KOZO MIYOSHI
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童夢 - Childhood 又、遠い昔の話だ。
週末になると、でも毎週末ではない。多分その頃、週日とか週末とかの認識はなかった。　その日一日が総ての一日だった。
年に二度やって来るお祭りの時以外、人気がないお不動さんの境内に、雷のオヤジと呼ばれていた紙芝居がやって来た。どうして雷のオヤジと呼んでいたかは定かではない。他所の町の紙芝居は拍子木を打って子供達にやって来たことを知らせていた気がする。でも、このオヤジは太鼓を鳴らして子供達に来たことを知らせていた。だからかも知れない。多分五円か十円で、ソース塗り煎餅、竹棒に巻いた水飴を買う小遣いがある子供達が紙芝居を見ることが出来たのだ。思うに紙芝居は有料の出し物だったのだ。出し物の黄金バットやクイズよりも、このオヤジはどこから来て、どうしてこの仕事をしているのか、不思議に感じていた。暫くして、出現するテレビジョンよりも不思議な存在だった。何よりこのオヤジに興味があったのは、その日小遣いがない子供にも少し離れた場所からだったら見せてくれたことだった。地面に線を引いて差別をするわけでもない、でもしっかりと区別はされていた。幼稚な子供心に、よれた麦わら帽子の、皺だらけの日焼けした、雷のオヤジの仕様が好きだった。思い起こせば、成長の節目節目に出会う何人かのヒーローがいた。このオヤジは一番最初のヒーローだったかも知れない。なにかの拍子に今だにふと思い起こすことがある。

Childhood Here's a story from the deeper pockets of my past.
On weekends, but not all weekends—in fact, I was then too young to know or care whether it was a weekday or a weekend. Every day was simply a day in and of itself.
But on certain days, a traveling kamishibai storyteller would visit the grounds of the neighborhood Fudo temple, which was always deserted except for the two festivals that took place each year. We called the storyteller Old Man Thunder, although I'm not sure why. I seem to remember that storytellers in other towns announced their arrival to the children by clapping wooden blocks together, but Old Man Thunder used a taiko drum. Maybe that's where the name came from. Children who had enough pocket money to buy a sembei cracker or mizuame candy on a bamboo stick—about five or ten yen—could come and sit and listen to his stories.
Yes, I believe the storyteller's performances were paid events. More than his latest stories about Phantaman or his funny quiz shows, I was always intrigued by where he had come from and why he did this kind of work. In some way, he remained more mysterious to us than the television that would later appear in our lives. One thing that impressed me about him was that even though he charged for his show, he still allowed the children without pocket money to see and listen to his stories, albeit from a distance. There was no line drawn between the children, of course, but still a palpable separation.
Young as I was, I loved the way he looked: his tattered straw hat and the wrinkled, sun-tanned face underneath. I had many heroes as I grew up. Old Man Thunder was, I think, the first of them all. Every now and then, I still find myself thinking about him.