October SHARE

For the second year in a row, this September I returned to California to visit my family and to participate in the annual bazaar at Sycamore church. One of the reasons this trip is so important to me, perhaps more than Christmas or New Year’s, is that this is an event that gathers not just my family but many other families that are a part of the Sycamore community. Friends from college, middle school, and even elementary school have come to know that they can always find me working at the bazaar every 3rd Sunday in September.

It was interesting to see so many people, most of whom I hadn’t seen since the past year and to see how much all the young children have grown-up or changed. And it was also sad to remember the people who were such a vital part of the bazaar every year but have either passed away or become to ill to continue. Every year, the older members of the church start to grumble that they were getting a little too old to continue and couldn’t they just give a larger donation to the church than coming out to help.

This year was my 12th bazaar and there is one year that I remember when I was about 16 years old. It was so foggy in the morning that the people who came at 5am to cook rice and grill chicken could barely see in front of them. It looked as if it was going to rain. It cleared up a little by 11am but that year was one of the worst years ever. Afterwards, we had so much food leftover we had to give it away to 3 different homeless shelters. But that year was also the year that we made the most new improvements. One of our church members designed new tents that could be put together without hammers or screws out of steal pipes and we replaced the old wooden tables with new plastic ones that are lighter and easier to set up. People realized how important the bazaar is to the community and they made extra donations to help with these improvements.

The older people are still getting older but they are the ones who have made it possible for us younger members to continue in this event that has been happening for almost 60 years. This year they were very grateful to have 3 young people from Sendai come out to help and we always welcome anyone else who’d like to participate in our annual tradition.