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MT: So about, I guess it was about... I graduated in April. So about May or June, excuse me, April or May, they had ads in the paper, the big department stores, looking for management training programs. He said, "Come sign up before you graduate." So I went, everywhere I went, they just said, "Gee, we just ran out of employment applications." "Oh, can I come back tomorrow?" "We don't know if we're going to have any more." And a couple that I went to, they said, "We don't hire Japanese," and I said, "Oh." It is true, what Bedford was telling me. So I kept looking around, and they wouldn't hire. But six months prior, I was working for a company called Grant Laboratories while still in school, part time school. And you know the Grant ant sticks? The aluminum things, got jelly in there, you poke it down into the ground? I don't know if you... it's all over. But anyway, the old man there, "I'll hire you." So I was only there part-time, doing administrative work, just doing nothing. But when I told him what I was running into, he said, "Why don't you come out full time? I'll put you on an intern in my sales and marketing staff." Big, Italian guy, you know. I said, "You serious?" He said, "Absolutely." He said, "Yeah, you want to work for me, hey, I'll put you in that staff there." I said, "Okay," so I was working there and I learned a lot. And then I went to see my advisor and I told her what had happened going to the other source, getting turned down. And he said, "Tell me something." I said, "What?" He said, "The president of U.S. Steel, the president of Proctor and Gamble, the president of another company." What do they have in common? I thought I had no idea, making a lot of money. And he said, "They all have direct sales experience. You got to get out in the street and go direct sales door to door. You go door to door." I do a lot of things, but I didn't go door to door. He said, "Well, anybody that's successful in marketing and sales, they know if you go door to door." And I said, "Sure." You know a guy named Lane Nakano?

BN: Uh-huh.

MT: Lane was a good friend.

BN: Okay.

MT: He had a company called Magna Sales. So he was opening up in Oakland, so I find out... he and his wife Fu was my sister's best friend. So Cookie tells me, "Lane's coming up here, he's about to open an office." I went to see him one night.

BN: He's the guy that had, acted?

MT: Go For Broke! actor, yeah. Nice guy, nice guy. So anyway, I went to see Lane, and Lane said, "What are you doing here?" I said, "I just wanted to see what your presentation was like." He was doing interviews that night." Very impressive. He could have sold me a horse that night, let me tell you. [Laughs] But he was really good, and he said, "You interested?" And I said, "I didn't come to be interested, I just came to watch." "But are you interested?" "Yeah, I was interested, it was good, it was good. But I don't think I could ever be..." so we had coffee there until nine o'clock, ten o'clock at night. Before I walked out of there, I signed up with them. What am I doing? But he said, "Keep your own job, just do nights." Lot of these guys are part time, they do it at night. Well, to make a long story short, I did.

BN: What is he selling?

MT: He was selling... he had a line of pots and pans, fine china, cutlery, fine cutlery, beautiful cutlery, and he had one more line, I forgot what the other line... but I said, "I'm not going to be carrying around pots and pans, let me tell you." And fine china, it's heavy, and you crack it, "Let me take the cutlery." The cutlery I was really impressed with, beautiful cutlery, steak knives and butcher knives, carving knives. Nice presentation. Well, I did really well with that thing. [Laughs] And so I was working full time, and I'd finish there at five o'clock, and then I'd go home and take a quick shower and shave. And you start off with friends first, then my sister and she'd give it to... and then you kind of fall into it. And after about a month or so, I was calling on Caucasians, I was calling on people that didn't know Japanese. But I did really well, in fact. And then when I got out of school, I forgot all about it. I was 1-A, I was going to be in the army. So I told my boss at Grant Laboratories, "Mr. Grant," I said, "I'm going to get drafted, so I'm going to give you fair warning, I think I'm going to be leaving." And he said, "Oh, yeah, you're going to get drafted?" "Yeah." So we parted company. So I took that magnet thing and I went out on the peninsula. I started in San Mateo, I had a bunch of referrals over there. So I thought, "I'll go down there." I checked into a motel, and I worked the peninsula from San Mateo all the way down to Palo Alto, Mountain View, for about a week, and came back with contacts. "Here, Lane, here we are, but," I said, "I got to quit."

BN: Were these... was it Japanese cutlery?

MT: Pardon me?

BN: Was it a Japanese product you were selling?

MT: No, Ancienne Maison was the cutlery, French type. The fine china was... I don't know whether, English, I think it was, but beautiful stuff. And the pots and pans, I think they were American stuff. But anyway...

BN: Then just to go back, I don't think we ever said. What was the name of the school that you went to?

MT: Armstrong College.

BN: Armstrong College, this is a private business?

MT: Private school, yeah.

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