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TI: So going back, we're talking about the outbreak of war. So December 7, 1941, do you recall that day?

SY: Definitely.

TI: So talk about that.

SY: I happened to be at a wedding. And I don't know whose wedding it was, but all I recall was it was on Pine Street in Japantown and there was a long stairway, and a group of young boys like myself and a group of girls, young girls, we were playing. I don't know what we were playing about, but then all of a sudden, a newspaper man came by, not in front of us, but across the street, yelling, "Extra! Extra! Read all about it, Japs bomb Pearl Harbor!" Well, we knew the word "Jap" was not a kind word for the Japanese, but that startled all of us, and the parents were petrified, especially our family, because my stepfather was an "illegal alien," and sure enough, they thought he was going to be the first to be arrested. But fortunately, my mother did all the paperwork so that he did not get, immigration did not get caught up with him until 1947, I'll go into that later.

TI: Yeah, but so, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, sort of, aliens, noncitizens had to register, so did he register, or did, how did, what did he do during that time period?

SY: That I don't know, but all I remember was we had a, in our cleaner's, our little tool shed, inside a little closet, we had a jackknife, and I have a feeling I lost it, throwing it against the wood fence and trying to make it stick, because you saw that in the movies. And my parents were terrified, the fact that the FBI's going to find that hidden jackknife, and we turned in the bayonet that we used for cleaning out the area where we went camping to Russian River area, cameras, and radios, and so forth, we turned all that to the police department, which we were required to do. But that one jackknife we couldn't locate, and that was quite interesting. But I'd like to revert back to, we were talking about my mother. We had a cleaner and the kitchen was in the back, but we had a door whenever it opens it rings and the customer was there, but as I was leaving for school, I learned a real easy lesson by pushing the no sale and the cash register door open. But if I held it real slowly, it won't ring. And I remember taking six cents out of the cash register, and on the way to school I went up Divisadero, up McAllister Street, and, about a quarter of a block, there was a candy store. There was this, I don't know the name of this candy, but it was a paper with all kinds of dots on there, different color. And I ate that, I mean, not just a little roll, but, for six cents you could eat a lot of candy, little Tootsie Roll, and by the time I got to school I was sugar high and sick. But when I came home, my mother was waiting at the outside. "There's six cents missing from the cash register." I went into my Shakespearean act, "What do you mean? Who took it? I don't understand. You sure? You miscounted," you know. Well, I was lying because I didn't want to get scolded. Well, my mother talked about that all through my elementary school, through the camp, all throughout my high school, all throughout the time when I came home from the navy, all throughout, until the age of forty. I says enough is enough, I must confess, I did it, this is a good time, so after dinner I said, "Mom, Dad, I got a confession to make. Let's sit down, I want to -- "

TI: This is when you're, like, forty years old.

SY: Forty years old. I says, "I want to tell you the whole story." I said, "The six cents that was missing in the cash register that you guys mention all throughout my life, made my life miserable, I did take it, and I bought candy with it." And their, both response was, "What six cents?" But I think they taught me a good lesson, that never steal, because all throughout my life, I remember that misery I went through with that lousy six cents that I took just for that terrible candy that I ate. But anyway, I'm sorry, I went ahead of my time.

TI: No, that's a good story, I'm glad you told that story.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.