Sanji is working hard to grow sweet potatoes and watermelons. He is now 89. There are many people like Sanji in his village.

The village is only two hours away by train from a big city.
When you get off a two-car train at the end of his village, you may find that you are the only person on the train. Yoichi, Sanji's eldest son, remembers that things were once different. In his high school days, the local trains were full of students and workers. They took trains to go to work in cities.

When you start to walk through the village from the station today, you will see many old people but few children.

Their children and grandchildren live in big cities. The mountains have been cleared away for housing. Instead of mountains and rice fields, people from small villages and towns began to build their houses there. Nature goes and people come.

Sanji sends his potatoes to his son and his grandchildren. His son thinks it is a waste of money. It is cheaper to buy potatoes at a nearby store than his father pays to send his potatoes. Still, his father does not stop. Perhaps he thinks the potatoes and watermelons are a tie, if very slim, with his children and grandchildren.

The topic Yoichi hears from his father is always about the deaths and funerals of villagers. His father's turn may come any time, Yoichi thought.

Another topic which his father brings up is Japanese raccoons and wild boars. His watermelons were all eaten up by raccoons, he said. Villagers are afraid of wild boars because they may attack people. Those animals were forced to come to the village from the mountains after they were cleared.

Young people left and wild animals came. The old people in the village have to fight both against those animals and against their loneliness.