SAYONARA ROUGH WATER RACE AND GOODBYE TO THE YEAR OF THE SNAKE
- Joseph Polack
- Dec 31, 2025
- 4 min read
My third surgery of the year quietly unraveled our winter routine. It brought an end to daily Rough Water training for the traditional New Year Ocean Race. Long-distance swimming was forbidden, but I could still patrol offshore and keep an eye on the preschool kids who shared our stretch of the Shonan coast.
As the Year of the Snake drew to a close, the sea showed no mercy. Off-season drownings continued in our coastal community, and optimism for the coming Year of the Horse felt thin. Fewer lifesavers. More names added to the unspoken list.
Still, even with returning health problems, there were small neighborhood celebrations I was hoping to keep. One of them involved a white beard.
For several winters, my Fujisawa-born granddaughter Sara had insisted to her kindergarten friends that her oddly speaking, white-bearded grandpa was actually Santa. When her Japanese kindergarten and the Coconuts English Preschool were closed on weekends, we continued our games at the neighborhood community center, Kodomo Lando—Children’s Land.
At first, Sara’s four-year-old friends believed her completely. They were certain they had secretly befriended Santa himself.
As the years passed, doubts crept in. And yet, some children still wanted to believe.
“Could we touch your white beard, Santa?” they asked, demanding proof.
“Yes,” I replied, “but only if you promise to be good.”
“And if I am good, can Santa bring lollipops for me and my little sister?”
“Only if your sister can keep the secret.”
When the siblings and their small circle agreed, I whistled sharply with my fingers. From that moment on, they were convinced. No ordinary grandpa could do that.
The rehearsals for two Santa ceremonies collided with my hospital schedule. As I waited for CT and MRC results, anxiety settled in—until the situation turned oddly comic.
“According to Japanese rules, you must shave your beard before next week’s operation,” my surgeon, Dr. Iida, said, handing me a consent form.
“I can’t,” I replied. “Ten days isn’t enough time to grow it back.”
“Grow back?”
“Yes. Because I am a Santa.”
He stared at me, then turned to the English-speaking assistant.
“What did Kaminski-san say?”
“He says he is a Santa,” she translated.
“Where are you from?” Dr. Iida asked.
“Sweden,” I said, showing him photos from our rehearsals. “But I was asked to be Santa in Fujisawa.”
He smiled. “I visited Stockholm once—to see the Nobel Prize ceremonies. But it was summer. No Nobels. No Santa.” Then his voice turned serious. “If the operation goes well, I’ll remove your stitches on December 6th. When is your first appearance?”
“December 8th.”
“Be careful. No inflammation. Good luck.”
Luck stayed with me.
The children were absorbed by Santa’s song—a multilingual invention I stitched together from five languages. I began in Swedish, then Polish, the language of my birth. I followed with a short poem by Alexander Pushkin about children enduring cold winter winds. Then Japanese, which surprised them. I ended in English, wishing them a Merry Christmas.
Most of the children were Japanese, but a few came from cross-cultural families. Their faces lit up at the sound of something familiar hidden inside Santa’s voice.
After the gifts were handed out, I joined a commemorative photo. The organizers, volunteers, and many mothers and grandmothers were people Sara and I had known for years at Kodomo Lando. The chief organizer, Mrs. J, thanked me for volunteering during the Year of the Snake.
“But next year,” she said firmly, “you must attend all rehearsals like our Japanese volunteers.”
“I’ll try,” I said.
“We already invested in an XL Santa costume,” she added. “It should fit a foreigner like you.”
After changing out of the oversized garb, I cycled to the Fujisawa Beach Community Cats Shelter with my usual half-cooked chicken offerings.
With two veteran volunteers, I once taught shelter cats survival skills during tsunami warnings and the COVID years—how to hunt like crows. Since then, more than a dozen cats had died. New rules limited foreign volunteers’ contact, but Kuro, Shacho, and a few others still greeted me warmly.
They remembered the games—searching bushes for hidden chicken skin or chasing sardines from my fisherman friends.
On December 16th, Dr. Iida performed my follow-up surgery.
“December 26th,” he said later, “I’ll remove your stitches. We should have the lab results.”
“That’s a lucky day,” I told him.
“Why lucky?”
“In Europe, it’s the second day of Christmas.”
“Lucky you,” he said. “For us, it’s just another workday. And where is your last Santa appearance?”
“At my granddaughter’s school.”
On December 26th, the news arrived: the second tumor was not cancerous. Another follow-up surgery was scheduled for the Year of the Horse.
For the first time, I was not allowed to participate in the Henna Gaijin Swimming Club’s New Year Ocean Race. Instead, I spent the last days of the Year of the Snake sharing better food with the shelter cats.
Then I went to the shore.
I stood before the winter waves, said sayonara to the ocean, and offered a quiet prayer for those we lost during the Year of the Snake—hoping the coming year would be kinder, if not calmer.
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