I lived in Hyogo Prefecture/from the age of four to eleven/because of my father’s occupation.// He was an engineer/making TV tubes.// I always felt close to my father.// We played together on holidays,/and joined his company’s athletic meets and summer festivals.// One day when I was in first grade,/he bought me a glove,/which inspired my interest in baseball.// So,/I joined a baseball club/in second grade.// I was a cleanup left-handed batter,/as well as a first base player.// In those days,/there was a lot of nature/around my school and house.// I played baseball after school/until it got dark.// I think/that playing baseball when I was young/was the first step/toward building up my physical strength.// I have always really liked sports,/so after quitting baseball,/I played soccer,/did high jumping in the track-and-field club,/and played football in university.// I was a boy scout/from elementary school until university.// I was born to be outdoors.//
　At home,/we had plenty of books,/and my mother often read to me/when I was a child.// I think/she was trying to expose me to the outside world/through books.// As I grew up,/I began to read other kinds of books,/such as “Sherlock Holmes” and “Astro Boy”/in the library.// I wrote,/“I want to ride in a rocket,”/in the first-year students’ collection of compositions.// Yet,/I didn’t have a concrete image of what it was then.// I guess/it was probably a vague thought of “a space journey”/that I envisaged in the imaginary world of picture books and manga.// I liked science and Japanese,/and I became fond of English/in junior high school.// I felt/that English would liberate me/from the feeling of being trapped/in a small school,/so I worked very hard at it.// Outside school,/I listened to FEN,/currently AFN,/and English programs on the radio.//