It’s quite difficult start telling what inspires me on taking this paper and describe the significant work of these people I’ve been watching and learning with along these years.
Since my childhood, I see the example of my dad working hard. He started helping his family when he was about eight years old. And lost his mother in 1945. Somebody I wish I could have had the opportunity to meet and see the woman who gave birth to this extraordinary man.
There was a time when he and his brothers had a farm, but in1967, the year I was born, they lost it in a big storm and flood which destroyed their fields and since then, nothing was the same. He had to get courage, and as the expression, “start from scratch”, and I remember situations of us moving from one place to another until the time we came back to SJCampos and his friend, Lauro Taira, offered another chance on a job in his farm, consisted on managing people and work in order to increase the harvest and improve it with his knowledge and experience. Someway he knew that man whose dream was still feeding his life and challenge was this sort of gift to keep on living.
He succeeded, he made it, and then he was invited to manage other farm in Goiás but he had to leave us for a while.
After this my memory takes me to the time when he met this other brave man, Kinoshita, whose experience in agriculture was wonderful, as his story of life. But he had the chance to study and got degree in Japan before coming to Brazil. As the other pioneers, he had to work hard here, and settled down in Jacareí, near SJCampos. He invited my father to work with him, I can’t tell exactly the way they met, but of course he heard about my dad to take such decision. At this time, Kinoshita was working with environmental plants, as he studied them and also researched a lot to develop such work. With their courage, spirit of challenge again, they sold millions of plants, and according to Kinoshita, seventy percent from the trees distributed in SPaulo – SP, came from their work.
My dad decided to open his own firm, based on it, and he knew as his friend, now, brother, considering a kind of pact they made with each other, that in this millenium we might need this vision they had on changing places in green areas. Such pact was consisted in helping one another in moments of difficulty, when one would not be able to handle things alone and was supposed to call the other for help. That’s what he made last year, when he predicted that his sales was about to decrease in large amount, though he helped and supported so many people, those ones whose talent on selling plants were so brilliant that they decided on opening their own company, and leaving him, a person now with a sense of missing the time he could smile a lot with the travels with dad to the places where they used to make business.
What rests now… Millions of plants waiting for the right moment to the wish of those supposed green areas my dad and him saw many years ago.
I also tell you all, that’s it’s not that easy to face it, as it’s not a big deal see the chances they ask again to work their gifts. Just because, they never did it only for money, but first of all, because it’s the way they are. The Japanese famous word, “work” beating so strong, despite their ages now. Both were born in 1934.
I’m writing this letter of hope, because we are in a industrial city and region, ,with its famous companies and institutions of technology, education, where much work was done, many employees hired, and we have other possibility to improve it, by doing a beaultiful work what would take the city to the a higher level of quality of life and then, an example for the future of our planet. After that , we’ll see, that’s it’s not only for us, but everybody at all…
I leave the rest of this letter for these brave men to tell you… because they are dreamers, but more than this, they have a long story ahead.
YOSHIE
Jan29th,2003 – 09:13pm
email: yoshie1608@bol.com.br
all rights reserved*
