While living in Tokyo, Japan — Kawasaki actually but no one knows where that is — I found an international baptist church, Tokyo Baptist Church. Normally, I attended Kawasaki Baptist Church in Musashi-Shinjo but I needed some connection to an English speaking community so, usually on Sunday evenings I would go into Tokyo to attend the evening service. I made a number of friends there but the most significant was a southern gentleman name Ben Nantz.
Ben was with the United States’ State Department as a medical officer stationed in the Tokyo Embassy. Tokyo Baptist Church was one of the most prominent Christian churches in Tokyo with a pretty large international congregation. Ben and I became friends. The nature of Ben’s career meant that he had little interest in developing language skills with each posting. He was in Japan now but it was reasonable to expect that he would be in a number of other countries over the course of his career. I on the other hand thought that I would be living the rest of my life in Japan and as such was intent on learning Japanese language and culture to a native or near native level as quickly as possible (today I call these people 90 day wonders).
Ben and I went on various adventures together. Ben had a car. Now, even in 1987 Tokyo was not car friendly by any stretch. Streets were narrow and crowded, parking was nearly, if not entirely nonexistent and one could get from any point A to almost any point B faster by train. However, Ben’s car was special. By virtue of his position in the State Dept., Ben’s car had blue license plates, diplomatic plates. This meant that the motor vehicle laws did not apply to this car. Ben could park wherever he wanted. Including the middle of the street. That alone made travel by car a lot more beneficial.
On one particular adventure, Ben and I had been out wandering through Tokyo. We had stopped into a small shokudou to eat dinner. We had both finished what we ordered but were still a bit hungry. We thought we would be adventurous. We asked the owner what the special was that night. Neither of us understood the reply but we thought what the heck and ordered it. When it was brought out, we both looked at it not at all sure what it was. So we both took a bite. The flavor and texture was unusual (which is not to say disgusting) and at that point it dawned on me what the proprietor had said. Pork Guts!
During my time in Japan I met the woman I was to spend the rest of my life with. Circumstances in life dictated that I return to the States. I was not leaving without this woman who had become the love of my life. Because she was a Japanese citizen we needed to get married before returning to the US. I had no idea how that worked or what it would entail. So, I called Ben. Ben connected me with the appropriate department and we began the process which culminated in a wedding at Tokyo Baptist Church. The only possible candidate I could even consider for best man was Ben Nantz.
Ben thought it appropriate to have some sort of bachelor outing. It was just the two of us and I do not remember everything we did but I remember that we had dinner at a Tony Roma’s restaurant, probably the one in Minato. Ben asked how I was feeling about the upcoming wedding, was I excited, nervous? I told him that I was concerned about whether I was marrying the right woman. I think Ben might have laughed, not quite at me but… His response was in essense, she will be the right woman because you have decided that she is the right woman. Many times over the 35 years I have chuckled as I thought about what he said.
I left Japan to return to the States about a week after the wedding. Ben and I did not exchange information that would allow us to stay in contact. I probably had his phone number but I was caught up in the circumstances that called me home and the complications of establishing married life in the US with a Japanese bride.
Time past, life happened, a child was born but I never forgot Ben. When tools became available on the newly minted world wide web for finding people I searched for Ben. I found an address and phone number but when I called the number it was out of service. Each time I found a new utility for looking people up I would search for Ben and always came up short. In December I tried a search engine I had not tried before. I paid the charge to get the “enhanced report”. The report had a several phone numbers, more than I was willing to try. It also had several email addresses. I tried sending email to each one. All of them bounced. I noticed that it appeared that Ben had settled on a standard username. GMail was not in the list of services. I decided to try what appeared to be the chosen default username at gnail dot com. It did not bounce. Several days later I got a reply.
35 years after the last time we spoke, today Ben Nantz and I said hello again. We talked for an hour and forty five minutes. Not nearly enough time to hear all the stories of 35 years of life but we managed to cover the highlights. And, having reestablished the connection, we can pick up the friendship where we left off, so long ago.