when gas was only 31 cents

Ogura san brought a package of Japanese cherries to us yesterday and it sparked a conversation about which tastes better, Japanese cherries or American black cherries. Because the thing is you can get either variety in Japan but for some reason the ones grown in Japan are way more expensive than the American imports. So, this gift of a pint of cherries from Ogura san wasn't just like getting some fruit from someone who'd just gone to the farmers' market or anything. "How much does a basket of cherries cost in California?" my mom asked, "About 65 cents? Or 89 cents?" Admittedly produce is cheaper in California, but obviously my mom is no Alan Greenspan, and I could not help myself.
"Maybe back in 1960!"

But it's true. A basket of Japanese grown cherries, in season, can cost about ¥2,000 which is close to 20 bucks give or take some change. Of course, this totally destroys my conspiracy theory about how the Japanese government keeps foreign food products' prices high and Japanese products low in order to force culinary cultural continuity since they can't keep the population from wearing foreign clothes, watching foreign movies and listening to that durn hip hop, abandoning enka forever. Well, maybe Jero will turn that tide. Just. Kidding.

Maybe I'm an asshole

Is everyone familiar with this magazine known as FRUiTS that publishes pictures of young people with outrageous fashion sensibilities for the rest of us to wonder and gawk at? Well, I don't know if it is because the Japanese are more attached to youth culture and fashion than much of the Western world, but there is a certain faction of, shall we say, older people who dress in this same outrageous manner. There was one such individual where my mom and I were eating lunch today and I was thinking that someone should start a magazine to document this currently ignored fashion demographic. They certainly have as much "style" as their younger counterparts. I was taking stock of this woman in her 70s dressed in black stiletto boots with a red plaid turn-down rim, leggings and cute mini-skirt jumper accessorized with a necklace made of fist size plastic beads and a big, floppy hat, wondering what I would name my fantasy magazine, when it came to me like a vision: DRiED FRUiTS. I guess it's kinda mean (maybe I am an asshole), but it was also pretty funny and of course I started laughing out loud, so my mom asked me what was so funny, and when I told her, she burst out laughing, too. I guess that means we're both kind of jerks.