<Begin Segment 15>

TI: Well, as I'm listening to you, it strikes me... we used this term earlier with your father as being "adventuresome." It seems that, that you have many of those same characteristics, that you, you mentioned how you, you call yourself an average, but it's almost how you were about trying new things and going into different communities, seems somewhat adventuresome. I mean, do you think that's a fair statement about you and how you look at things?

MT: I think I was fortunate that way. It wasn't, I wasn't trying to do anything outstanding but I felt, I mean, it just came naturally to try to do different things and accomplish a little bit more than I would have probably normally did. So, outside of being average I was probably just a little beyond average and so I always look at myself that way.

TI: Because another adventure that you did, about twelve was, you had a hobby that you were really interested in, in terms of flying. Can you talk a little bit about that?

MT: Oh, yeah. Somehow it was, there used to be an old flying field outside of, south of Kent where they, the biplanes would come barnstorming in there. And my brother would take me down there and we'd watch the plane come in and going out. And for five dollars the parents would have their hakujin kids take a ride. And, but it's fascinating to me and it was interesting, and somehow I wanted to learn how to fly. So, me and this fellow named Russell Hogarty, gosh, we were young kids there, but during the Depression, God, if we had a nickel or a dime to buy a candy or something like that we were real fortunate. But somehow we were able to, over time, to gather about five dollars. But we couldn't have a ride... pay for the bus to go from Seattle to, I mean, from Kent to Seattle so the milk truck that the farmers, the trucks would come in and pick up their milk and bring it into Seattle, we'd, Russell and I would hook a ride on the milk truck and then we'd, they'd let us off at Boeing Field. And they'd go on in and in the meantime, we were able to, I think, for five dollars, we were able to take about five minutes' lessons and then when the truck came back we went back. But by the time, the next time we had any money at all it was probably another year or so and so we'd forget everything and everything. That's how we started to just get the taste of taking flying lessons, and so, it was very fascinating to me.

TI: And how did your, your mother feel about this?

MT: She was completely against it. She thought I shouldn't and, in fact, yeah, about the time I graduated high school, or just before that, we were able to... well, we'd mow hakujin lawn, big lawn, yard, they'd give us a dollar. And to, geez, it'd take us about three hours to mow the lawn and everything but we were happy to get the dollar and we'd raise that money to go flying. But, before our, I graduated high school, we were able to do odd jobs like that to save money and one day I flew over Kent with, with the instructor and I just happened to mention it to some friends and he told my mother and mother was real upset that here we were working on the farm, hard working, and, "You're endangering your life." And she could picture some tragedy coming up again, and so she was really against it. So, I didn't fly too much at that time.

TK: How about your friend, Hogarty?

MT: Yeah, yeah, that's right.

TK: Did he continue, or what, do you know what...?

MT: No, he didn't continue either, because money just wasn't available. We just, gosh, we, even during high school we played at the Puyallup Fair, gosh, all my brother would do would give me... my allowance was a dollar and, for all day long, and that's how short money was and so it was good that he could raise a dollar for me to take with me to... because we were there all day and had to buy hamburger for lunch and...

TK: Of course, a hamburger didn't cost $3.95 in those days.

MT: Yeah, yeah.

TK: How much was a hamburger back then? Do you remember?

MT: Gosh, I don't know, I imagine about twenty-five, thirty five cents. So --

TK: With all the onions on top?

MT: Uh-huh. It was real good, very good. Yeah.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.