Archive for the 'Lessons' Category

The Head Hancho

Published by Bob Sanchez on November 17, 2008 in Baseball, Funnies and Lessons. 3 Comments

Yo, did you know that “hancho” is a Japanese word? I didn’t until I got on the horn a few weeks ago with a man from one of the Nippon Pro Baseball teams.

He’s an older Japanese gentleman who spent some time working and studying on the East Coast, losing his job after a company named Federal Express bought out the smaller shipping company for which he worked.

Mr. Shipping returned to Japan and began working for a famous Japanese shipping and transportation company that happened to own a baseball team. Now he does more work for them on the baseball side of operations. His is an interesting but not uncommon route to becoming a Japanese baseball team’s manager of international affairs.

Unlike some other “international” guys, Mr. Shipping speaks English very well and is an extremely learned man to boot. I imagine that he would be an excellent JEOPARDY! contestant, as he never fails to sprinkle a few of the latest headlines and add a dash of old-fashioned wit to each of our conversations.

Once, I was asking him about a player in whom my club was interested, and found that his Port City . . . Longshoremen . . . held an option on his contract for 2009. The option gave the Longshoremen rights to the player within Japan, but he was free to sign with an American club in the event that there was interest.

I pressed on with more questions and found that the player’s wife had a lot of weight in the final decision, and my one-yen cell phone was burning up with all of the great information I was getting.

However, I asked one question too many, and Mr. Shipping responded in a delicate, smooth tone:

“Well, Mr. Mac, I do believe that what you’re asking me could be considered what you call ‘tampering,’ if I’m not mistaken.”

Though delivered in nearly accent-free English, he couched the comment in the typical Japanese layers of politeness and indirectness. The above phrase is very close to what spoken Japanese sounds like, especially when you’re accusing somebody of something.

I was as surprised to hear the word come out of his mouth as I was that I had crossed the line. So many times on this baseball journey, I have learned that I don’t know as much as I think I do about business and the way things work in the game.

We get words like “tampering” and “option clauses” on the television sports reports, but I would surmise that most people don’t know what they really mean. I know that I have thrown words around the concepts of which I was sure that I knew.

I was standing on a land mine in front of Mr. Shipping because I didn’t stop to think about what I was doing; I never thought that I would come close to committing an unethical business practice.

His tone was calm and he gently coaxed me out of the mess into which I had greedily stumbled. Our relative ages and experience left no doubt as to who held a higher position, but he assumed the upper hand so gracefully that he was easy to listen to and learn from.

I apologized tensely and took the lesson to heart, and he followed up with what could be described as a verbal muscle relaxer:

“So, I got it right, didn’t I? ‘Tampering?’”

Instant relief shot through my body and I almost dropped the phone. I chuckled and confirmed that he had indeed knocked that one right out of the park.

On another occasion, I called him to ask about an impending rule change for foreign scouts in Japan. An industrial league player named Junichi Tazawa is making huge waves right now by attempting to become the first scandal- and hardship-free Japanese player to play in the Major Leagues without first playing professionally in Japan.

There are plenty of young Japanese players ahead of him in the minor leagues who may get there more quickly, but Tazawa is a highly sought-after pitcher and officially asked not to be drafted in Japan for the second straight year. He is the banner case, the poster child, the final unwelcome wake-up call to those who want to protect Japanese baseball from evil, foreign predators.

NPB and the amateur leagues freaked out and slapped a multi-year penalty on any player, including Tazawa, who refuses to play in Japan first and goes abroad instead. Should they try to return, they will have to sit out two or three seasons, depending on the circumstances upon their departure.

Among other suggested measures was a registration system for MLB scouts, and I assumed that other, more stringent regulations would accompany such a system. In short, I was worried about my status in the country and with my club in the event of a rule change.

The day of the draft passed, Tazawa went untouched, and the penalty will be enforced for the first time. But there was no news on the MLB scouting registration. I wanted to know what was up, so I gave Mr. Shipping a ring.

He let me know the particulars from the NPB meetings and it sounded like there was nothing to worry about. My club does things on the up and up and we already have all of the pieces of proof and approval that we would need should the rule go through.

Mr. Shipping continued with the minutes of the meetings:

“You know, there were some problems a few years ago with some people posing as scouts or agents in order to get contact with our amateur players,” he explained.

“One man made false business cards and distributed them to high school coaches in order to gain access to the players and their families. Another disguised his voice on the telephone and tricked team officials into giving him free tickets.”

The whole while, I was giggling inside because Mr. Shipping is very meticulous with his pronunciation and his diction is a little stiff, but never incorrect as far as I’ve heard.

He uses so many official-sounding words, yet with his warm tone makes you feel like you’re sitting on the opposite side of a campfire from him, with a marshmallow on a stick in one hand and a mug of hot chocolate in the other.

