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AI: Well, and so now, I have another question about, getting back to the time when you were just going to start high school in Long Beach. And what was the high school that you attended? That was Long Beach --

RM: Polytechnic High School.

AI: Polytechnical. And so, when you were in high school there, you also had work to do. You had a job, and did you also, at that time, live with another family? Or, let's see, you lived, you worked for two brothers for a while who had, went to the wholesale market? Is that right? Can you tell me a little bit about what your work was, what your job was?

RM: Oh, what happened was my great-uncle told me that they, he had about five kids and hard to make a living because Depression time and if you have one crates of cabbage, only fifteen cents. Then crates itself cost ten cents, so only five cent, but no profit because you have to pay the pickers, so losing money. But if you don't sell it then no money comes in so still have to do that. So told me kind of sorry, told me, "You gotta support yourself," see. So I told one of the girls in my class, same class, I think was English class or whatever, it's one of the girls. And I told 'em I need a job, somebody says, then I tell 'em that she said, "Go home and either I talk to my brother or my father," she said. Then the next day, "Good news," you know. She said, "He says, 'Okay.'" So I got the job there then. So I stayed in the garage because they didn't have it, put the cot in, so they let me stay in the garage because the two girls there and one brother and then other brother and grandfather and grandmother. And meantime, what I did was, when great-uncle, they had a truck there in the Model A truck, so I learned how to drive. So I got the license. So I, when I was in high school. Then when this girl, I forgot her first name, but anyway, they accept me.

So what I did was Saturday and Sunday they have this farmer's market and go down and park there in Long Beach and open up this stand there to sell. So I drive the Reo truck, the old truck and carry the crates and things like that, so that my job. Then going school. And nighttime, well, they have the stall there, wholesale market and I get up at three o'clock in the morning and go out there and open the door and straighten things up, crates and vegetable, fruits.

And I don't wanna mention name but what happened was, one day his brother was told to go buy some apple. So he went to Watsonville, in California, and bought the green apple and brought it back, but this is un-salable, it taste bad and maybe just for make apple juice or pie or whatever, but anyway, not sellable. So the elder brother scold him and maybe cussed him or something like that but he was depressed. And the story I heard later, but when I get up at three o'clock in the morning and wake him up, went down there, then he had a pipe in his mouth, there was a gas pipe for gas stove there. So then I smelled gas so I pulled the thing out, then opened the door right away, then I called his mother, and then, so he survived. He tried to commit suicide, depressed. So then they told me, "I think you don't want to stay here." So I lost, well, I could have, but I mean, I, kinda embarrassing. So then people heard that supposed to be nobody supposed to know, but somehow this leak out and so Mr. Tom Izumi is the neighbor there, he had the stall there, so, "Come and work for me. I could take care of you." And he had a young wife with two little girls there. So he told me, do the same thing. So I did the same thing, work at three o'clock in the... and fortunately it's only a couple blocks from, maybe three blocks from high school there so I watch the time and just before class start I went there. Then at that time they had, at the high school, had a demerit system, see.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.