お茶の水交番：2023年8月15日（火）

1980年4月より，文京区白山の下宿先とお茶の水の駿台予備学校駿河台校舎を自転車で毎日通学することになった。

　朝7時半頃に自転車で下宿先を出発して，文京区西片の大衆食堂で朝定食（納豆，焼きしゃけ，冷奴，野菜炒めなど）を食べるのが日課となった。自転車で中山道を走り，東大農学部正門を右折して，東大赤門前を通り過ぎ，神田川に掛かる聖橋（ひじりばし）を渡り，お茶の水の校舎まで約30分掛かった。

　この自転車は，当時，早稲田大学の学生であった兄から譲り受けたもの（正しくは兄が大学の先輩から譲り受けた自転車）であった。

　ある日の夕方，日没後に自転車で予備校から下宿先に帰る時のことであった。お茶の水の聖橋付近のお茶の水交番前を，自転車でたまたま無灯で走っていたところ，交番の巡査に呼び止められ，乗っている自転車は自分の自転車かと詰問された。名前を訊かれ，自転車の登録名と照合された。その自転車の登録名は兄の大学の先輩の名前のままとなっていたため，自転車泥棒の嫌疑を掛けられる羽目となり，交番の鍵の掛かる部屋に監禁されることになった。兄から譲り受けた事情を巡査に説明し，兄の電話番号を伝えたところ，約2時間ほどで兄と連絡が付き，無事に私の嫌疑が晴らされることになった。

　無事に監禁された部屋から解放される際に，その巡査たちから，今は何をしているのかと訊かれ，駿台予備学校に通っていると答えると，「大学受験，頑張れよ」と取って付けたような励ましの言葉を貰った。今から43年も前のことであるが，なんとも言えない経験をしたことを，昨日の出来事のように思い出している。

Ochanomizu Police Box：August 15th(Tuesday)

Starting from April 1980, I began to commute daily by bicycle from my boarding house in Hakusan, Bunkyo Ward, to the Surugadai Campus of Sudai Preparatory School in Ochanomizu.

At around 7:30 in the morning, I would leave the boarding house on my bicycle, and it became a daily routine to stop at a local diner in Nishikata, Bunkyo Ward, for breakfast (consisting of natto, grilled salmon, cold tofu, stir-fried vegetables, etc.). Riding along Nakasendo Road on my bicycle, I would make a right turn at the main gate of the University of Tokyo's College of Agriculture, pass by the front gate of the University of Tokyo, cross the Hijiribashi Bridge over the Kanda River, and finally arrive at the Ochanomizu campus, a journey of about 30 minutes.

This bicycle was actually handed down to me from my older brother, who was a Waseda University student at the time (technically, the bicycle was passed down to my brother from a senior student at his university).

One evening, after sunset, on my way back from the preparatory school to the boarding house on my bicycle, something happened near the Hijiribashi Bridge in Ochanomizu, near the Ochanomizu Police Box. I happened to be riding without a light on my bicycle when a police officer at the police box stopped me. He questioned whether the bicycle I was riding was mine, asking for my name and cross-referencing it with the registered name of the bicycle. Since the registered name of the bicycle was still under my brother's senior student's name, I ended up being suspected of bicycle theft. I was taken to a room with a locked door in the police box. I explained the situation of how I inherited the bicycle from my brother to the police officer and provided my brother's phone number. After about two hours, my brother was contacted, and my innocence was eventually proven.

Upon being released from the room where I was confined, the police officers asked me what I was currently doing. When I mentioned that I was attending Sudai Preparatory School, they gave me words of encouragement, like "Good luck with your university entrance exams." It's been 43 years since that incident, but I remember that indescribable experience as if it happened yesterday.