“You know, I think that NPB simply wants to make sure that scouts are actually doing work at these games. So many of our [Japanese] scouts have been caught at the games with their friends, their families, their concubines - ”

I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I didn’t wake up that morning in Kochi, Japan expecting to hear the word “concubines.” Come to think of it, “mistress” is probably the only word (of the many we have for that . . . position . . .) he could have used there that wouldn’t have made me laugh.

All in all, I like calling Mr. Shipping because I get good baseball information from him, but he usually manages to enrich my day with some polite conversation or an eclectic bit of knowledge.

A few Japanese teams have shut down toward MLB guys thanks to the “Tazawa Problem,” and it’s refreshing to still have at least one official on your side. I’ve been hung up on, snarled at, ignored, and banished to the left field corner for scouting in the last two months. All of it makes me sad that my team isn’t interested in Tazawa, that might make some of the shoddy treatment worth it.

But Mr. Shipping and the other representatives of the Port City Longshoremen have been gentlemen since Day One.

Back to “hancho.” I think he made the comment in reference to that player’s wife, something along the lines of “she’s the head hancho in their home.”

He paused after he said it, and asked, “Do you know ‘hancho?’ It is an old Japanese word.”

He asked me to guess the origin and the characters used to write it, and I was searching through the Rolodex for matches to “honcho” because I had always seen it spelled that way in English. “Honcho” would have the long “o” sound in Japanese, and I came up with a pair of characters.

“Wrong,” he said gleefully. He then explained that a “han” is a squad or a patrol, and “cho” means “long” but is often used to refer to the head of a group or department (the words for “manager,” “department head,” and “principal” all contain the same “cho”). The word came from way back in ancient wartime Japan.

I instantly recognized “han” from the CSI episodes that make it over here. They’re called the “Chemistry Investigation Squad” in a literal translation, or “Kagaku So-sa Han” for those of you keeping score at home.

So there you have it. The origin of “hancho.” And the story of Mr. Shipping, the best ambassador of Japanese baseball and the head hancho of international relations in my book.

Fastest Biker in Kochi, Part III

Published by Bob Sanchez on November 10, 2008 in Bike and Lessons. 3 Comments

So, at this point, I’m still the fastest biker in Kochi.

I was wondering where the challenges lay.

I didn’t have to wonder much longer. We stopped to regroup and prepare for the most difficult stretch of the day - a six-mile climb of 2,400 feet to the top of Tengu’s Plateau. We could see our goal, which was an incredibly steep, skyscraping plain off in the distance with a road etched into the side of the jagged cliff underneath it.

The sight was phenomenal and other-worldly. I should have taken a picture and will next time. I watched a microscopic, white car disappear over the plain in the distance and geared up for the ascent of my life.

I had never attempted a climb of this magnitude even on the old bike with easier climbing gears. The closest would be a sudden, thousand-foot rise over a three-mile road just north of Kochi City that I had done several times.

Recalling all of the advice I had received about climbing on a road bike, I set out to keep momentum going and pedal hard. It didn’t work, and I failed fantastically. I was pooped after getting through the first 12% grade incline within the second mile.

On the old bike, I could always make one last pedal before simply letting my feet fall off the pedals and to the ground. This time, however, I forgot to clip out again and collapsed in a heap, wheezing, spitting, and cursing the Tengu, wondering what I had done to deserve such punishment.

Aside: A tengu is some kind of mountain demon with a red face and an extremely long nose. It has several meanings in ancient history and religion, but many people I’ve asked agree that it’s an evil spirit that only does bad stuff to bad people.

I waited for the familiar purple and yellow rings in front of my eyes to go away and attempted to hop back on for more pain, but clipping in uphill proved to be a frustrating endeavor. I finally got it done, but was off the bike again in two or three minutes, defeated by yet another steep slope.

There was no way I could get back on at that point, so I began to walk the bike up to the next flat point, the existence of which I doubted.

Walking in cleated shoes that are not designed for walking is not fun, and I was extremely flustered by the slow place and the slipping around as I dragged my body uphill. It was more difficult than walking on cement in metal baseball cleats, and my old baseball buddies and the scars on the insides of my ankles will tell you that I was horrible at doing that.

I tried twice more to get moving on the bicycle but did not have the aerobic capacity to keep anything going. A few riders passed me, pedaling painstakingly slowly but, alas, still moving toward the goal.

What they were doing looked masochistic, a way to draw out the awful pain and make it last as long as possible. I thought then that if someone had come by and given me a choice between pedaling all the way up that thing without stopping or dying, I would have gotten on my knees and said, “Make it quick.”

However, the other bikers were experienced and I thought it wiser to imitate them than to sit and wait for the support van, so I got back on the horse and did as the Romans were doing.

It worked! It was much harder on my legs, but my lungs no longer felt like blazing hot bricks and I could actually look around and enjoy the scenes of an early fall in the Shikoku Mountains.

Not until I reached the 4,500-foot summit did the Bike Shops take me aside and tell me that biking was an aerobic activity. I really didn’t think of it that way, because on the old bike I had always been out of breath with muscles aflame trying to keep up with the group.

