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GH: And my brother, who's an anthropologist, and who did his research for his dissertation in Japan -- he had a Fulbright scholarship so he stayed out a year and a half or something, in Japan to do this, and, in the mid '50s. And he was telling me, "I figured that there was something more than accident that you became a Quaker." There was a pipeline there that led me there, led me to accept it. When I saw it, I felt comfortable with it. When we visited Quaker meetings, along with visiting other places that where the speakers came from -- you know, when the conscientious objectors had resource persons coming in to talk about whatever, in terms of making their way in a highly militaristic, and in the ultimate of the military, it's fascistic, you know, if you look at the military system, it's fascistic. So if you wanted some other system, it's, it's different. Now why am I so favoring that is because in different ways, that's what is being expressed through watching my old man. And, and he didn't have the problem of articulating that by trying to explain it to me. Then I would say, "Well, yeah, but you did this and you're saying this. It doesn't fit." You know, I could sort of chop it in pieces here and there you know. With Mom I'm arguing those things, 'cause she's giving me arguments. But Dad's just living it. [Laughs] And it's not easy to live, but he's doing it.

And so I learned something from that that's helped me persevere through certain difficulties without knowing all the details. So my brother, knowing things about cultural changes and about the problem of, you know, peasant society, confronting airplanes, and medicine, you know, all kinds of complex chemical, biochemical products, and x-rays, and all that sort of thing from -- using an Arab example, coming in on a camel barefoot, getting off and getting onto a jet plane and going somewhere, all to get to that place and entering some kind of international discussion, if he's the leader of the band that he's representing. That's a big, huge, huge thing. And my brother, from the anthropology viewpoint, is trying to figure out how in the hell did Gordon become a Quaker? Well, there's all sorts of tributaries, or pipelines, or something that are hanging out there, and I'm finding friendly things to hang on to or grab as I move into some new territory. And that's what I must've done in landing with the Quakers. And, basic, you know there aren't very many ways, fundamentally, of peace. Your way of peace, Uchimura had that as a fundamental objective. And that has, that's what the Quakers have. And so I found it -- now my roommate was not a Quaker.

TI: You're saying Howard Scott?

GH: Yeah, Howard Scott, he came from, oh, just the Baptist, or some Protestant background, his parents were. And he had the local community, Marysville, upbringing. But he found the Quakers attractive anyway. [Laughs] And we both began to attend, go back to the Quaker meetings more frequently than to other meeting, other resource groups that we visited. And eventually we became a member.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.