<Begin Segment 24>

TI: So Roy, so you would wake up three o'clock in the morning to start work, you would work all morning --

RM: All morning.

TI: -- and then school would start about what, nine o'clock and you would rush to --

RM: Oh, yeah, about eight-something.

TI: Eight-something.

RM: Yeah.

TI: And then doing this, I mean --

RM: Then afternoon is off, see, so go home and then study and then go to bed, see, early. So I didn't go to movie or anything like that because too busy, too tired.

TI: Boy, it seems like it was a pretty hard life then, to work so hard, go to school all day.

RM: Well, not that manually -- I mean, physically not too hard. Only thing is the buyer buy and then I gotta put 'em in the hand truck and load 'em up for him, something like that. This is at that stall. Then Mr. Izumi show me the fruits, "This is a good quality," and some samples, says cut off, say -- I strictly remember this -- grapefruit, see, and thick rind is no good because the one, the thin one is juicy and he told me the difference between good ones and bad ones, so I knew. See, I thought I knew quite a bit anyway, and that's helped me in the end when the war broke out and sent to relocation, assembly center and so forth.

TI: I'm curious --

RM: But I'm way ahead, but anyway --

TI: Right, so I'm curious, was it common for other Japanese Americans to work similarly, like you did? So they'd work really hard.

RM: Well, no, not goin' school. But after graduate school, then they do it, some people, just to help out for the family was, or maybe friends. But my case was total stranger and picked me up and I was fortunate because a classmate the one, first started with, then I change it boss, different. But unfortunately, Mr. Izumi, when we were coming back, he had a pick-up truck and go to Los Angeles in the wholesale market, then buy things, then sell at the wholesale market in Long Beach so that the retail store. And so I get to know the customers sometime. I, maybe spare time I could work in the market and that give me the idea of working fruit stand and things like that. Then I got the job, fruit stand, later after graduate school. So something, one after another, just good things turn good and bad things to bad. [Laughs]

But anyway, what I... so then he passed away, then I have no place now. And people know because he died and also, in addition I lost a job. And then I didn't know what to do. But Mr. Yamaguchi heard about that, and, "He's a good boy. We take care of him." So I was saved by the family. Then I didn't have to work now, because just go to school, come back, watchin' kids, you know, learn. And at that time there were three girls, Laura and Grace and Dorothy, three of 'em, three girls, and the eldest one just died last week about ten days ago. I saw the obituary come, newspaper. It was sad. I should have saw, go back, but I never thought of visiting. I didn't know where they were living, but different name. But then it mentioned about Long Beach, then the sister's name, but only one sister so the one I liked, the middle one, Grace, but not name listed, so she must have died some time before. But still, Dorothy is the youngest one, different name, so go to Los Angeles, might visit with her. But this is a family I appreciate. I show you a picture they went, in gown. She took that picture of me in the cap and gown there. And I appreciated that.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.