I see the merits on both sides, keeping momentum versus consistent respiration. If you’re intimate with a certain mountain or hill, you know where it makes sense to push it and blow through a rise and where it’s smarter to hold back and trudge up slowly.

Tengu’s Plateau had no such variation as far as I saw, it was just damn hard the whole way through. I took note of how well the aerobic approach worked and will try it again in the future.

I sat on the ground at the peak, looking around at the white clouds and barren, sloping plain before me. The karsts I had seen in pictures were all covered with beautiful, wild green grass that made the white and gray boulders stand out and shine in the sun, but it seemed that we had missed that time of year. The ground was brown and the rocks dull.

Still, the highest point on Shikoku is 6,000 feet and we couldn’t see that mountain for all of the clouds, so it felt like we were on the top of the world. It was deathly quiet, and a lonely wind crawled past our ears as we zipped up our windbreakers and changed into winter gloves.

We still had 15 miles to go to get to the riverside lodge where we would spend the night. My butt had frozen up and it hurt just to sit on the saddle, let alone pedal. Fortunately it was all downhill from the plateau, but the pain was excruciating and deep. Now I know exactly where the muscles connect to the hip bone, they were screaming at me the whole way down the mountain.

In the middle, there was an unlit, curved tunnel 350 yards long. We went through one by one and stopped in the middle, experiencing total darkness. My turn came, and I felt very small and alone in the absence of light. I remembered to clip out, though, that was good.

In that short time, I let my mind wander to an assortment of topics and forgot which way was out. My body hadn’t moved, so I was pointing in the right direction, but I couldn’t remember how much I had already turned to the right or how far away from the walls I was. There may not have been any walls for all I knew, perhaps that tunnel was where holes to China, missing socks, and Alex Winter ended up.

Complete darkness is fun when you’re in a cave and the guide has just turned off the flashlight, or when you’re groping your way around inside the base of a Buddha statue, enclosed in a space barely large enough to stand up straight, let alone kick your toe around looking for the next stairstep.

Not as fun when you have to guess which way is forward and gyrate some wheels to establish balance. The proverbial light at the end of the tunnel appeared, but it had a very definite end to it and I was still bathed in darkness. It was such an odd, nightmarish feeling to see the light source and where the light rays stopped but to be outside of that area.

The national highway inexplicably ceased to be paved and we tumbled and bounced over rocks and gravel for about half a mile before reaching the lodge, where we enjoyed Korean food, cheap Korean beer and Kochi sake, and stories from long ago until we fell asleep, completely exhausted.

We awoke early the following morning to a misty rain that would stay with us all the way back into the city. I was anxious to get home and jump in the tub, and I shot out in front of the group before being told again to slow down.

I didn’t quite get it until a few miles later when we faced a long, but gradual uphill slope. The biker behind me whispered in my ear, “Mac, take it a little slower on the hills, eh?”

The oldest member of the group that day, a 58-year-old retired veterinarian with a huge face, shouted out a phrase in Japanese that has multiple uses, one of which is “please take care of this for me.”

I’ve stopped translating the phrase and don’t ever have to think about it to know what it means in each situation, so I understood what the vet meant as soon as he said it.

I also finally understood the team aspect of cycling and our trip. We stuck together to share the wind, the grind, and the experience. It was important for everyone to stay together, and all I had been thinking about the whole time was myself.

I then thought back on all the times someone had stayed behind to tell me where to turn, or turned and gone back early with me when I simply could not keep up or make it one more leg at the breakneck speed of the racers. Scarce were times that I returned to Kochi City alone.

I owe the riders in KCTC a lot. I feel a great sense of accomplishment having toughed it out for a year with inferior equipment and less experience, but I didn’t beat those obstacles alone. I got encouragement and guidance from every single member and I will pay it forward.

So, while I really wanted to stretch my wings (and hop in the tub as soon as possible), I joined the group and rode merrily with them back to Kochi. It was fantastic and I am looking forward to riding with them again and again. There will be plenty of other times to sprint and max out.

————————–

Where had I gotten off thinking that the challenge in cycling was gone? I’m glad that I was brought down to Earth quickly on that one. I still feel like I can go until the pavement stops, and I’m anxious to expand my radius over the winter, but I know there is still so much to learn and I’m wide open to it.

On top of the lessons in humility, I had seen several guys in their fifties ace the hellish trek up Tengu Plateau. Talk about inspiration. I hope that I’m still able to do that in thirty years.

I thought I was the fastest biker in Kochi.

Fastest Biker in Kochi, Part II

Published by Bob Sanchez on November 8, 2008 in Bike and Lessons. 1 Comment

I am the fastest biker in Kochi.

The time finally came to officially try out my new horse with KCTC. I came out with the bicycle a couple of Sundays ago, still not fully committed to buying it and fixing it up. Rain and an out-of-town bike race left me standing at the Bike Shop alone.

