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VY: Tell me more about your friends when you were kids. So what school did you go to?

JT: We all went to Porter school, which was an elementary school about five blocks away. And at first we came home for lunch, but then later Mom would make sandwiches. And I'll never forget, she'd have to make six sandwiches, and always in those... I don't know if you remember those Waxtex bags. Then you fold the top, always a little package of potato chips and fruit. And some of my friends at school wanted my lunch because Mommy made good sandwiches, so would trade, and they liked her sandwiches. So I got their sandwiches and they ate Mom's. but that's part of growing up. We were just kids. We'd come home and we'd play kick the can or hide and seek, and one foot in the gutter. I mean, people today, they don't know about those kind of things, but that was our life. So I went to Porter school and the thing about elementary school was since we were all just thirteen months apart, every year there'd be another Takeda. And so there were certain expectations that we were all supposed to be, of course, smart, do our best and good, and follow the rules, and don't talk back and all that. And that was hard on me because I was a little bit of a rebel. And I admit it, I've been told that all my life, and maybe I became a rebel because I was already told when I was born, I was already screaming and yelling and maybe that had something to do with it. I think about that sometimes, because I'm thinking maybe I lived up to my, to expectations. I haven't done anything I'm ashamed of, but I have gone against the grain sometimes in terms of speaking out when you're supposed to be quiet and not letting things slide when I should have just not noticed. I was always outspoken that way.

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