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AI: Well, in the meantime, your career was developing, continuing on, and you were really getting deeply involved in the field of fish pathology.

TY: Fish pathology, yes. Well, fortunately, I got into the field very, very, very early, in the embryonic stage. And so I sort of helped develop the field. And so that was a very satisfying feeling. Anything we looked at, we did a lot of microscopic work and anything we looked at or found we were able to publish it because it was all new. New, we discovered new bacteria, bacteria that causes very fatal diseases in salmon in particular, and viral diseases. I helped name one of the virus disease that, earlier, found earlier, early in the '50s and wrote a paper on that, and did some pioneer work in other, some of the other virus histopathology work. I took jillions of photo micrograph of disease, fish disease tissues and, because of that, was, I was able to publish a book on fish histology, normal fish histology, called The Microscopic Anatomy of Salmonids, salmonids being all the salmon. And at that time it was a fairly new, there weren't many books out on that subject so it went over very well. And I've published over, close to seventy papers during my tenure there at the lab. And so I've had a very satisfying career, really.

AI: Well, and really you became notable in your field. You've been well-recognized.

TY: Yeah, well, I think so. I like to think that anyway. [Laughs] Well, couple of times when some of my good friends, after book came out particularly, the fellow that I exchange haircut with -- the reason that I look like I need a haircut because he's been on a world tour and he hasn't been back for a month now, and he just got back yesterday, I think. He's a hakujin fellow that I, a fellow Unitarian that we exchange haircut with every couple months. We been doing it for about thirty-five years now. And, anyway, he said that he's been traveling a lot since he retired, he's a former high school teacher, junior high school teacher, and he was a math teacher, and he, he likes to travel, he and his wife does a lot of traveling. And couple time, one time he was on in Florida, oh, it was shortly after my book came out and he went to the aquarium in Orlando. I think it's in Orlando, or wherever that aquarium is, and they were taking a tour and Lars asked the guide, "You deal with fish a lot, don't you?" And he says, "Yeah." And he says, "You know Tosh Yasutake?" And he says, "Yeah, I know him. I don't know him personally, but I know his book." [Laughs]

Another interesting story is when one of our good friends, they built a boat, sailboat, a 42-foot sailboat, by themselves, and she and her husband and four of their kids decided to take a world's cruise on that. And the first, I mean, the segment of their trip they landed in Samoa. And they met a fish biologist there, and he told, and asked, they had invited him over for dinner that one night, and so Fay asked the fellow -- no, I think the host asked them, said, "You're from Seattle?" They said, "Yeah." Said, "You know anybody that work in fisheries?" And they said, "Yeah, Tosh Yasutake." And he says, "Yeah, that's who I was talking about." Says, "I just corresponded with him. He had written to me about having a fish problem and he..." so just in the middle of nowhere like that, it was kind of interesting story. [Laughs]

AI: That is interesting.

<End Segment 35> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.