I visited the Bike Shop three or four times during the week to buy parts and ask advice on the used bike that I decided to buy. Rice Man helped me put it together and fixed the mistakes I had made trying to do things on my own.

Mrs. Bike Shop put in a special order for clip-in shoes for me (”Mac, your feet are impossibly huge . . .”), and they arrived at the Bike Shop Saturday morning. I had but one day to break them in before the big two-day trip to the Shikoku Karst on the Kochi-Ehime border.

Aside: I’m still not sure exactly what a karst is. Seems to be strangely-formed land with lots of rocks strewn about, and apparently the campus of UC Santa Cruz is a mini-karst.

The Bike Shops still hadn’t touched the bike other than the diagnostic exam that Mr. Bike Shop had done earlier, but they did hand me a screwdriver and a giant Allen wrench to install the new pedals and clips.

I tried the bike out with one shoe on and instantly noticed the difference of having my feet attached to the pedals. When I hopped on the old bike and pedaled, I was only applying force forward and down on the pedals, but with clip-ins, my legs were working throughout the entire circle. I put on both shoes and tried them out, and the bike nearly took off from underneath me!

I took on a couple of familiar hills and passes on the way to a favorite beach an hour away by the old bike. It took 45 minutes on the new one with about the same amount of effort. I loved how easy it was to maintain momentum, how fast I flew when I pedaled harder, and the more aerodynamic position of my body on the frame.

The members of KCTC broke into applause when I wheeled up the next morning, and exploded with laughter as I fell to the ground, forgetting to clip out and separate my feet from the pedals. I had a huge smile on my face and was waving at them like a dope, effectively erasing the WARNING: YOU ARE STILL CONNECTED TO THE VEHICLE message in my brain.

Imagine trying in earnest to get out of the car with your seat belt fastened. Or trying to stand up and walk after someone has tied your shoelaces together. It looks kind of like that.

About 25 of us departed for the Karst, taking the same national highway that we used to get to the Festival of Fools in February. We passed over into Ehime Prefecture and stopped at a riverside rest area about 45 miles out of Kochi City.

I had yet to break a sweat. We had climbed to about 2,000 feet at the highest point, but the slope seemed amazingly gentle on my new bike, which is about a third the weight of the old one. I spent most of the time toward the very front of the group and got to lead on most of the uphill sections.

It had become so easy to move; I felt loose and free, my body working so much efficiently than before. It was simply awesome, and it stunned me into silence that everyone else noticed.

“Mac, you’re so quiet today! Where’s the energy?”

“Yeah, what’d you do with all of that horsepower?”

“Look at him, it’s like he’s all grown up!”

In truth, I did feel like I had graduated, like I had moved onto something bigger, better, and more important. It just didn’t seem like the time to joke around or speak lightly because the experience was so striking and profound for me. I had never been farther away from base and I wasn’t even out of breath!

As we began the real climb on the next part of our trip, I wondered about my new limits. I thought that I could ride until the road ended somewhere, that I must be so fast that soon enough I’d have to join a racing team and turn pro.

I had considered the old challenges of Kochi to be the hardest of the hard and wondered what could possibly challenge me going forward.

I am the fastest biker in Kochi . . .

Stupid, Stupid, Stupid

Published by Bob Sanchez on October 6, 2008 in Baseball and Lessons. 0 Comments

I want to travel back in time and visit a young man who didn’t know what he was quite literally throwing away.

I want to see him in 1999 and tell him that he doesn’t have to throw the ball as hard as he can to get guys out. Also that it wouldn’t hurt to let up a little bit when his teammates and he are doing rundown drills without gloves.

I want to see him in 2001 and make him promise never to set foot on a pitching mound again, no matter how tempting it may seem. Furthermore, I’d tell him that even though curve balls are standard fare in the Sunday beer league that he still isn’t quick enough or nasty enough to be effective at all.

I want to see him in 2002 and tell him that it’s just C-league intramural co-ed softball. Again, that he doesn’t have to throw the ball as hard as he can to get guys (and girls) out.

I want to see him in 2004 and convince him that it’s not worth it to wind up a cold, drunk arm to try and throw 82 MPH to beat some guy named Brett Hughes at the speed pitch booth. I’d also let him know that the girl with the gun was probably lying when she said, “The last two were 100 miles per hour, I think you need to throw again!”

I want to see him in 2006 and tell him not to try and tough out batting practice, not even for one more batter. I’d remind him that he hates batting practice and that he could do a better job helping players hit while giving them soft-toss.

In all of these situations, I would try and explain to him that it makes more sense to enjoy throwing for a long time rather than spending all of his bullets in relatively meaningless endeavors.

Let’s see, play catch with your son in twenty years, or attempt to throw your friend out from left field on a softball field when the first baseman isn’t even looking and everyone is just there to screw around and hit some balls? Obviously, he wasn’t smart enough to make those decisions on his own, time and time again.

