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MC: Did your older brothers have any influence on you in that regard?

DM: My older brothers had lots of influences, lots of influences... let me start that again. My older brothers had lots of influences on me. My older brother is really smart. I mean, this is a straight "A" student. He went on to dental school and graduated the top of his class, then went to medical school and graduated at the top of his class. He was a really creative thinker. So he would encourage me to -- he'd play games, mental games. He was also a pretty good athlete. He was number one on his tennis team but he never thought of himself as an athlete. He always wanted to think of himself as somebody smart. That was his identity. And he was, he was really smart. He studied everywhere, everywhere he went. But he also felt that you needed to exercise your mind as much as you can so he'd play these little games with me. You know, he'd say, "Quick, take a look at that building and look away." And I would. And he goes, "How many floors are there?" And I'd go, "Six, seven." He goes, "There's ten." And I go, "How do you know?" He goes -- he just practiced these little mind games on himself. And he would do this all the time. And it was, actually, and my mom was somewhat like that, too, in the sense that my mom is eighty-nine years old and does crossword puzzles every day, does puzzles. The idea of mental agility and mental fertility and using your mind a lot in creative ways is very important to them. Not in traditional creative ways like painting and doing music or anything like that. So he taught me really about how to think, how important it is to think and learn. He was so curious, and he still is. He taught me about curiosity, and it was a great gift I got to be able to try to -- it took me to places that I thought I'd never be. I, you kinda wanna learn everything, and then you realize you can't do that. There's just way too much information especially with the computer age, you then have to be a little smarter in terms of not trying to learn everything.

My middle brother was less cerebral by far. But he was a terrific athlete. He was a much bigger guy. He was built like a tank. He was a varsity football player, varsity baseball player. He got a baseball scholarship to play at Santa Barbara, which is very rare for a Japanese American at that time. So he played baseball at Santa Barbara. And he would take me out and make me play with him. And I was only a year and a half younger but I was much smaller and weaker than he was. And I would just get banged around mercilessly for the longest time. But one thing he taught me about is to be really tough. But both physically and mentally, because they go hand-in-hand. We'd play one-on-one basketball and as I was going for a lay-up I'd get past him 'cause I was a lot quicker than him. He would just shove me straight into the garage, face plant right into the garage. I'd go, "Hey man. That's not part of it." He goes, "Come on, you wuss." And then he'd laugh. And I wasn't really hurt. So then we'd play some more and then I'd get to do it to him and it actually became a kinda game. But it taught me something about both physical and mental toughness. He also, I remember, and this is kinda a important part of my upbringing, a critical part of my life. I was, my first year at USC where I went to college. I was trying out for the frosh team, basketball. I made the team. So the practices were just brutal. I was studying. I was working for my dad in the sporting goods, twenty hours a week. We always had to do that. And I was telling him, "I just can't do all of this." And in his typical way, he goes, you know, "Quit complaining. Why don't you just do it? Work out a schedule. Just do it." And it was like, I thought, "Oh, gee, maybe I am a wuss." So I started to figure out what he meant. And I think he set me on the road to being anal-compulsive. 'Cause then I would have to map out almost every hour of my day for that first, probably year, because I had to, until I quit playing. I quit the frosh team and that saved me a lotta time. Until that point, but I learned, it taught me how to really be organized about time and try to be efficient. And try not to complain too much. So my brothers were major influences on my life, I would say. Besides the fact that my parents cut me a lot more slack, I think, 'cause they had, by then, raised two children and they were less worried that I was gonna be a dope addict or a criminal or something.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.