The rich life of Toshi Hashimoto
Toshio Hashimoto knows that life is not just a simple, straight road. His has certainly taken him in many different and yet all very meaningful, beautiful paths. People know Toshio as a master auto mechanic, an expert shiitake mushroom grower, an avid Taiko drummer, a dedicated Mahoosuc Mountain Rescue Team member and a devout Shingon Buddhist. It all started on a small island of Oshima in postwar Japan, not far from the city of Hiroshima and shall we say, fate, brought him to Maine.
When Toshio was young, he spent three years in Malaysia and Borneo, teaching and working with agricultural machinery in the Japanese equivalent of the Peace Corps. After his assignment, he traveled through Asia and North America. “I wanted to leave that small, crowded society, Japan, and see the world” Toshio explains.
His travels brought him to Boston in 1979, where he settled and met his wife, Kalin Yu. He found work as a gardener and then as an automotive mechanic for various Japanese car dealers in the Boston area. Then in 1983, intrigued by a real-estate advertisement in the Boston Globe, he purchased a wooded, hillside twenty-three acres in western Maine. He and his wife traveled to Maine vacationing and camping. They ended up relocating to Rumford and the Androscoggin River valley in 1987 and building a family there. “It’s fate. In Maine, there’s good air. Nature”.
In 1991 Toshi opened Toshimobile, a foreign-auto repair business but it has been growing shiitake mushrooms that Toshi has been focusing on as his son now manages the auto repair business. “Shiitakes have the best taste. When Japan started to cultivate wild mushrooms, shiitakes were the first mushrooms they grew and I feel like my identity to Japan is expressed in growing these mushrooms.”
In 2011, Toshi almost quit growing mushrooms because he did not have the extra help he needed to grow them. Toshi went back to Japan to go on the Shikoku Pilgrimage or Shikoku Henro. Shikoku Henro is a 1,200 year old, 1,200km pilgrimage to 88 Buddhist temples located on the island of Shikoku, Japan. “On my Shikoku Henro pilgrimage, I walked for 40 days, and visited 88 temples. Through my walks, I felt like I was getting my life from the Buddha. My life was given to me. I felt encouraged. When I came back to the US, I had renewed energy to keep growing mushrooms but in a different way.”
When not growing mushrooms or working at Toshimobile, you will find Toshi either hiking the mountains or practicing the Japanese taiko drums. Toshi is an avid hiker and a member of the Mahoosuc Mountain Search and Rescue team. He climbs up Mount Washington every year in February, on Washington’s birthday, and Mount Katahdin in June.