Sadly, this young man is still making stupid decisions regarding his shriveled, rotten shadow of a throwing arm. The head baseball coach at his high school asked if he would be willing to throw BP, and for unfathomable reasons, the guy agreed to give it a shot.

Four batters and eighty pitches later, he descended the dirt mound, having bitten the inside of his cheeks to keep from screaming or otherwise showing his pain on his face for the last thirty or so. He cursed the stubbornness and idiocy that kept him from quitting in the middle of a hitter or simply and politely refusing to throw in the first place.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t know this young man as well as I do.

Hiroaki’s Song

Published by Bob Sanchez on September 30, 2008 in Baseball and Lessons. 0 Comments

Three summers ago, I met a Japanese fellow by the name of Hiroaki. One of my best friends was visiting me in Japan, and another Japanese friend of mine invited Hiroaki along to make it a foursome.

We met at an English pub in Ikebukuro, one of the many fun parts of Tokyo, and the Americans introduced the Japanese to their first Irish Car Bombs. Twice. We said, “Let’s internationalization!” many times that night.

We couldn’t quit there, so we crammed ourselves into a karaoke box, followed the shaded words, and howled the night away. Sometime during the caterwauling and boozing, Hiroaki and I exchanged our cell phone addresses.

Fall fell quickly in Fukushima, and I took every opportunity to escape to the capital and watch pro baseball games. Hiroaki and I kept in contact, and he was happy to meet me in front of the various stadiums, provided that I had a backpack full of snacks and chilled beers.

We sat together in the outfield seats, right in the middle of the infamous cheer groups, and drank, sang, and shouted our heads off. He always had a last train to catch, and with the last bus to Fukushima leaving the city much too early, I always had a stairwell or park bench to find and curl up on or under, awaiting the morrow’s first return bus.

This happened three or four times, and would have happened again but for a Chiba Lotte Marines sweep of the Hanshin Tigers. Hiroaki had scored tickets to Game 6, but dumped them after the Marines won the first three games 10-1, 10-0, and 10-1.

We obviously had chemistry and something to talk about, and we texted and called each other frequently. Hiroaki was in his fourth year at a prestigious college in Tokyo, all set to become a ubiquitous salaryman at the Hitachi Company when springtime rolled around. I was finishing up my first year of adult life, and I was disappointed, discouraged, battered, and broke.

The baseball dream was fading as I kept running into brick walls in the States. I had written letters to MLB and all thirty teams once a week for a month and could count the number of meaningful responses on one hand. Almost half the teams hadn’t replied at all.

I was in a foreign country, in an area with no baseball team, with no contacts in the game and no prospects for work; I was farther from baseball than I had ever been. I decided to return to California and beat the pavement from there, hoping that I would be harder to ignore from the States.

I didn’t send anything to the Japanese clubs because I thought they wouldn’t have anything for me to do and because sending letters would be too much trouble. I didn’t think I had anything to offer that would put me over any Japanese job-seeker.

Then, out of the blue, Hiroaki emailed me, excited about getting some responses from Japanese baseball teams. He copied the letter he wrote and the letter the teams wrote back to him and sent them to me.

I thought he may have been having second thoughts about Hitachi and had done this for himself; I didn’t realize that he was writing this letter on my behalf until he explicitly said “my foreign friend” about halfway through.

It never even crossed my mind to have him do that for me, let alone ask him, but he did it. He sent out feeler emails to the twelve Japanese pro baseball companies and received two responses.

I was deeply touched that he would go through great lengths to do something like that. He believed in me when I wouldn’t believe in myself.

I was also surprised that he had actually gotten some feedback; surely those letters would find their way to the circular file with much more ease than would my own letters about me in my native language to organizations in my home country.

I couldn’t ignore the kind gesture or its implications, so I set to work writing a “self-appeal letter,” as they call it, and learning how to fill out a Japanese resume. It was as painful and tedious as I had feared it would be, but I had the inspiration that I had lacked before.

It took a week for me to copy all twelve letters and resumes. I suppose I could’ve printed them, but I wanted to show the companies my “fighting spirit” as well as demonstrate my gnarliness, so I decided to do it all by hand. I’ll remember that as long as I’m in my right mind.

The letters garnered responses from three teams and I got interviews with two of them, the Yokohama Bay Stars and the new Rakuten Golden Eagles! I didn’t get either position, although I now realize that I could have made things work with the Eagles if not for some bad information I got (and believed) about visa laws. I could have done a lot of things better with that short burst of energy toward a job in Japanese baseball, come to think of it.

Nonetheless, Hiroaki had saved my life in Japan with a dozen clicks of his mouse. He restored my confidence and encouraged me to continue the fight. He put rear-view mirrors on the plane to California and made the idea of returning to Japan a possibility in my mind.

He did it all with characteristic humility, and he still seems to have difficulty understanding just how seriously he affected my life. Hiroaki is the type of person who will give you something just fabulous and then stand back, look at you marveling over it, and wonder why you like it so much.

