Dear Mr Richie,

I have to write you even though you are dead.  I was walking up towards your place, your old place, before you moved to Ueno.  I was on the way to my studio from a night down the hill in my pub.  I stopped at Akafudado to get a little more beer and some senbai or something to eat with it when I ran into Doritos.  Can you believe it, Doritos.  when I first came here they didn't even have cheese.  How was it when you arrived?  I guess they didn't even have a store back then, the streets were rubble and you must have lived on the American plan for a while till the locals got back on their feet.

Well now they have everything, all kinds of imported wine, "Hey Mr,  Give me chocolate,"  did you actually ever hear that when you first arrived?   Well now they would not even dane to bite a bar of Hersey's, too rough.  Got to have a Pokey, a Kit Kat is fine, good marketing here you know.

I was just walking by your old house, where you first lived when I first met you, and wanted to say hello.  I remembering you crossing in the middle of the street where I was walking and saying that you were a bad gaijin.  Decorated by the Emperor though, so I guess you weren't so verry bad.

You came to my first exhibition in Japan, because you were a neighbor, and because Mrs. Seki passed the invitation to you.  you used to copy your manuscripts there before you sent them off to the publisher.  I remember meeting you on the street and you announced that you had just posted, "Honorable Guests," about famous visitors to Japan.  You looked so happy that day.  It is a happy thing to get a new book in the mail, out of your hands and have it someone else's responsibility.  good book too.  I enjoyed reading every bit of it.

You were an old guy when I met you, still lots of vigor, but white haired and wearing some kind of baby blue polyester leisure suit that was too far out.  You were old.  I wonder, am I now the same age you were then? 

Winter time now, about the time we lost you.  Might be your anniversary, your first.  Soon anyway around Pearl Harbor Day. Take care.  I miss you.