The year was 2017 and a young man by the name of George Thompson was new to the town. Having previously lived in Virginia, George was now a student at SIUE and was adjusting to his new life in Edwardsville. He had just rented half of a duplex and bought a new car with money his parents had given him for his studies. After he had settled down into his new home, one evening he sat in the living room watching TV when his doorbell rang. When he answered the door an elderly man stood there before him with a plate of what looked to George like sushi. The man greeted him with a heavy Japanese accent and introduced himself as Yokoto Idikei, George asked the man to come in. They sat in the sparsely furnished living room of the college student and ate the Sushi as Yokoto asked George about his degree and what he hoped to do with his life.
Yokoto would visit George every Friday, George never knew where he lived as Yokoto never said, but he would always ring the doorbell at exactly 7:30 in the evening, and he always had a plate of sushi. During one of the visits George asked Yokoto what his life had been like and Yokoto went into a story about what life was like for him as a child.
Yokoto began saying, "I was born in Takayama Japan in 1944, it was a small town north of Hiroshima that was largely in the mountains. When I was still an infant my parents moved us to Hiroshima where my parents both worked in the factories that produced weapons for the war. We were there during the entire war up to that point, and were there when the bomb was dropped in 1945. My parents were killed in the blast, they never even made it to work that day."
"I'm so sorry," George said as he shook his head. "How did you make it to America?"
"My aunt, who had been recently widowed due to the war, and I were all that were left of my family. We packed everything we had, which was very little, into suitcases. I took with me the seed of a gingko tree. The seed was from a tree that had stood in my backyard before the bomb. My aunt booked passage on a merchant vessel to Hawaii where I began going to a public school. We didn't stay in Hawaii long, my aunt had been targeted by an anti-japanese group. They had torched her car and were stalking her on her way home. She made the decision to move to the mainland and I soon found myself here. The people of Edwardsville have been much more inclusive than the people of Hawaii ever were."
George and Yokoto continued to enjoy their conversations every Friday, George began to cook dinners for the two of them and he would get help writing papers and conducting research from Yokoto. It was then that George discovered that Yokoto was a former history teacher at SIUE. The teamwork between the two of them resulted in many stories being shared and many successful assignments being completed by George. Eventually George decided he wanted to introduce Yokoto, who had become like a second father to him, to his girlfriend, a graduate student at the college. On Friday George and his girlfriend sat waiting in the living room of the duplex for the bell to ring. The clock reached 7:30 and there was nothing. 7:40 came and passed and there was still nothing. Yokoto was nowhere to be seen. Another week passed and Yokoto did not arrive for their evening chat. George decided to research Yokoto more. He went to the library on campus and discovered that Professor Yokoto Idikei had passed away in 2010 in his home to a heart attack. That home was the house across the street from George's apartment. He asked around the neighborhood and discovered that Yokoto was a very active member in the neighborhood. He often hosted barbecues and would always greet new residents with his signature smile and plate of sushi. George was taken aback by his findings as he had no way of explaining who he had been spending his Friday evenings with for the last 3 months. A week later on Friday he was out late with friends and didn't get home till 8:00. When he opened his front door to the dimly lit living room, he found a small Ginkgo sapling in a pot and a plate of sushi on his coffee table. He decided that he would honor the memory of the Professor and got permission from the college to plant the sapling by the history building on campus. Next to the tree a plaque was placed that read as:
"In Memoriam of Professor Yokoto Idikei, Survivor of the Nuclear Blast of Hiroshima, Professor and Dear Friend."
