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TI: Yeah, I wanted to actually kind of go back a little bit, to after you returned to Seattle. You were asked to join this new organization called the Nisei Veterans Committee.
AA: Yes.
TI: And I wanted to talk a little bit about that in terms of what your reaction was when they approached you.
AA: Sab Ogishima was the, was the commander at the time. He was also my insurance agent, and he asked me to join, I says, "Oh, I'm not really that interested." I says, "I wasn't in the 442, although I had volunteered." And he said, "Well, that's okay," he says, "we accept everybody." Anyway, I says, "Well, I wasn't in the 442 so I'm not too comfortable." 'Cause the organization was pretty much run by the 442, but he twisted my arm and so I figured, well, okay, I'll try it. And so when was it? Back in 1947, I think I joined.
TI: And how did the 442 guys accept you once you got in?
AA: Well, I was a good friend of Shiro Kashino, he was one of the top, top 442 guys, and he was kind of a hero. He used to work for Tashiro Hardware, and so I got to know him quite well. So anyway, since he accepted me, nobody else made any remarks or anything, and so I got along with most of 'em. That was in the early stages, and that's before they had that Vets Hall, and they used to hold chow mein dinners and, or I mean, bazaars at the Washington Hall. And in those days, these GIs were pretty much single, they used to have stag parties and all kinds of things. Since then, they've changed significantly. [Laughs]
TI: [Laughs] Changed from being young, single men to mostly having families.
AA: Yeah. But when we got the Vets Hall, the kendo people had the hall, and they let us have it for a nominal amount. But it was in terrible shape, and so we needed to renovate the place. And of course, we were all young and we were going to school, raising a family, and had no money. And so we remodeled that place pretty much with sweat equity.
TI: Do you remember about what year that was, where you took it over and started renovating Vets Hall?
AA: It's... not that quick here. It was in the early '50s, I think.
TI: And this is the building on King Street?
AA: King Street, yes.
TI: Okay, so terrible shape, early '50s, no money. So how do you go about fixing up a place?
AA: Well, we figured that we had no money, so I figured, "Why don't we set up a system where we have life membership?" I had worked in the insurance business so I knew, I'm familiar with actuary, and so I figured, let's see, the vets are in their twenties, and we figured the life expectancy, and I figured, I calculated that at that time, the dues I think were either two or three dollars a year. I figured a hundred dollars would be a nice, came fairly close, would be fairly close, so I think that was a nice number, round number. So we set the price at a hundred dollars, and so we had enough people that became life members to pay for the materials. And we got a lot of donations.
TI: Oh, so this was your idea. So rather than, so it used to be that everyone paid an annual...
AA: Annual due.
TI: And that would give you maybe, if you had, like a hundred members, a couple hundred dollars a year. But what you said was, "Let's front load it, let's let people pay their memberships for life in one lump sum." And do you remember about how many men did this?
AA: I really don't have any count.
TI: But a significant number that --
AA: Significant amount, yeah.
TI: And this gave you, then, the money.
AA: The capital. We bought siding and floor tile and lighting and a bunch of things like that. We did this with all sweat labor, we didn't hire anybody. Lefty Ichihara was the crew chief, and he was pretty handy, and we had Mac Nogaki, who was kind of a carpenter. We got all that plywood that was, mahogany plywood that was in that meeting room, we got that donation from C.T. Takahashi and then we fured that out and we raised, made, we dug ditches for drain tile and we put up the siding. We stained it and nailed it up.
TI: And so try to explain, about how many men -- would you do this at night, weekends, when would this happen?
AA: Night and weekends.
TI: And, but how many men would be working on this?
AA: We'd have ten, fifteen at a time, or maybe even different people, you know, whenever they had time they'd come down and give us a hand.
TI: And so literally, that clubhouse was, was really built by the hands of the veterans.
AA: It was renovated, yeah.
TI: Renovated. I mean, you had the, kind of the skeleton or the...
AA: Well, the inside it hard partitions and things like that, we had to tear out, we had to tear out all the plasterboard walls and stuff like that.
TI: See, I'm guessing that made, as a group, that made you closer, too.
AA: Oh, yes, it was very, we had a very tight-knit group. Except that there was really two factions in the Nisei Vets: one was the 442 and the other was the MIS group. And since the organization was started by the 442, they took pretty much command of what went on.
TI: And so what kind of...
AA: MIS started their own organization, I guess.
TI: And how long did it take to finish the renovations at the clubhouse?
AA: It was always ongoing. They... after I went back to school, I was away from there for a while 'cause I was too busy. And I remember they put in the new ceiling and lighting, and they did a number of things when I wasn't there.
TI: But generally happening, probably, most of it in the '50s, this renovation.
AA: Yes. Yeah, we built the kitchen cabinets and we did all kinds of things like that.
<End Segment 28> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.