I see Hiroaki a couple times a year, and I attempt to return the favor, but nothing I do can reciprocate what he did for me. On top of that, he finds it difficult to accept help, consideration, gifts, love, encouragement, or anything else, for that matter.

He is the guy I turn to first when I’m having trouble in Japan, and I tell him to call on me in good times and bad, but he says he doesn’t want to bother me with his trifles. I think he means it sincerely. I have to work to get things about himself out of him, though it’s never tough to get him to come out and enjoy a few rounds of beers that I never let him buy.

Once, he told me why he wrote those letters. He thought it was a waste of talent for me not to have a job in Japanese baseball and simply decided to do something about it. I hope that I will be able to understand and feel that level of selflessness someday.

Dear Lyle

Published by Bob Sanchez on September 23, 2008 in Lessons. 0 Comments

I was taught that there is “power in the pen,” so I like to write letters occasionally and hope that I will do so as long as I’ve got hands. My only frequent pen pal is my sister, although I do fire off letters to former teachers and old friends from time to time.

One thing I like doing is reaching out to someone from my past via pen and paper, if only for the reason that their influence in my life popped into my head that particular day.

I had one of those moments last September when I introduced myself to the students at school for the first time. I decided to use the Rotary Club Hello, which is silly and obnoxious but is a great way to keep everyone attentive through a long string of self-introductions.

It’s very easy - simply wait until the person says his or her name, and then say, “HIIII, BOB!!!” very loudly and deliberately and clap your hands once.

It sounds stupid and it is, but when everyone does it together, it’s a whole lot of fun and it’s difficult to avoid getting the giggles.

The Rotary Club Hello works best when there is one new person who needs to introduce himself to the rest of the group. He expects to have to say his name, where he’s from, his job - the usual stuff. If everyone else is in on the gag, the newbie is starting to say the name of his town when-

“HIIIII, JOE!!!” CLAP

Startling and relaxing at the same time, a great ice-breaker. I highly recommend the Rotary Club Hello and use it often.

The high school seniors enjoyed it and I thought about the man who taught it to me in my freshman year at UC Santa Barbara. Lyle Hillegas was the head advisor of a college church group that I was a part of in that first year.

A bear of a man with a huge, booming baritone voice, glasses with round lenses, and a smart, well-kept mustache, Lyle was quite adept at talking about God and making him sound approachable, real, and modern.

With a smile the width of a watermelon and bright, bold single-colored sweaters, he walked us through the Bible a verse at a time, stopping to tell one of a myriad of personal stories and offering a wealth of insight while using words like MAGNIFICENT!, MARVELOUS!, and BRILLIANT!

When I began to doubt that I had a truly personal relationship God, Lyle was the one person in the group that acknowledged my doubt as real and was willing to talk about it. I drifted from the group, as I couldn’t connect with any of my peers, but I continued to meet with Lyle and listen to what he had to say about God.

One summer, I wasn’t able to keep my key to the piano practice rooms on campus and didn’t have access to a piano or a keyboard. The band I was in, Los Borrachos, had a full schedule of gigs starting in September, and I wasn’t going to be able to play until school started again.

Lyle and his wife opened up their house to me, inviting me to come over and play even when they weren’t home. I rode the bus to their beautiful English house (complete with a thatched roof) on State Street several times that summer, and they dutifully put up with hearing the same songs over and over, or with hearing news ones with mistakes and tinkering.

I didn’t keep in touch with him very much at the end of college, and I left without saying a real goodbye to him. I didn’t contact him once in the ensuing years and only thought about him when I was between pianos or used that Rotary Club Hello.

He was a perfect candidate for a letter from out of the blue! I vowed to write to him about the smashing success of the Hello on the tech school kids, and though there was time, I never set it aside.

Another former teacher popped into my head in mid-July, and the dusty old memo to write to Lyle remained in my head. I thought I would do it in Sapporo, as I would be there for four days, but I spent all of my time writing reports and watching baseball and let the task slip away.

Finally, I sat down last week and wrote letters to Lyle and the former teacher. Lyle’s letter was difficult. I really wanted to keep it to one page, but I wanted to hit several points and close with a bang. That last line was difficult; I didn’t know what to say to a guy who has it all including a fantastic personal relationship with God that he can’t hide from anybody.

I rewrote the letter three times before it was perfect.

I never knew exactly how old Lyle was, but he was an older gentleman when I met him, and it occurred to me that I should probably check to make sure he was still around. I was shocked to find that he was not.

The pain I felt surprised me; I hadn’t tried to contact this man in five years, but learning of his death felt so fresh and close. I became short of breath and shed some tears right there in the teacher’s staff room in front of my computer.

I’ve drifted away from many people in my life, and some of them have died, and I’ve been sad when I heard the news. Yet, since we weren’t close it wasn’t very painful for me; in a messed-up way, it was like they were already gone and I had already dealt with the loss.

