Oh HL4SF

Yesterday, I was called by a station with old call HL4SF on 40m CW.  I have doubted I got his call right at firest. Yes, it was still "Oh", a good friend of mine since 1980s. He was not very good at CW, so we have moved to SSB. I got a bit nervous for haven't talked on SSB for some time even in Japanese. A QSO after almost 20 years long absence.

He had finished his compulsory military service and was going through a med school when we first met on the radio possibly in the end of '80s. He was wondering what he would major in and where he would train himself as a doctor. One of his choices was coming to study in Japan. I have given him the info on the med school where I had served residency here. In a year or two, he has visited our home, which had been built a few years before then. A thin nice looking young guy. We have talked a lot even on the topics we could never handled on the air. He told me ham radio was still censored by the authority at that time. His sharp countenance might be not only his characteristics but also what the circumstance had made on him.

Later, he told me, he went to the states and studied family medicine there. I thought he would take over the hospital his parents had managed for years. I don't know why and had no time to ask about that in this QSO but he went on working in a university. A few years ago, he had changed his speciality from Gyn/Ob to occupational and environmental medicine. He told me he could go on working in this speciality until old age and actually liked working there.  

His daughter is going to graduate a university in Kyoto and is working near Tokyo. He would visit her there and might be visiting us here again. In our first meeting in person, both of us were young and still ambitious for our work. Now I have retired and he has found his 2nd career which he must go on working for until retirement. Possibly it will take him  only several years to retire. Much water has flown under the bridge. Maybe, we have a lot of things to talk about not on the air but in person.