Zing! Love at first sight! How many of you believe in this rather breath-taking moment? People tell me their heart starts pounding! All of a sudden, their knees are wobbly. Do you believe in love at first sight? Please raise your hands if you do?

Fellow Toastmasters, Honorable Judges, Distinguished Guests!

Excellent! I’m happy to know that we have very few skeptics today!

I’m a firm believer of love at first sight, but mind you, NOT SEX at first sight! I wouldn’t be standing here if my Japanese-American father, Fred Toshio Sado, had not fallen in love at first sight with my Japanese mother! Where did this miracle take place? In the elevator of the GHQ bldg. of the Occupation Forces in 1946! 　This is no fairy tale but true love story!

My mother had only told her name to him and said her family ran a restaurant near Ginza! It took Dad 6 months to search every restaurant throughout Ginza and Tsukiji, asking for this beautiful looking woman named Chieko Akaishi! When he found the restaurant and the woman of his dreams, he immediately proposed to my grandmother to court Chieko with intention of marriage. Until the wedding day in 1947, he visited her whole family everyday; then, the big bang took place! I was conceived and born a year later in Jan. 1948. Not 4 months after the marriage like some young people do nowadays! Dad said it was truly a miracle that Mom married him despite his balding hairline.

Another friend’s father, a former Marine officer and professor, saw through the whirling door of a hotel in Ginza, a tall, vivacious figure in a flowery dress. She zipped through. Everybody turned and looked at her. “Wow,” he said, “that is going to be a major challenge!” He didn’t know who she was. She came flitting around looking for an American lady. Then, they disappeared. He waited and waited. Finally after 2 hours she reappeared with the American. After she left, he asked the American. “Oh, That’s Dr. Makiyama from the clinic around the corner.

Dr. Warner told me that his heart would not stop beating. He had to sit down and think of a strategy how he could capture the heart of this woman. Finally, he asked the American lady to introduce Dr. Makiyama to him because he needed some medical information. They met and most importantly he got the address of the clinic. Until his return to Japan several months later, Dr. Warner had written almost everyday to her. Then, he took courage to ask her out for a real date. After seeing a Japanese chambara samurai movie, they had dinner. Over dessert, he popped the big question, “Would you marry me, although I only have one leg?”

“I remember her being stunned by this gaijin devouring 4 scoops of ice cream and proposing.” She accepted after her mother and doctor brother agreed. He had lost his left leg in the battle of Bougainville during WWII, but had continued to play kendo with an artificial limb. A true samurai in spirit, he reached the rank of 7th dan after their marriage. He was one to never give up whether it was his favorite kendo or the woman of his dreams. He is 91 and still madly in love with her.

All of you are thinking that love at first sight only takes place with the older generations or in Hollywood movies. It happened to someone here.

Actually there was a boy, who had love at first sight going to an international school in Tokyo. He was invited to the birthday party of this plump, angelic girl when he was 10 and 11, the only boy from class. There were classmates for 5 years. At 12, he left for Iran with his family and never saw this girl again ~ until 33 years later. Someone called out the name of his beloved first love during a meeting held on St. Patrick’s Day in 1992 at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club. Ann Sado, Ann Sado. 6 months later he could finally trace her and ask her out. They dated and on Halloween night, Makoto Honjo proposed to her. Almost a year later they were married!

Love at first sight takes place at all ages! The spirit of Love in action never gives up. Zing! Who’s next!?