Back To Where It All Began
By Neil Melancon
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation
I’m writing this on our last day in Japan, since we’re sitting on the tarmac for the next hour due to a rain delay. It’s a productive use of my time to reflect on the trip, but I think between the other bloggers and pictures you can see on SmugMug, you’ve probably gotten a good idea what the class is up to.
Instead, I thought I’d write about my interest and connection to Japan, which began even before I was born. Somewhat ironically, that connection and my ties to agriculture come from the same place: my paternal grandfather.
He was born and raised in the tiny town of Acy, Louisiana, southeast of Baton Rouge in Ascension Parish. His family were subsistence farmers, By that I mean they grew what they wore and ate. Growing up, he had underwear made from burlap sacks and his only toy was a bullwhip. He was famous for decapitating a water moccasin in a single swing.
He was the first to go to college in his family, attending LSU, which was a considerable haul from Acy in 1936. He began to see something would have to change financially in order for him to have something other that the same existence his parents had. So, of all things, he went to cosmetology school, primarily because the student body was overwhelmingly female.
It worked. He met my grandmother and together, they moved to New Orleans and started a hair salon, Mel’s Beauty Shell, which was at the corner of Tulane and Carrollton at the Fountainbleau Hotel for many years. However, he never lost his connection to the farm, which we would keep until the late 80’s. It became a cattle farm, but like many others, the money just wasn’t there to sustain it. Even out in tiny Acy, subdivisions are creeping closer.
It certainly made an impression on my father, who to this day, lives on a ranch near Austin, Texas. My parents divorced when I was very young, and I would spend some weekends with him on the ranch, swimming in the cattle trough and riding the now-banned three wheelers they used to get around.
Later, I would visit with my grandparents at their home on the weekends, where my grandfather’s love of agriculture manifested in landscaping. He was most interested in bromeliads and he even has one named after him: Mel’s European Hybrids. His garden would later win the Greater New Orleans Garden Society’s top award.
One of his other passions was bonsai, the Japanese art of miniaturizing trees. The art came from China, originally, but like many things, the Japanese took it to another level, establishing all kinds of criteria and specifications for it. Among them was the asymmetrical nature of them, always having an odd number of branches.
My grandfather learned from Guy Guidry, who owned a shop in Covington which is still in business, the last I checked. Many of Guy’s pieces went to Smithsonian gardens in Washington, DC for display. My grandfather loved them, including the Japanese Maples and Black Pines, which we saw near the Imperial Palace today.
Bonsai was part of a craze of Asian culture that swept America in the late 50’s and 60’s. My grandmother especially loved the Japanese minimalistic design, because it looked clean. They had many pieces of Asian art, including a Japanese folding screen, which divides my living room in half these days.
This aesthetic impressed another member of my family, my Uncle Stan, who’s birthday it is today. He got a job working for the Smithsonian to help Tibetan refugees in Northern India escaping Communist purges in China. He would end up raising more than $80 million in them and received a personal invitation to meet the Dalai Lama. Uncle Stan would not return until the early 80’s, regaling his nephew with stories from far away.
Those stories, his books on Eastern philosophy and my grandparents aesthetics combined piqued my interest insatiably. I read everything I could, including philosophy, as well as history, military tactics, Asian novels and even current events. Eventually, my interests in martial arts drove me to Japanese culture in particular, where I focused my attention. In my early 20’s, I began practicing multiple times a week after work and it eventually grew into a seven-day-a-week habit.
That practice led me to iaido, the art of drawing and cutting with the katana, the famed sword of the samurai. As I continued further with it, it became a much more all-encompassing study that involves that same history and philosophy I read as a child, as well as cultural practices. Of course, martial techniques are part of it, but in a strange way, the practice of this art leads me to peace—peace of mind that lets me get along much better with my fellow person.
Today, I got to see the Imperial Palace for the first time, with it’s magnificent statues, structures, moats and wildlife. What stands out most to me is that sea of Japanese Black Pine, so meticulously manicured like my grandfather’s garden and professional life. I am standing here both because of my job and my pursuits. The Japanese call the unification of your career, family life and passion ikigai.
I think I’ve found mine.