<Begin Segment 12>

TI: Well, in school, what kind of student were you?

MT: I was just an average, average otonashii little boy, farm boy. I never did anything exceptional or anything like that, good little boy, I think. Teachers appreciated me because we were little, otonashii, we were quiet and we didn't bother the teacher or disrupt the classes or anything like that. We were real modern, model students. So I think the teachers really appreciated all of us Niseis.

TI: Well, how about subjects? Were there particular subjects that you enjoyed more than others?

MT: No, the only thing I... in elementary school, I think I, naturally, mathematics came easy to me so we have a contest between the, me and say like a girl named Barbara, hakujin girl. We go up to the front board and race on times and addition and things like that. But outside of that there was nothing special. I enjoyed arithmetic, math.

TI: Well, and then later on, as you got into junior high school and high school, there was also music. Was that something else that you enjoyed?

MT: Well, yeah. As I got into... in Kent, from sixth grade we went into junior high school. But about that time, the White River Buddhist Church minister thought part of the program there he should start a band there with the Nisei boys and girls there. And so they bought instruments somehow on payments or whatever we could and started a band and I think it was Reverend Aoki that did it and it went on for a year or two. We played on social events. They played and I was, I wasn't -- having instruments at that time. But when, when, a few years later when they quit, my brother knew that Ann Tsurusaki, one of the girls that lived in Auburn, played the clarinet. So he purchased the clarinet for me when I just started junior high school. And so with that clarinet I joined the Kent Junior High School band and started playing the clarinet.

TI: So your brother bought the clarinet for you?

MT: Uh-huh, uh-huh.

TI: Because he just knew that you wanted to play the clarinet?

MT: Well he, he, he was very close to me and usually, I think, with the Issei fathers led a Issei life, he, brother Hiroo, Henry, more wanted me to become outgoing and so he would buy the clarinet to see if I would learn and practice and get into music. And he was very good that way. He was, in place of my father, he led me that way.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.