This is my essay.








During the lunch break, I took a walk near my office and I found a shop, which sells the mineral specimen. Various people, including middle-aged salaried men and young office ladies, looked eagerly into several hundreds of mineral and specimen. As I was very interested, I went into the store. I am so surprised to see the big number and variety of minerals. There minerals have various colors, such as gold, silver, a metal color, blue, pink, green, purple, flesh color, and brown, and their shapes are also in variety ranging from a cube to the crystal of a form like a Japanese sword. It was really a mystery of nature.

It reminded me of my old days. When I was from 11 years-old to 13 years-old, I had a mania for the mineral and fossil collections. At that time, I was staying in a certain prefecture of the Hokuriku District, where is a famous Tedorigawa River Stratum. People sometimes went there for collecting fossils or minerals. I used to go the foot of the mountains and collecting them every Sunday. One day I was very lucky to get a beautiful golden stone, which was beautifully glittering. It was a heavy stone with the diameter of about 8cm. Although the lower part was just an ordinary stone, the upper part was made of metal with the golden emitted and light with many lines of beautiful lumber-like structure.
As I was so young, I was very impressed to find it, from the bottom of my heart. I thought this stone might be a gold ore. I found that my heart was beating faster. I soon run back to my house at full speed. I was impatient to wait for the next morning.

Next day, as soon as I finished taking breakfast, with tightly holding the "Gold" stone, I went to school. I asked the teacher of science to check it. At that time, my doubt of yesterday that it might not be a gold ore has changed to a strong belief that it should be a gold. This is the avarice of human beings. I was not an exceptional case.

Then the teacher took a glance at the stone and simply said "Oh! Is this an Ootekkou, isn't it? Nice color!". That's all. I asked him doubtfully, "Is this an Ootekkou? Isn't it a gold ore?". Then the thought laughed and said, "If you'd find such a big sized gold ore, everyone would be excited". Yeah! My gold rush finished in only one night. This is one of the funny stories of my old days.

Changing the subject, just recently the NHK ( a quasi-governmental organization of press and broadcasting ) broadcasted a boom of collecting meteorites in the U.S.. According to this TV report, A few young American collectors are very successful and have become millionaires for selling their own collections. There are some U.S. young men, who try to follow them, for the purpose of successful meteorite collectors and contractors. Some of them are going to the hot desert in Morocco, having a metal finder machine and are searching for meteorite fallen from the space for a whole week. Or they engage in negotiations for purchasing meteorite with local contractors, some of them are dishonest or using dirty tactics.

I think it is very ironical that a meteorite, which had fallen to the earth after flying numerous number of distance in the universe, was involved into such bargaining or tactics of human beings at the last moment of the trip. I didn't know that there is such business in this world. If the stone that I found in my young age were truly gold ore, I might become one of the speculators like this U.S. meteorite hunters.

By the way, as for the meteorite, I keep one in my house. It is the meteorite of cylinder shape, with the diameter of about 6cm and the height of 10cm. It is quite heavy when we hold it. It is one of the iron-ore type, which had fallen to the South Pole Continent. The reason why I have this meteorite is that one of my friends presented it to me. But it was a long story.

The friend was a manager, a certain major publishing company. He is a magnanimous person who dealt with a big event and a big plan. Although I am quite younger than him, we like each other and sometimes we used to talk and laugh. One day he brought me this meteorite and said, " When I went to the South Pole in young days, I found it. So this is the memorial meteorite for me. Therefore I present it you." I replied to him "I can't receive such a precious stone for you. You should keep it by yourself." He said "I have another several meteorites. I want to ask you to receive it. " Then he pushed me the meteorite. It was the happening of about 20 years.


I waited for him to come and see me again. However I had no chance to see him since his last visit. One day he called me and I asked him how he was doing. He said that he was so busy in planning a new movie to see me. Then, we promised to see each other, after he would finish his movie project. A summer came and I happened to find his movie, which was just released.

It was a very summer. When I arrived at the movie theater, I found that I was sweating to the whole body. However, the theater was almost empty, in spite of the good season as a summer vacation. But the movie theater which was showing children's comic movie "Doraemon" on the opposite side, was fully occupied by parents and children and that there was a long line from the theater to the pedestrian road. To the contrary, only a few couples went in the theater, his movie was on. I was wondering what happened. However after I watched his movie, I found the reason why it was unpopular. In short, it was so "warm" movie in such a hot summer season. The scenario was as following. " One day it suddenly happened that something was wrong with the natural nuclear-reactor of the sun. It started swelling and the burning fire of the sun was about to reach to earth's orbit. Because of this influence, the earth becomes a blazing inferno. Under such situation, a hero devoted himself to stop it". I forgot about the detail, but maybe it was that kind of story. So the story itself was so warm in nature, which was not suitable to show in hot summer. No one would like to see it in hot season, except some couples, who don't care what kind of movie it is.

It was clear that he made a big mistake of planning and performing this movie. Unfortunately he seemed to be under fire in his company. While I was worried about him, I had a telephone call from him. He said, "The scenario was too bad. I caused a big loss and damage on my company. So thinking of this responsibility I have to resign". Before I expressed sorry to him, he just cut off the line. Since then, I have had no chance to see him. After a while, I heard from another friend about him. According to this friend, he retired from all of jobs and moved to some place in the Izu Peninsula, where is warm and suitable for retired people. I am wondering what he is doing now. Thinking his character, he might tackle with some other new big project. Anyway only an Antarctic meteorite, which is probably a genuine one, was left in my hands. It is very precious not only because it was found in the South Pole, but also because it reminds me of him. So I will keep it in my life. If I would throw it away, it should be buried in the garbage disposal place of the Tokyo Bay. In future, a scientist might dig it out and find that it was an meteorite from the South Pole origin. Then he would make a stupid report that in the 20th century, the Japan Islands was connected to the Antarctic Continent...... Well. It should be too absurd.

It was in 1960s when he went to the Antarctic Continent. At that time, there was no regulation on correcting meteorite or other natural goods there. However in 1998, a new law was enforced. It prohibits such activities to do mineral-resources activities in the South Pole area. So nowadays no one can take meteorite there. Returning to the first subject, I found a glittering green mineral at the shop. As in the above photograph, it is really beautiful and I bought it. The green color comes from "an ashes chromium garnet (Uvarovite Sarany, Perm Ural Mts., that is, calcium3Cr2(SiO4) 3)." For a while I would like to see this beautiful green and, if possible, I might be able to return my old good childhood days. To compare with buying a diamond, how cheap and fruitful hobby it is!

(March 21, 2004)
Mineral Science Research institute
Tel. 03-3993-1418, Website:http://www.hori.co.jp





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Essay of My Wonderful Life

(c) Yama san 2004, All rights reserved