<Begin Segment 21>

TI: So let's just talk about your, kind of, your postwar, your life. So what did you do after returning to Seattle? What kind of work did you do?

TT: Well, I was doing nothing, laying around for a while. Then Bill Yorozu and Dick Yamasaki came over. I had worked (for) Bill before the war, so they wanted me to come and work for them, help. So I wasn't doing anything, so I decided, well, I might as well work. So I worked with them. I worked for over a year and I decided, well, heck, why am I just working for somebody? I said, I might as well work for myself. I went out, got an old pickup truck, and I put ads in the Times, P-I and local papers, all the different... then I started out. And, yeah, I was at it for fifty years. [Laughs]

TI: That's amazing, fifty years. And so... and during that time, how about family? Marriage, anything like that?

TT: Well, I was too dumb to go to school anyway. [Laughs] But the only schooling I got was I went to Broadway-Edison and took accounting. And UW had extension courses at night for landscape gardening and things, so I took that. That was the extent of my education. [Laughs]

TI: Okay. How about your social life, though, like in terms of marriage or family? What happened?

TT: Oh, well, I fooled around for a while. [Laughs] Then in 1955, I married Elaine Miyake, daughter of Yuki and Henry, you know them. And about a year later, she got stricken with a stroke and she was gone. I was only married for a year there. She was only twenty-three. Then about four or five years later, in fact, it's forty-nine years ago, I married Dolly, Dolly Hiroo. And we've been married since.

TI: And did you have any children?

TT: Yeah, we had three children. Linda is the oldest, she's forty-nine now. She graduated Western Washington University, and she's been working (for) the Corps of Engineers, and she's been there since. Number two, Wayne, couple years younger, he graduated University of Washington, he got a couple of degrees there, then he went down to California. And he was the manager of Silo Store, I think that went bankrupt, then he went to Best Buy. And he wasn't satisfied. He was making pretty good money, too, and so he went back to graduate school at University of Cal at Northridge and he got a couple of degrees. And now he's a career counselor at Cal State University at Long Beach. Those two are still single. [Laughs] I was hoping the oldest one would get married because she was going around with somebody, but it didn't happen. And the third one, Julia, she graduated University of Washington, she got a couple of degrees there, then she got a doctor's degree at Arizona State. She's in audiology.

TI: I'm sorry, what was that again?

TT: Huh?

TI: What was the, the PhD was in what area again?

TT: Audio...

TI: Audiology, okay.

TT: So she's taking care of my hearing. But then she said, "Dad, your hearing is too far gone." [Laughs] So she's married, only one married, she's been married about fifteen years or something to Dr. King, Thomas King.

TI: And any, did they have any children?

TT: They don't want any kids.

TI: Oh, so no grandchildren?

TT: No grandchildren. That's the saddest part of my life is no grandchildren.

TI: That's good. Okay, so I'm at the end of my questions. Is there anything else that you wanted to talk about? We're two hours into it, and this was...

TT: Is it up?

TI: Yeah. But we have more time if there's anything else you wanted to say. I always want to kind of leave it open at the end if there's anything that...

TT: Well, now, after I retired, we've been taking a lot of trips, cruises. Cruises and land tours, been all over the world. And oh, I go to my reunion, 507, different parts of the country. And this year, it's going to be at Fort Benning again, so I'll go back there.

TI: Oh, maybe they'll let you go off the 250 foot tower again. [Laughs]

TT: I was down there a few years ago, I was down there at Fort Benning again, you know. What we do is go to Fort Benning one year, then go to another city around the country. So the best part is that we get to watch a demonstration jump, and after graduation, we have the honors of pinning the wings onto the graduates.

TI: That's good. Well, Tosh, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. I know you were a little reluctant initially to do this, but I'm so glad you agreed to be interviewed. This was really good. Thank you.

TT: My pleasure.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.