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VY: You mentioned George, that's your husband, right? How did the two of you meet?

JT: Oh. Well, it was in the, gosh, it had to be in the late '50s. He was at Cal and I was in high school. But my girlfriends and I, on Sundays, we would kind of, sometimes we'd even dress alike, that's silly when I think about it. And we'd go to basketball games because that's where you met guys, or that's where you... well, you know how that goes. You scam, I think I said that word. In those days, scam... well, it's wasn't scam then, but kids say that's where you go and look for cute guys, and the guys are looking at the girls and all that. But George was a basketball player, and he was a -- I'm bragging now -- but he was one of these all-star, he was all-star, most valuable player, and he was a good player. Because he was five-foot-ten, and that was tall in those days. Not anymore. My nephew's six-four, grand-nephew is six-four. So one day we were at a game in the bleachers at a high school and he's sitting on the bench. And he said, "Who's that girl?" So the guys next to him said, "Oh, that's so-and-so." And so he got her number and he called her, which I can't believe because I can't believe he would have done that, he seemed like kind of a shy guy. But he called her and asked her out and he went to pick her up. But it wasn't me, it was some other girl. [Laughs]

VY: He was trying to get your number?

JT: My number, but they gave him some other girl's number, of course. Who'd want her number? [Laughs] So I said, "So what did you do?" He said, "Well, I took her out." I said, "Well, good thing you're a gentleman," you know. You don't go there and say, "Oh," he wouldn't have done that. So he took her out and then he got the right number and then we went out, and that's how we met. And it's so interesting because my family, the way I grew up, we were just all, there was no place to put anything and it was all this organized people coming and going. But his house was more traditional Japanese, his father was a gardener, his mother was a housekeeper, and they didn't hug, it was more typical. And so then I went and I met them and pretty soon they were all hugging. [Laughs] You know, it's just... and we went around for seven years, almost seven years, six and a half years and I finally, I said, "I'm getting old." I was, like, twenty-three, and I said, "What's it going to be?" That's how I was. I said, "Play me or trade me," those were my words. Isn't that awful? [Laughs] But I said that, I said, "I'm getting old already." Because my friends were getting married and my sister had been married, and so we got engaged and got married.

VY: When did you get married?

JT: We got married on December 17, 1967. And one story I love to tell is when we got engaged, we were all family-oriented, so we went out to dinner at a restaurant. Nana, my mom's mom, stayed home because she was getting up in age. But when we came home to the house after our engagement dinner, there was Nana. She was ninety... oh gosh, she was in her nineties, but she had gotten in the closet, gone through trunks, and she had put on a beautiful kimono. And she's sitting there in the middle of the living room waiting for us, I'll never forget that. It was so touching because here we were all celebrating. We didn't bring Nana because she's too old and couldn't go out at night. God bless her, she put on a kimono and sat there so happy because she liked him. She said, "He's a good man." [Laughs] She said, "He has a nice face," and so we got her approval.

Since I'm talking about George, he was a good person, and no one, to this day, I've never heard anyone say anything not good about him. Which is, I think it's a tribute, really. He was that kind of guy. And even in our marriage, I tell people now, the meanest thing he ever said to me was, he said, "You know what the trouble with you is?" And you know, sassy that I was, I shouldn't have said it, but I said, "What?" You know, I never should have said, "What?" And he said, "You always have to have the last word," but he was right, so we laughed about that. But he was kind to everybody, just that kind of guy. And so he passed away a little over two years ago, but he got Alzheimer's, had Alzheimer's. And I call it dying by the inch, you know. It's a slow but irreversible, but he had the kind where he never lashed out or got angry. I mean, he got frustrated, but we had caregivers come and help because he was a big man, so I couldn't do it. I talk about death, I've given talks about death and things like that, but a good death is when you've had a good life. And we had a good life, he had a good life, and didn't suffer. It sounds corny, but I say that especially now since I just lost my, or we lost our sister-in-law. But you measure that sadness and that void with a good life and that stays with you. So that void is there, but it's full of, not just him, but our friends and people that he has touched.

VY: Right, the void wouldn't be there if you hadn't had all the positive experiences.

JT: Right. And I say that to people because I've known people who haven't, they say, "Well, golly, I don't miss... well, they don't miss someone as much." And I go, well, we miss someone to the degree that you had something together. So if you had a rich life, you miss them. So for that reason I'm really grateful. I mean, it wasn't all... we had our ups and downs and struggles. But not having children was the biggest curveball for us. Because having had so many brothers and sisters, it was like, you get married or you go to school, college, you get a job, you get married, you buy a house, and then, of course, you're supposed to have kids. And that's kind of how it was. My friends were all, we had that pattern. And it's a funny story but it kind of relates to being Japanese. So every Sunday when I went to church, they'd say, "Jo Jo, you have a nice husband, you have a job, you bought a house. Now, when are you going to have children?" You know, when you want children and you're not getting them, it sort of gets to you after a while and you're going to baby showers and all this stuff. So every Sunday, not all the time, but I'd cry on the way home. So one day, this lady said to me, "Jo Jo, why don't you have kids, children?" And this shows my sassiness I knew I had, but it came out. She said, "Why don't you have kids, you and Georgie have kids?" And I said, "We hate kids." [Laughs] And do you know, I didn't plan to say that, it just came out. Do you know, no one asked again ever, ever, ever because I'm sure she went and said, "Jo Jo and Georgie don't want kids." And never, it never came up again ever. It's interesting, and I think that's part of the, kind of the grapevine and how things go, you know. And, of course, it wasn't true, because we love kids and we have so many, fourteen nieces and nephews. And I think that was part of the plan, that we became aunties and uncles to our friends and kids. I call it a curveball, but it gave us other opportunities to do other things like work with other people and help other people. So that's basically a plan, I think. I'm not very religious, but I think that was part of God's plan for us to nurture other people. That sounds like I'm putting myself on a pedestal. I don't mean we nurtured other people, but we had enough love for... and my mother always said there's enough love to go around. And so maybe I never thought of it that way, put those two together, but maybe that's her saying that.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.