<Begin Segment 24>

DN: Now, when did you start reconnecting with your old Nisei friends?

EH: Oh, boy.

DN: You said, mentioned you got back in touch with Jerry in '46 or '47? Something like that.

EH: Yeah, somewheres around then. But then Jerry was in Seattle someplace. He had a store, I think on Capitol, Capitol Hill, I'm not too sure, but somewheres up there. And then he came back to the Island, and I think, you see, Mo Nakata, his older brother, was the one that was in the Jap-, the 442nd. He and Ed Loverich had bought up the old Bainbridge Gardens store, and they started that up, and had a grocery store there. Well, then, they, they got together with Johnny, and they pooled their money and they built Town and Country Market in downtown Winslow. And that started the Nakata build up, because now they've gotten, well, both Mo and Johnny are dead and gone, and Jerry -- I call him the patriarch of the Nakata family, because he's the oldest one now -- and I tease him, he works part-time over here at Central Market, and people come in and I introduce 'em to Jerry and I says, "Oh, he's the owner of this store." [Laughs] And Jerry just about has a fit. But he and I were in, we've been in this CAPRI program, which is cardiac rehabilitation for quite a few years now. And we still continue on.

DN: Did, did you have heart surgery?

EH: Yeah, I did. Jerry, I think Jerry had his before me, about the year before me. I had mine in 1993.

DN: Doing well, it sounds like.

EH: Well, that's what CAPRI does for you. That's why I keep staying with it and Jerry, he does the same thing.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.