width of the streets surpasses the walking speed of human beings. The city is designed for motor vehicles and it is safer to use a car however near the destination is. I do not want to live in a town like this. I do not feel easy because the town does not meet human scale.

I rode to the south on the US219 from Buffalo. I came into Pennsylvania within 100 km riding. The farms are interspersed in the extension of the forests. In these farms in Pennsylvania and its vicinities the Christians called the Amish live in numbers.

They do not use electricity. They will not take the electricity into their house although the wire is supplied along the road in front of the house. Therefore their houses do not have a TV antenna. They use a horse-driven buggy for transportation. The top of the buggy is painted in black. It gives the feeling of time-warp trip back to the medieval days. They love peace and refuse to go to war. They are also said to be against the formal education offered by the nation. People say that they do not pay tax if the tax is not for their necessity. This Amish is a incredible group of people in such a country an the USA.The US219 runs from north to south in the west of Pennsylvania and soon enter Maryland. I ran into an intersection with three buildings of a supermarket, fast-food restaurant and motel. The location is good for staying a night. If the fast-food restaurant were replaced by a bar, it is the best. The things do not always go well though. I asked the charge of a room. "Really? 22 dollars including tax?" It was inexpensive! That was the most inexpensive among the motels where I had stayed in the US. I paid for tow nights on the spot.When I parked the motorcycle in front of my room, an older man with beautiful gray hair, who is shorter than short I, talked to me. He limped a little. When I made a trip by motorcycle in Japan, people often came and talked to me. It is also true in North America. His English does not have accent. He is staying next door. On that night I talked with him again. We talked on the night of the following day, too after I spent all day in learning how to renew my home page. His story was so interesting that I decided to stay another night there. His name is Jimmy Higgins and he is 67 years old. He was born in Manhattan, New York. His parents got divorced when he was a kid. Later his mother died and he was raised by his aunt. He grew up in difficulties, doing shoe-shining on the street. He said he had been a bad boy. He also said that he had been single and never been married. It is the same with me. He had never had a fixed job and had spent all his life in wandering about. He calls himself a hobo. Strange enough, when I asked him about how he made a living, he answered he lived his life by hitch-hiking around the US with the social security money of $400 a month. I wondered if even a person, who has never had a work, can receive that kind of money. Anyway, it is desperately hard to be a vagabond with only $400 a month in this expensive country. Naturally he cannot afford to a motel for every night. He usually sleep in a park or somewhere. He prefers cold regions to hot places. He says he is moving to Michigan near the Canadian border. It will be getting colder soon in that area. So, I have run away from that region to the warmer south. His property is only one small bag. He does not have either a tent or a sleeping bag. He sleeps in a mat in snow. I asked him if it is not cold and he answered yes. He is a tough-minded man.

It is the same with me that he is homeless and jobless, but the decisive difference between him and me is the fact that Jimmy does not have money. Nonetheless, he keeps cool and never shows gloominess, probably because he is he accepts his life as it is. Listening to his stories, I laughed and laughed loud till I cried after a long time. There is an exquisite rhythm in his way of talking just like that Japanese movie character Tora-san, a hobo, and his one story develops incessantly another new story. Jimmy, who vagabondizes with limited possession, is against power and like Tora-san mocks the stupidity of the authorities or intellectual classes. On the other hand he is proud of himself, saying that he is a street smart, who has learnt lots of truth from the people and the society, although he is far from academism. He criticizes the society of the US, where money is everything. He also criticizes the US where the people attribute their faults to others. He says, "If you want to be respected by others, you must respect yourself in the first place.", and "If you really want to know the history of the US, then you read the history book written by Canada not by the US." I believe that a person who can set himself away from himself and from his society and who can look objectively at himself from a different point of view, is truly intelligent. He says if he won the lottery, he would buy some shirts and pants and then a small house that has the space of three motel rooms with a convenience store in the neighborhood. He is never greedy and his dream is not so difficult.

On September 11, on the fourth day in the inexpensive motel of $22 a day, Jimmy was to leave the motel, because he had only $10 left in his pocket. So, I also had an idea to leave. I got up at 9:00, took a shower and eating loaf of bread with milk. The room light was abruptly turned off. Jimmy is roaming about in front of my room. I go out of the room and he asks, "Do you know the World Trade Center in New York?" "Yes, but ...?" "An airplane crashed into the building of the WTC!" "Is it intentional, not accidental?" "It was reported to be caused by terrorists." "Is the incident the cause of this blackout? But New York is too far from here." "I do not understand." "I do not believe this can be possible, but the American government might have cut the electricity supply all through the US in order not to let the people know more about this." At that time a great idea seemed have hit Jimmy and he disappeared into the room. When he came back he had in his hand a short-wave radio that he is proud of. Radio reports, "Washington D.C. was also attacked.", "The south tower of the WTC has corrupted.", and "There is no clear relationship, but another plane crashed 60 km south-west of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania." I say to Jimmy, "It is very close to here. That must be the cause of this blackout."

After the explosive burnt-down in New York, an email from my dear Michael was sent to me. He says that the cause of the terrorism is in the US and it is the result of the US policy. The US has crucified the people of the world after the World War Ⅱso that it can enrich itself and protect its own economic rights. Ten days after the incident, many people of the US hang out the American flags and get abnormally excited in the mood for beginning the war, however, this man is keeps intellectuality and his presence of mind. Indeed he is the respectable person who devoted his young days to the benefit of the poor Nicaraguans who suffered from the US policy.

After deciding this journey, I have been mad about the songs of Mariko Takahashi. Her voice is fantastic and at the same time the poems of her songs are also great. In one of the poems there is such a phrase as; "We are burn to love others and we can be affectionate after more sufferings." Those who have never experienced pain cannot understand the pain of others.

We can be a little more modest if we know the pain of others. Not to change the subject, but we have somehow suffered from English, while we keep staying in Japan, at schools and offices. A stupid person from the US, for example, does not understand our fruitless efforts and might say to a Japanese in Japan, "Why can you speak English? Are you a fool?" or "English is the only international language and the best language on the planet." An arrogant person of such kind certainly cannot speak Japanese however long he/she stays in Japan. The other day I met some Esperantists in Toronto for the first time in my trips in foreign countries. I met seven Esperantists in all. While all of them speak English and they can keep enjoying the enormous merits if English stays the "only international common language, these people dare to deny such idea and make efforts to retain and promote Esperanto. I think they are respectable.

The Us declared war against the international terrorism. However, I am afraid the victory of the US cannot be expected. The US was beaten by the guerrilla in Vietnam. The Viet Cong made the best use of the nature and the people of their own land and beat the US. This was, however, still in a flamework of a conventional way of fighting. The terrorism of this time is to break, through guerrilla fight, the week points of our sci-tech civilization and its resultant urbanization. As we know the frequent accidents of the atomic reactors, our science and technology are very fragile with regard to safety. It is never easy to keep safety even if the closest attention is paid. On the contrary, it is extremely easy to break it. The fundamental factor to solve the problem is simple. It is not to make the people who come to have an idea to break it. I think that before crying out war the US must rethink the reason why the terrorists took that kind of action, betting their lives. The US must know the sufferings of those people a little more.

On the 11th of September I left the motel and headed for the Appalachian Mountains.