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JT: Well, let's talk about that. Not about being spoiled, but after you worked at Mitsui, then what did you do after you retired? How long did you work for them?

KN: Thirty years? Anyway, I retired and this other Japanese company that we built a converting company here in Haywood, and they took me out for a couple years. They said, "Why waste your time playing golf?"

JT: So what did you do for them?

KN: Sales. And then teach people what there was to do. That's it.

JT: What do you mean? You also taught them...

KN: They would ask me questions because I already know about being an importer.

JT: Oh, so you mentored a lot of people.

KN: In a sense.

JT: So you made good use of what you learned at Armstrong College, and the army too.

KN: Well, the thing is, we took college prep courses in high school. I had to follow my sisters and brothers.

JT: What do you mean?

KN: You know, prep courses? Most of them, you had to take language and...

JT: And you did all that in, around football and baseball and all that, too?

KN: Yeah, I was better at baseball.

JT: And then you say you like golf now. Where do you play golf? In your backyard?

KN: Alameda golf course, I live right there.

JT: I wanted to ask you about that. Do you have any old cronies or friends that you made along the years that you still see and do things with?

KN: No.

JT: Why? Are they all gone?

KN: Well, I did mostly with, like, the company guys. And the guys at the church, there's nobody that plays golf, or they're a lot older than me.

JT: They're older than you?

KN: They're like Mas and those guys. There was that group there, Harry Haramaki, Sumi Hashimoto.

JT: Right. Were you part of the Swinging Samurai?

KN: I was too young.

JT: Well, now you're too old, and now...

KN: My dad was a Swinging Samurai.

JT: I know. I know, but they didn't swing a sword, what did they swing? Your dad, they swung golf clubs?

KN: Golf clubs, yeah.

JT: So what do you do now in your spare time?

KN: Talk to Jojo and enjoy my life. But it's funny, when you get older, there's things you can't do. I used to be a fairly good golfer, but you got to work at it. And now your body says, no, you hurt here, you hurt here. You live with it. And I go to the gym and exercise.

JT: How long have you been doing that?

KN: Oh, a long time. Since living in Bay Farm Island.

JT: You go every day?

KN: Almost. I used to go almost every day, but then when the virus came around, I quit for about a year and a half, two.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2021 Densho. All Rights Reserved.