(This is a haunting feeling that is at least partly responsible for my decision to attempt to reach out to those I treasure with this website. I want for my loved ones and me to be alive in each other’s lives.)

For some reason, Lyle wasn’t one of those people. I expected him to be there and be the same, steadfast man that I met back in college. I expected to have a relieved chuckle over having to check the obituaries to see if the recipient of my letter would be able to open his mailbox.

Almost immediately, I was aware of the foolishness of my quest for the perfect letter. Not that writing it once would have gotten it there any faster, but that I had agonized over such a futile exercise. If there was one person who could appreciate the innate imperfection of humans, it was Lyle. He would not have cared if there was white out all over the page before him.

I read the words in the linked article above and thought about Lyle as a fellow child of God for the first time. He, too, worked on things that were hilariously imperfect in God’s eyes, yet were pleasing and full of utility. Go back and read the part where Niggle spreads his arms and says, “It’s a gift!” I can see Lyle Hillegas in that story.

Things have been changing ever since I stopped saying “pencils are for people who make mistakes.” Through baseball, poker, and life and my own mistakes, I have learned more about the relationship between effort and results and have slowly eased away from being a perfectionist, though I still slip and fall often.

There are far more important things than attempting to be perfect. Writing letters to our loved ones while they are still around to read them is one of those things:

I sincerely hope that you are well and not in want or need, and that Melissa and the boys are smiling there with you. Thank you for the influence you have had on my life.

Bob Sanchez

Avoiding Crabs

Published by Bob Sanchez on September 6, 2008 in Lessons. 3 Comments

I don’t have a lot of good things to say about my time in Fukushima in 2005. It was the darkest, lowest point in my life and I didn’t have a great attitude about it.

I’m going back this winter to exorcise the demons and, as I tell people in Japanese, finally admit that I was the bad one.

I did receive a great pearl of wisdom from my boss at the time, and it came from a story he told me over some cigars on a Sunday morning.

As a kid in Hawaii, he played baseball well and enjoyed being at the top of the heap. As an older guy, he understood Japanese people very well because he remembered thinking that the world ended and began with his island. A good number of people here think that way, and let’s face it, not all islands are surrounded by water…

He exhibited that mindset in front of an old man, who pulled him aside and pointed at a bucket full of crabs that was settled in the sand a few paces away. The old man and the boy watched as crabs tried to escape from the bucket.

When one crab got a claw over the side of the bucket, the other crabs pulled it back inside. Over and over again this happened, and not one crab would escape.

“That bucket,” said the man, “is the island of Oahu. These boys you hang out with are just like those crabs. Get out of the bucket the second you have a chance.”

It was a little too simple for me to take at face value, but it was easy to imagine and I understood the lesson.

The image reminded me of that analogy of Hell where everyone is sitting at a table with a huge pot of delicious stew in the center. Everyone has a spoon with a long handle. When they try to feed themselves, they find that they can’t get the food to their mouths. They try in vain to feed themselves for eternity.

Heaven, of course, is where everybody turns to the side and feeds the person next to them with the long-handled spoon.

Back to the crabs. That little anecdote stuck with me and I find myself using it often, especially when dealing with negativity. Most recently, I pulled it out at the Kochi Driver’s License Center.

If you grab an International Driver’s License at Triple-A in the United States before you leave, you are allowed to drive in Japan for a full year from your date of entry into the country. I don’t have a car, but I’ve rented them several times in order to get to baseball games that were far enough off the beaten path to justify renting a car instead of taking a train and a cab.

I also love road trips and like to be able to contribute.

When your year is up, you either stop driving, risk getting caught without a license, or have your American license changed to a Japanese license.

This involves the headache of applying for the change at the DMV, which is just a bureaucratic and inefficient here as it is in the States. Then, you must pass a written test and a road test to make the change. Canadians, by the way, just have to fill out an application and pay a fee.

The written test is cake, ten questions that are pretty intuitive and offered in English, no less. The road test is the hard part. It takes place on a closed course that resembles Mario Kart more than it does an actual road.

There are intersections, railway crossings, and S-curves jammed into an area a shade larger than a football field. In the middle sits a four-way intersection with a traffic light, about the only thing on the course that both makes sense and is realistic.

Some intersections are marked with a number, but most are not. There are no buildings, just a couple of walls in one area that are supposed to be visual obstructions.

You must demonstrate proper scanning technique, but on the closed course you have to imagine the danger and check over your shoulder for stuff you know is not there. It’s very easy to miss checking an intersection, for example, because it doesn’t look like a real interesection (no shops or rice fields) and because you know that you’re the only one on the course.

You must drive in a car furnished by the license center for a mere $16 each time you take the test, which costs another $24. Grading is very strict and proctors are picky, and it is not unheard of for people to have to take the test as many as ten times. What a racket.

