From Writing Prompts to Props: Introducing Toshio Ninomiya

Great writers will always surprise you and leave you thinking of their stories long after you’ve reached the end. This is true of my friends at the Retirement Living Center, who came to our monthly writing class last Saturday with not only stories, but props in tow.

We wrote on cloth and memory, a prompt which drove them to search attics and storage rooms and the backs of closets. Each story they read was rich, absolutely. They filled the room with laughter and an amazing energy. I wish you could have been there.

As a “next best thing” to sitting at the table with me, I asked one of the readers if I could post his story. Toshio Ninomiya agreed. During his turn, Tosh prefaced his piece by saying, “In order to read my story, I have to put on this hat.” His eyes lit up then, and he cracked a mischievous smile. And, I thought, Oh my, this is gonna be good. Enjoy!

Old Hat

by Toshio Ninomiya

It’s a real old hat. I bought it for $2.50 about 70 years ago in San Francisco, just before I took a trip to Japan. Most men at that time wore hats and ties whenever they ventured into public areas, just as ladies wore hats and gloves. San Francisco was a very conservative and formal city at that time, unlike what it is today. I expected Japan to be even more rigid in the way its people dressed in western style.

I was sure it had hat stores in large cities, but I doubted most of them had English-speaking employees. I, on the other hand, didn’t know how to say hat in Japanese. I was glad I had the foresight to buy one beforehand.

I discovered in an English newspaper where I found a job, that everyone from the type setter to the managing editor wore a suit, tie and a hat. It was de rigueur, especially for a cub reporter who had to go out interviewing people, mostly foreigners to Japan.

That was just the beginning of the hat’s life history. The three years in Japan were nothing as far as it was concerned. It was the following decades of sitting on my head that took its toll, accompanying me from frigid Alaska to tropic Equador.

Eventually, it not longer had the sharp crease and the snappy brim that once provided a subtle touch of masculinity, male libido you might say, to its wearer.

The question then became what to do with it. It wasn’t like a pair of worn out shoes. It was my companion of many years, my alter ego. Consigning it to a garbage dump was unthinkable.

I made a decision to use it as my hat during fly fishing. Not only would it protect me from the elements, it would label me as a gentleman fisherman, unlike those who wear baseball type caps, that is, people of lower caste.

That too, came to past and the last four years it lay dormant in the storage room of Harwood Place, until yesterday. But from here on, it shall stay in my bedroom closet where I can take it out and put it on my head every once in a while, just for old time’s sake.

Tosh is a long-time member of the group and a published author, having had one of his pieces appear in Glimmer Train. I’m so grateful to him for sharing his work here and his stories with us at the table every month.

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Next month’s prompt comes from Midge Raymond’s Everyday Writer:
Write about a time when something small – a chocolate bar, a smile from the right person at the right time, a martini – made you happy.