記憶を辿る 8話
– 田の字の遊び場 –
– Playground in the tanoji.
昭和50年後半、山城を構える富小路三条界隈はドーナッツ化現象と呼ばれる空洞化が進行していた。
郊外のマンションや家がバカ売れしていた時代、街中の小学校内は、どの学年も30人に満たず、そのまま6年間を同じクラスで進級していった。そんな小規模校だったから、全校生徒で知らない先輩や後輩なんて居なかったし、兄弟のいない私にとっては、もはや家族同然だった。
いつも並びは一番前。
保険の先生が私を個別で呼び出し、”なにか悩みはない?”と聞いてくるぐらい背が低かった。今とは違い超絶ポジ男だった私は、何言うてんの?と笑いながら受け流したのを覚えている。
担任の先生にもよく怒られた。
ある放課後、学校のガラスを割ってしまった事がある。
この時の怒られ方が半端ではなく、ガムテープの柄でフルスイングバチコン行かれた挙句、消化用水をぶっかけられた。あれは流石にキツかった。
20年ほど経って担任と話をした際、あの時なんであんなキツかったんですか? と聞いたら”奥さんと上手くいってへんかってん”と言われ、みんなで大笑いしたのだが、右に習えを良しとする今じゃ考えられない逸話だ。それぐらい腹の立つ子だったのだろうし、先生も人間味が全面に出ている時代だった。
In the later half of 1975, the Tominokoji-Sanjo neighborhood where Yamashiro is located was undergoing a hollowing-out process known as the “doughnutization” phenomenon.
At a time when condominiums and houses in the suburbs were selling like crazy, there were fewer than 30 students in every grade in the city’s elementary schools, and students moved on to the same class for the next six years. Because it was such a small school, there was not a senior or junior student in the entire school that I did not know, and for me, who had no siblings, it was like being part of a family.
I was always at the front of the line.
I was so short that my health care teacher would call me individually and ask me, “Do you have any problems? Unlike today, I was a super-positive guy, and I remember laughing and saying, “What are you talking about? I remember laughing it off.
My homeroom teacher often scolded me.
One time, after school, I broke a piece of glass at school.
He was so angry with me that he used a duct tape handle and gave me a full swing, and then sprayed me with the water for fire extinguisher. That was hard to take.
When I talked to my homeroom teacher about 20 years later, I asked him why did you give me such a hard time? He said, “Because he didn’t get along with his wife,” and we all had a huge laugh. It is an anecdote that would be unthinkable today, but it is a story of a child who must have been that angry, and it was a time when the teachers were very human.
遊び場も、一風変わった場所が遊び場だった。
中でも一番楽しかったのが、四条富小路にあった今はなきジュンク堂での鬼ごっこだった。5階建て本屋のエレベーターやエスカレーターをフル活用した鬼ごっこ、お客さんがいたらタッチなし。小走りで静かに牽制しながらまた逃げて、運が良ければエレベーターで他階にワープした。しかし30分もすれば店員さんも流石に気づき、ワープした先のフロアで御用となる場面も多かった。
最初は温和な感じで接していてくれた店員さんも、何度も何度も御用を食らっているうちに、最終的には鬼のような形相で追いかけてきたのを覚えている。真面目な人をキレさせたら何よりも怖いということを知った出来事である。
こんな調子の鬼ごっこだったから、色々な旅館やビルの勝手口はどの道に抜ける、億ションの隠し通路はココにあるなど熟知しているのは当たり前だった。ろっくんプラザ(京極六角)にあったダイエーでは、毎日のように試食会が行われていて「お母さんに言うとくし!」とか上手く言いながら、何度も何度も試食をねだりに日参したと記憶している。
最下位が通例の阪神が優勝した時代、大人達は乗りに乗っていた。
友人の父親なんかは強烈で、運動会の様子を自家用ヘリコプターで観覧しに来る親がいたりした。子供なりに時代の躍動感を味わっていた小学校時代の仲間は、少人数で6年間すごしたこともあり、他学区では考えられない密度の濃い付き合いで、私の人生に無くてはならない存在となって今も続いている。
The playground was also an unusual place to play.
The most fun of all was a game of tag at the now defunct Junkudo on Shijo Tominokoji, where we made full use of the elevators and escalators of the five-story bookstore, no touching if there were customers. We ran away quietly in small runs, and if we were lucky, we warped to another floor by elevator. However, after 30 minutes, the clerks noticed, and many times we were warned on the floor we had warped to.
I remember that the clerks who at first gave me gentle cautions eventually came after me like demons as I was warned over and over again. This is when I learned that if you make a serious person angry, they are more frightening than anything else.
Since we played tag like this, it was natural that I was well versed in knowing which way to go out the kitchen door of various inns and buildings, and which hidden passageway to take in an apartment building. At the Daiei store in Rokkun Plaza (Kyogoku Rokkaku), food tasting events were held every day.
I would say to the customer, “I’m going to tell my mother!
I remember going to the Daiei many times to try the food samples, saying something like, “I’ll tell my mother!
The adults were excited when Hanshin won the championship, a team that usually finished at the bottom of the table.
My friend’s father was so intense that he came to watch the athletic festival from his private helicopter. My friends from elementary school, who in their own way were experiencing the dynamism of the times, spent six years in a small group, and our relationship was so dense that it would have been unimaginable in other school districts.