"When we sung of hope..."

ハイツ　カサブランカ - Heights Casablanca
Back in the day, and man was it ever the day, the little village of Makkari in the slumbering shadow of mighty Mt. Yotei, was the place for men.
Called Ben.
And the women, oh the countless women, who loved them.
And, oh cruel, cruel time - who were lost to them.

A place of pilgrimage. Even for those of us cast to the far frozen wastes of Eastern Hokkaido, where we were closer to Russia than our nearest McDonalds.
On a Friday, weather and insomnia be damned, I would jump in my little Toyota Cynos (a great car; a great, fucking car, man) and battling my way through hoards of ravenous bears, spawning salmon, desperate deer not to mention one 24-hour-Kamik-boot-wearing-fully-paid-up-loon out Bekkai way, drive immeasurable miles for immeasurable hours just to enjoy, albeit all too briefly, some of that Makkari magic.

Through the great windswept hills of Kushiro, across the lush plains of Tokkachi, up, up, up and over the mighty Hidaka mountains, along the serene shores of Shikotsu-ko and then, as you drew closer to Kimobetsu you could see the sky glow from the bonfires.
And the fireworks, streaming up into the night sky, their momentary splendor scattering amongst the stars.
Coming down Route 66, as the road slid gracefully through the potato fields and the neon began to dazzle, you could hear the music: the Magnetic Fields, unadulterated Appalachian bluegrass, Ride, Tindersticks, Wilco, Creeper Lagoon, lots of banjos; the sound rippling out through the sweet night air.
And then you were in the village and the girls. The girls, brown-eyed and cute, in gaggles of two and three, wandering around Makkari, expectant, excited, uncertain as to whether they should really be here or back home studying for their High School entrance exams.
Finally, you'd get to Heights Casablanca, tired, wrung out; but all that vanished after the first can of Asahi Super Dry. And the weekend would disappear into itself and we'd sing of hope and life was all about now.

And then Sunday evening would come and rent the magic asunder and we would disperse into the twilight, back to our mundane selves, taking only with us memories and hangovers and the promise of the next time.

And somewhere along the line the next time became the last time.

Ahh Makkari...

Even now it is a place of pilgrimage for those who went and never quite left.

And for cute girls too still trying to grasp some of that ethereal magic.