<Begin Segment 25>

TI: And so they, they sent you one-way ticket to California. Was it because they just didn't feel like they could handle you anymore? Is that part of it?

RE: Correct, that's right.

TI: And so who did they send you to when they go one-way trip to California?

RE: Orite family. Ray, Ray Orite, not related to us, was a World War II veteran. And Ray, Ray was going through what was Fenn College, it's now Cleveland State University, getting his civil engineering degree. He lived with us because we could accommodate him in the house. But he saw the problem that was very big, and so he encouraged my mother and my father to ship me out to their family in Sacramento where they'll teach me a lesson.

TI: And what was that? I mean, what kind of work --

RE: Working at the produce terminal from sunup to sundown. No pay, work for my room and board. And they, in turn, they sent me to college, I think it's called Sacramento junior college now, I don't know what it was then back in the '50s. But I didn't even go to school, I made like I went to school and I hid out. Literally flunked out.

TI: And again, so you were still pretty angry at this point.

RE: Got into trouble with the wrong gang there.

TI: And so they then, you said they, you got in trouble in Sacramento and then you were sent to Lake Tahoe?

RE: They had a store, they had a partnership in a store in south Lake Tahoe, and they sent me there to work, and I lived in a cabin behind the supermarket. [Laughs]

TI: So they're trying to, essentially...

RE: Isolate me.

TI: ...separate you from the other bad, your...

RE: From society. [Laughs]

TI: ...from society. And so you're in Lake Tahoe, little cabin doing that.

RE: Didn't, because I was already now into the twenty, going into twenties, I got into the military conscript. They threw me in the Sacramento County Jail because I, I failed to report on a timely basis and that made me more angry. And the MPs took me to Oakland, California, for processing, and shipped me to Monterey, California.

TI: To be in the service.

RE: I was in the service now. And I went AWOL twice.

TI: Boy, Roy, you had a troubled life. [Laughs]

RE: Troubled life is true.

TI: But then something turned you around, and because, you're an incredibly successful person now.

RE: It's the realization that I have to get a hold of myself and what life should be. I had the GI Bill coming to me, and I went back to Sacramento and Mrs. Orite didn't want me back there. She said, "You're too intelligent, you're too good of a person to be driving trucks." I learned to drive semis, I enjoyed driving semis up and down the California coastline. She said, "You're to go back home and go to college," and that's what I did. But she was very instrumental in directing me in my life. But you know, all the damage you do, all the things you do in life, you've got to repay society somehow. I was bent on doing that. I wouldn't tell anybody, my wife knew, she sensed it. If you can imagine today, I've probably served in more capacities than anybody ever in this whole area, I mean, in this conference in volunteer work.

TI: Because it's almost like you feel like there's a debt to be repaid?

RE: I don't know if I've done enough yet.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.