"On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair . . ."
Toshikazu Sasaki could see and feel the words when he first listened to The Eagles song on the radio. He was 12 years old. "I had never even heard about the American desert before, but somehow I could see it. And it looked familiar, like I'd been there before," Sasaki-san reminisces. His parents ran a jazz-kissa (coffee shop) in Ikebukuro, so, even at that age he had been exposed to a variety of music and had already discovered The Who and The Stones. But The Eagles unlocked his imagination.
At the same time, he was also discovering a passion for tinkering with mechanical devices -- any kind, as long as it had moving parts. Since then, Sasaki-san has worked professionally on everything from Harley V-twins to antique Rolexes. But when he turned 30, he realized he would never be able to own any of these toys -- let alone afford his own garage or jewelers.