<Begin Segment 29>

TI: Well, let's go back to you, and I actually want to spend some time talking about your special relationship with Osborn & Ulland.

YN: I'd love to.

TI: And that started when you were a student at Garfield.

YN: I was gonna be a senior, that's right.

TI: So, so explain to me how you got started with, with the company.

YN: Very simple. One of the owners was a graduate of Garfield High School, that's natural. That was one of the fine schools before the war. The other went to Broadway High School. They -- if they didn't grow up with any -- were aware that there were other students besides whites. And they specifically, in those days, (new Japanese Americans), I was told that the Boys Club advisor, who gave us leads to jobs, they had particularly asked (if) a Japanese American (student) to come be a stock boy. Why? Maybe it was the best deal they have, I don't know, but they did, and I was excited because it was going to be in a sporting goods store. Well, I was the most disappointed person that ever was. I went down there and I said, "Mr. Cribley, why would you send me to a store, they're not in a sporting goods store." And he said, "Why?" I said, "Well, they sell skis, they sell mountain climbing equipment, golf, guns." I thought they would sell baseball gloves, footballs, all the things I thought were sports. Because I come out of a culture that those weren't things that I would do; they were for the rich. Even as a senior in high school. But it was out of that Garfield High School experience that I was sent there. Never knowing I would stay there the rest of my working life. I was just like my father, basically. Had only one job. My kids think I'm crazy that I could find at that point a job I would never leave.

TI: So you would continue this as, on a, I suppose, as a part-time basis while you...

YN: Went to school...

TI: ...went through high school.

YN: ...went into the military, because I came out in six months. I had never, one reason (...) that I would not be able to work there.

TI: And there was, you knew or there always was a job waiting for you whenever you would go off.

YN: Come back. And I never intended to come back after I left my six months of (military) service, but I went back to the store and saw there was a place for me because (many things weren't) being done, and I went back (to do the work). They never invited me to work, I just (went) to work.

<End Segment 29> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.