Free From a Town on the Hudson by Yuko Koyano Page B

to Japan, I have never seen such breath-taking scenes like the ones I saw in the United States. At most, bus drivers in Japan will politely raise their right hand with a white glove to the forehead to greet another bus driver as their two buses pass each other. Consequently, I can comfortably doze in the bus seat. Yet, because I have been influenced by the risky way Americans drive, the safety of the Japanese way now sometimes bores me to death.
Footnote
    * The Japan Times , June 27, 1991.

ON JUNE 22, 1989, during the fifth year of our family's sojourn in Fort Lee, our older son was graduated from Fort Lee High School a year early, as an accelerated student.
    The reason he rushed was that he wanted to go back to Japan and start his college life with his old Japanese friends beginning in April 1990. In Japan, school begins in April, and he would have been a senior at a high school there from April 1989 to March 1990. He liked the United States, but I think he was unable to bring himself to accept social problems such as drugs and teen pregnancy, which he heard about and saw around him in his high school.
    The American school system complied with the Japanese boy's personal request. My husband had some interviews with the high school guidance counselor to help accomplish our son's hope of acceleration. Consequently, our son became very busy studying during those three years. To fulfill the requirements at Dwight-Englewood summer school, he took additional credits in geometry in 1987 and in pre-calculus in 1988, while I was his chauffeur. When he took the TOEFL, * my husband took him to the test centers.
    During his school years, our older son led a regular life. He left home at 7:55 A.M. and returned at 3:05 P.M. Unlike in our hometown in Japan, no shops that teenagers liked were along the road from home to school. He mostly seemed to walk under the big trees along Linwood Avenue and Lincoln Avenue as he watched squirrels holding acorns. Though he had passed the E.S.L. and bilingual class at the end of ninth grade, in 1987, he still had a few language problems. Even in doing homework, he had to take more time than his American classmates did, but he no longer needed his father's help for his daily work. He went to bed later than we did and got up before we did sometimes. He often looked pale, but he was happy at the same time because the teachers recognized his achievements. They kept on encouraging this foreign boy who was coping with difficulties alone. He came to respect some teachers, not only as teachers but also as ladies and gentlemen. In each high school class he always was allowed to concentrate all his energy on a problem, and he made efforts to create his own solutions. This was one of the splendid things he learned from American education. He also loved the camera club and became its vice president when he was in eleventh grade. All these were just because he had wanted with all his heart to get back to Japan earlier. Because of this desire, however, his second American life turned out to be busy but at the same time became richer and more promising than he had expected. In the end, he was chosen to be a member of the National Honor Society. His face was as bright as the gold-colored shawl hanging from his shoulders at the graduation ceremony.
    At the high school, not only the regular class teachers but also the bilingual teacher and the guidance counselors supported him. He made good friends and met a kind crossing guard, as well. Also, he met a lady who gave him encouragement from across the lunch counter every day. Mrs. Irene Guidera, who was a high school cafeteria worker as well as a nice next-door neighbor, also made a point of inviting our sons over when the Halloween candies were ready.
    On June 24, 1989, two days after the graduation ceremony, our older son completed his stay of four years and two months in Fort Lee and returned alone to Japan from John F. Kennedy Airport. Since my husband's assignment in