MAKING FRIENDS OF STRANGERS IS THE BEST ADVENTURE

Suntaro Torigoe

I always talk about life as an adventure.  For me, it does not always mean where I go or what I do, but often it means by whom I open the door to.  

I am lucky, in that I love people.  All people.  Not just ones that think like me, or look like me, or live in my neighborhood.  I will talk to anyone.  This act alone has provided much adventure in my life.  Along the way, I have not only met some incredible people, but all of them have touched my life and often the life of my family in ways that cannot be measured.

This is a story about one such adventure.  In 1982, a young Japanese reporter was doing an internship at the Quakertown Free Press at the invitation of Charles Meredith, owner and editor.  His name was Shantaro Torigoe—he invited us all to call him Tori.  Tori was to write one column a week— an observation of us in America through the eyes of this Japanese reporter.  

With interest I began to follow his writings when one day I decided to call the paper and invite him to our home for a dinner and conversation.  That was the opening to a year of happenings that today our family still talks about.

Tori was an unusual man.  He was married, with two daughters, all still living back in Tokyo.  I use to kid that Tori would accept an invitation to a dog house for the experience.  He is a curious man, who even at this age (75) is still writing about what he is learning in this world.  He took to our family early on.  Damian, my oldest was studying piano and it reminded him of his own daughter, whom he missed very much.  It did not take long for our friendship to grow and become a close part of our family.

Before long we learned that he would have people with itineraries that would take them from Tokyo to London, to Paris, to New York, drive down and visit with Tori, then return.  He would entertain them at the Duncan Donuts in Quakertown.  

“What?!?!” I would ask…”why can’t you take them back to your place.”  

“Because the family I rent the room from won’t allow it,” he would say.

“Oh Tori, if you want to have a relaxed visit with your friends just bring them here…anytime,” I said. 

And the door opened wider to adventures we never dreamed of.  It turns out that Tori was the Walter Cronkite of Japan but we did not realize that in the beginning.  We were just Pat and Marlene with four loud kids inviting a stranger into our home.  

Tori and Tomoko at set for their TV Show

Tori is a writer, TV personality and editor of many publications in Japan.  But Tori was not your typical Japanese man.  He has a spirit of adventure in him and a curiosity that infected those of us that had the privilege to know him.  

Our first clue that something was different is when he asked if a TV crew from Japan could come and follow us, “a typical American family” around for the day.  They filmed us at the kids soccer game, driving Damian to piano and dance, and me and Pat just being parents.  

In the course of the year we spent with Tori, we met a movie actress, an author, and another film crew.  We were interviewed for two magazine stories (have the magazines, written in Japanese to prove it) and Tori wrote a book about his experiences in the year he spent in Quakertown.  For a couple of years after Tori’s book was published, we would get the occasional Japanese visitor trying to follow in the steps of Tori.  They never came without gifts.  It was always a pleasant surprise.

One of the best and most surprising gifts we received was from the movie actress that came to stay a couple of days with Tori.  We had taken them up to Jim Thorpe for a picnic and some down time.  As a thank you, she presented us with two 25 pound boxes of Godiva Chocolate and numerous cans of Dutch Cookies.  

Along with Tori’s friends, we hosted his wife and daughters, and his parents.  His daughters returned for a visit a year later and that provided another wonderful memory for my daughter, Joliene.  A friend of Tori’s had invited his daughters and Joliene to view CATS in NYC.  A limo picked them up and to say the least they were treated like notables for the whole day.  Joliene talked of the day for years to come!

Two highlights of the year with Tori come to mind that I have to share.  The first, was a hard one.  There is a group in Japan that buy up every inch of film on the dropping of the atomic bombs.  They show them all around the world to have people see the devastation that comes with the bomb in hopes that we abandon the idea of using one ever again.  They sent a film crew to the area to film a round table of people, from those military veterans who fought in the war, to the man who put the bomb on the plane, to another man who rode in the plane that dropped the bomb, to everyday people like myself.  They wanted to film an honest reaction from us after viewing the film for a documentary they were producing.  All they asked was that we not look away.

It turns out that the request was the hardest thing to keep.  The film was extremely difficult to view and I found tears coming down my face.  The conversation after the film was lively and honest.  When I returned home from the event, I found myself sitting on the couch and just bawling.  It was the only way I could release the experience of the film.  I will never forget the event.

2001 at my home in Perkasie.  Hosting party
for Tori and the staff that once worked as reporters
for the Quakertown Free Press.

The sweetest and most precious outcome of the year of Tori came about after Tori left us.  One of the people we had met in the course of the year had come with a gift of origami paper and sat with our children and taught them how to fold origami animals, especially the peace bird.  During the school year, our second child, Justin had a moment to shine as a result of this visit.  Justin, like all second children constantly search for their own identity.  In fourth grade there was a gifted young lady in his class, who stood and announced that she was going to present a program the next day on Japan and the art of origami.  She had indicated during her announcement that origami was so difficult to learn, that none of them could expect to learn it during her presentation.

Justin came home from school and asked me where the origami papers were.  He immediately grabbed them and put them in his school bag.  The next day I got a call from the teacher.  She said it was a beautiful sight to her to see how one so calmly and without making a sound proved a young women wrong.  While she stood in front of the class giving her demonstration on the very difficult form of origami, Justin sat quietly in the back of the class and made piece after piece of all the forms they had been taught to do a few months before.  

I loved the thought that opening the door to a stranger could in the end, provide a chance for my child to shine with confidence.  Nothing can be sweeter than that.  And for that reason, I will continue in life, to open the door to strangers and make them friends.