<Begin Segment 10>

TI: So when you're growing up in Thomas, so you had to do a lot of work, but for fun, what are some of the fun things you did growing up?

MY: Well, picnics with footraces and all the stuff that goes with it. So they would be, that would be one of the things we looked forward to, because otherwise, there wasn't much time that the families could get together and go to the beaches and things.

TI: And so when you say picnics, whose picnics were these?

MY: Well, the Japanese school picnic and kenjinkai picnic and church picnic. So the moms would fix all this sushi and all that stuff, and my mom would make, probably in the summertime, sometimes there were picnics Saturday and Sunday, and she was making the bento, you know. I just would marvel at how she took care of all that, you know. So then she'd say, of course, it was always the single students, or the Nihongakkou students, it was usually a student from Japan, you know. So a lot of times, we were cooking extra for them to stop by for dinner and then take a bath. So one sensei, he was a stepson to Reverend Aoki. And he used to talk about it -- he passed away several years ago -- but he used to tell me, he said, "I don't know how your mother or your dad can stand all of us bumming off of you and going to ofuro and chazuke and holidays and things like that, how did they do it? How did you do that?" And I says, "Well," I says, "that's the way it was. I hope you appreciate it." It got to the point where we became real good friends so I could joke with him. And he says, "Yeah, I appreciate it. I really appreciate it now more than I did then." Because we would go to their house maybe once or twice a week sometimes, or maybe once a month or something like that. And always for New Year's, we were there, and then he said, I would have a problem, and he said, "I would ask your dad, and he'd say, 'Well," he said, 'well, have another drink.'" [Laughs] "And he'd say, 'Well, why don't you go take a bath?'" So he said, "I'd go take a bath and come back, and then your dad was pouring me another drink, and then finally, it's getting to be about nine o'clock, I'm looking at my watch, and oh, botsu botsu kaeran to," you know. And he says, "Well, by the way, Matsukuma-sensei, remember you were asking me this?" He said, "If I were you, I would do it like this." So he said, "Then I'd take a big sigh of relief and take your dad's advice and go home." So he says, "Those are the things that you just don't forget, you know." So Matsukuma-sensei passed away maybe four or five years ago. And the strange part of it, of their friendship, his friendship, was that he was, graduated from University of Washington, I think, in 1938, then he went to UCLA and got a degree down there, and he was working. But what happened... I remember it was after the war, anyway, and he called from Seattle and he says, "Do I have the right family?" And I says, "Yeah," and I says, "who is this?" And he said, "Matsukuma." And I thought, "My gosh," I said, "where are you?" And so then I invited him over for lunch and we talked and this and that. And then, so we were in touch now and then, and then when... would go to Hawaii for vacation, and so I'd tell him, "Stop and see the Matsukumas, okay?" And she says, "Okay." And she didn't know what for, but just because Mom said so, I guess. [Laughs] So then he would be good to her, too.

TI: Well, so it's just amazing to think of these connections, relationships, that your father really fostered, what, seventy, eighty years ago that still exist today. So it sounds like your father really appreciated these connections.

MY: Yeah, and it was the same way with the boys. They'd bring people that were customers or friends, or friends' friends, you know. And my mom would, wieners were the favorite thing, and she'd fry wieners and she'd put it out. And if you fry a wiener, you try to eat that with a chopstick, and she'd say, "Oh, you're a pretty good Japanese if you eat fried wieners with chopsticks." So there are some guys that remember that and they'll come back and tell me. And I said, "Yeah, I've heard my mom use that one on some of these guys," and he said, "Yeah."

TI: And these were other Niseis?

MY: No, hakujins.

TI: Hakujin, okay. So that they could...

MY: Friend of my brother's.

TI: I see.

MY: And then...

TI: And, of course, you would then, she would say that in English to them. So she would talk English to --

MY: Yeah, my mom would speak broken English to them.

TI: Oh, that's good.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright (c) 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.