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PW: So what was your thing? Like you said that you liked to knit and you liked to read. Tell me more about yourself in those teenage years. What were you into, music you listened to?

KY: Other than the Beatles?

PW: Tell me about that.

KY: I was totally into the Beatles. That was junior year, I think. I was totally into the Beatles.

PW: Tell me more.

KY: I had a group of girlfriends that we went to a Cow Palace concert, and then we decided, we went to the Jack Tar Hotel because we thought they were staying at the Jack Tar Hotel. I remember we were walking around in the hallways looking for the Beatles. [Laughs] I don't know, we just got into the music. Was that my junior year, must have been. And so I had different groups of friends. I had some friends from Fairmont who I commuted with, right? I mean, because sometimes my friend's mother would pick me up on the way. Then I had the PE friends, the ones that, because I became what they call a PE leader, I had a different outfit, because we were the ones who were in charge. Collecting the equipment, had to referee or whatever we were supposed to be, I don't know. I had a different outfit. And so I had my PE friends, there were like three of us, and then I had to really... I think the two girls that I really enjoyed, the really unattractive, weird girls, one was in Kensington, really odd. Really odd person, but really funny and smart, but really odd. And then another one who was also, the Kensington one was, like, dark hair and skinny, and the other one was sort of round. She was also, I mean, funny, smart and funny, I mean, almost ugly. And I really enjoyed them. And my different groups of friends, they didn't like each other. I might have stayed most in touch with the PE friends, they're kind of normal, but not quite in the Hills, they weren't Kensington. They were more like, closer to Ashbury, so a little bit higher up than where I was by the tracks.

PW: What would you do socially? Like what would you guys do outside of school?

KY: Oh, not much, not socially. I can't remember doing anything socially.

PW: Did you have a job?

KY: Hmm?

PW: Did you have a job when you went to school?

KY: I babysat. I babysat either my cousins' kids, but mostly Ruth's kids, Cathy Fukuchi and Matthew Fukuchi, I would babysit them. I didn't have a job. You know, summers, one of the things I remember doing was really into italic calligraphy, and I would sit there and I would practice a letter. My father did really nice calligraphy, and you could see it in his, when he was studying Japanese in the army, on the backside he had doodles and he would do Old English writing, I mean, he did all that stuff. So I got into italic, and I'd write pages. And then I liked, I would listen to Broadway musicals, LPs, I liked that. After the Beatles, I think I got a guitar when I was sixteen. And there was a brief time when my brother and I were really together, we both liked all this music, the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, the Animals, Dave Clark Five, all of these things. And we kind of got along in that period. Socially, I must have gone out and did things with friends, but I didn't... it's not like I wanted to. The Mormon missionaries did come to my house at one point because I had, one of my best friends was Mormon, and so she brought the missionaries over and they tried to convert me. My mother was appalled that they came, and I stopped them after one time. The social life was with my family, and the Fukuchis would come over. The social life was family friends and not... oh wow, I haven't thought about that, but no.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.