<Begin Segment 15>

BF: Now you had said earlier that someone had mentioned that the, your parents' influence in some ways was the strongest with you, as opposed to your, your siblings. In what areas do you think you most sort of reflect your parents'...?

GH: Well, I think in answering that question, I'm gonna, they impacted on me in couple of different ways.

BF: Uh-huh.

GH: My mother influenced me in moving out of agriculture.

BF: Because you said she, she did not like farming.

GH: She didn't like it and she made me feeling the same way. [Laughs] I always wanted to be friends with farmers, but I never was gonna be one. I never liked it. I, I...

BF: Did you have to do a lot of the work on the farm?

GH Yeah, but I did other things. I helped, I would -- I volunteered to go home earlier, half hour earlier and get the rice on.

BF: Oh.

GH: Get the fire, it's a wood stove so get the fire going and clean the rice, and get it going. I got to be pretty good at that before the rice cooker stage.

BF: Uh-huh, so you would go, leave the, the, the crops...

GH: Yeah.

BF: ...to go help your mom.

GH: Yeah, and then I used to do a lot to the, if there was a tractor, I drove it. And I drove the trucks since I was about eight.

BF: Uh-huh.

GH: You know, Model A's first, and then gears, before I could hardly touch the throttle and brakes, and so on.

BF: Do you remember how old you probably were when you were driving around this heavy equipment?

GH: Well, I, I, about twelve years old I was driving on the highway. But lot of kids were driving anyway...

BF: Yeah.

GH: ...but they were probably fifteen or something. I used to take a load into packing houses. They'd load it on -- I couldn't load 'em. And then taking it off, they would take it off...

BF: 'Cause you're too little.

GH: Yeah. [Laughs] I was too young.

BF: And so you would, instead of doing the manual work...

GH: And so, so I'd, I'd do those things...

BF: Yeah.

GH: ...and then at an early age, before I knew what the score was, I used to get up and did stuff for Western Avenue Market, you know, farmer's market, wholesalers and so on. I'd come in -- I have to leave about four o'clock in the morning and be there by five, five-thirty, and leaving stuff at various places. And then, so I did, I learned a little business background doing that sort of thing and dealing with others. I did that. That way I got off afternoon work and so on and did... oh, in fact they did the, they did the packing of the things so that I just drove out. So, I did that sort of thing partly because I, I had the same attitude as Mom.

BF: Didn't wanna do...

GH: Yeah, I didn't want...

BF: ...the weeding and the...

GH: ...the dirt, dirt stuff, you know. For better or worse, I had that attitude. And I especially didn't like working with manure and stuff like that, 'cause Mom hated it. She did it, but she hated it.

BF: She must've been rather unhappy?

GH: Well farm, she did it, she didn't know any alternative. She, we tried, we tried one year when I was about four or five, not yet in school -- it was early '20s -- it was very difficult.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.