August 15th

(Berman Museum, Anniston, Alabama)
(Olympus PEN E-P2, M.Zuiko Digital 14-42mm F3.5-5.6)




August 15th was the day the WWW II ended. Every year, August 15th reminds me of the following story.

It happened about 15 years ago when we moved into Cleveland, OH.

As you may know, Cleveland is the biggest city in Ohio. There are always many people moving in and out. We were one of those people.

When we moved in Cleveland, we came to know about “New Clevelanders’ Club”. It was an organization to help new Clevelanders to start smooth and easy start of their lives in Cleveland. You can get to know people and obtain a lot of useful information. They were very helpful.

After a while, my wife made some friends in the club. In my mind, I secretly call them “delinquent wives’ group” in jest. But they did not know about it. They gather from time to time and had a good time.

The members of what I secretly called “delinquent wives’ group” included my wife (Japanese), a German who married to an U.S citizen, a New York Jew, a Yankee from Pennsylvania, and a Southerner from North Carolina.



One day, (then young) 5 wives got together as usual. Had a chat (or complaining of their husbands, I guess). And for some reason, they took a photo of themselves, with biggest smiles they can do in front of a camera, like a Hollywood stars.

A couple of days later, one of the members (New York Jew) showed the photo to her father to show the friends she had made in Cleveland.

Her father looked at the picture for a very long while. Then he eventually said “what a beautiful picture!”

When I heard this story, I was awakened.

The world used to be divided into two and killing each other until only several decades ago. And before that, even U.S was divided into Northern states and Southern states, and battling.

I had taken peace of the world as granted, and I did not realize what that photo of five “delinquent wives” meant.