You are graded from the moment you step on the course, so if you don’t adjust your seat the proper way, you could fail. If your wheels are not close enough to the edge of the road when you make a left turn, you could fail.

It’s a rather silly way to test someone’s actual driving skills, and foreigners and Japanese alike know that, but this system is in place and it’s not going anywhere.

I signed up for a couple of driving classes at a nearby driving school to test out their course and see just how nitpicky they would be. It really helped out, and I went out to the license center certain that I had a chance at passing the first time.

An English teaching buddy was there taking it for the seventh time, and I was the only one there for the first time among five foreigners. A gloomy mood permeated the room, and I tried my best to joke with the other test-takers that I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed just because it was my first time.

A siren sounded at noon, and we were allowed to walk the course for an hour. That’s actually pretty important because they announce the course in the morning and you have to memorize it as part of your score. So an ideal test should be done in complete silence, no communciation between the proctor and the driver. You only talk to him at the beginning, and again at the end when you “get advice” on your driving.

While walking the course in a big group, the other test-takers started complaining about the ridiculousness of the whole ordeal, shuffling their feet and moving slowly. I was prepared to be frustrated and to take “advice” on something I’ve been doing for a decade with a straight face, but I was not prepared for such negativity.

I didn’t say much, and we were only able to circle the course twice together. The one o’clock siren blew and it was time to take the test. I had drawn the first straw, so I bowed to the proctor and carefully entered the car.

I did everything in the right order - check both ways, open door, get in with a hand on the steering wheel, close the door, lock it, adjust the seat, adjust the mirrors, fasten seatbelt, foot on the brake, start the car, emergency break, put it in drive, signal, check over the shoulders, check the mirrors, ask for permission to drive.

Whew! I got permission and stepped on the gas, but the car didn’t move. I hadn’t started it! I thought I had but the engine didn’t catch on and I couldn’t hear it because of the air conditioning. Nice way to start a perfect test!

I finally got that all sorted out and got onto the course. There’s a section where you have to get up to 25 MPH, which is a lot harder than it sounds because you’re coming out of a curve at less than 10 MPH and you only have about 100 yards to do it in a tin can of a car. Of course remembering to check fake intersections the whole way.

All of the turns and lane changes were on me before I knew it, and when I finally got to a straight section, I forgot where to go next and just went through the intersection with the stoplight. The proctor told me to stop the car and, in an annoyed and condescending voice, told me the proper route.

I continued and handled the S-curve and the crank (a tiny backroad in the shape of a digital five) just fine. I was doing hand-over-hand and was never out of control of the car or the situation.

I took my advice and put a remorseful look on my face, hoping that that might work. It didn’t. I failed for not being close enough to the center line when making right turns, and for forgetting to wait three seconds AFTER signalling to check for a safe lane change. That was the first I had heard of the three-second rule.

The crabs looked happy to welcome me to their bucket. One fellow said, “I know this isn’t a driving test. This is a culture test for me.” But he pressed on complaining about the differences between the Japanese test and the test he took in high school and doomed himself to continue making the same mistakes.

I listened to that on the train the whole way home and encouraged him to be more positive about it, but he wasn’t having it.

I wouldn’t be able to return to the license center for another week due to a scouting trip to Tokyo, but I did my best to use my time there to commit the “great advice” to memory.

Any time I wanted to go to the right, I got my body close to the blind lines on the sidewalk. Every time I wanted to move to the right, I pretended to signal and then WAIT three seconds before checking over my right shoulder. That move was totally against my intuition, because when I drive I throw down the signal and check right away.

It probably looked dumb, but the test is dumb and that’s what I had to do to pass the test. I thought positively about it and dreamed about nailing every turn and checking every intersection.

Finally, Day 2 arrived. Many of the same crabs were there, having failed twice more each in the time I was away. The noon siren wailed, and we were out walking the course. I realized that I could not be with them for an hour the way I had been last time; I had to remain positive.

When we hit the 25 MPH zone, I began running. Running to get out of the bucket, but also to speed things up and properly choreograph the checks I would have to do on that section. It worked. I got around the course three times, planned all checks, signals, and lane changes, and felt prepared for the test.

Once I went to signal and turned on the windshield wipers (the rod is on the opposite side of the steering column here), but it went perfectly otherwise. I didn’t hear the proctor write anything down, and when I went to get my precious advice, it sounded more like a send-off into the world of driving in Japan than tips on how to get a better time on Mario Kart.

Poor Mr. Culture Test failed again, but a couple others passed along with me. We sat through a short lecture, got pictures taken, and escaped with shiny new driver’s licenses. I felt sixteen again and remarked that I didn’t think I would get this day twice.

I strongly believe that mental preparation in Tokyo and maintaining positivity by avoiding the crabs are the reasons I passed the second time. I also strongly believe that I would have been Mr. Culture Test if I had tried to take this test in Fukushima in 2005.

I empathized with him, but I could not make him hear the message. He may still be taking the test.