<Begin Segment 25>

TI: So the store... so yesterday, I came by, the store is still going strong. Is it one of the older establishments in Kona, the Oshima store?

SO: Yeah, 1940s, [inaudible], and there were plenty of small stores in Kona. So when the big boxes came in, they gradually closed up all the small stores. But instead, we were enlarging our store, and then increasing the business. So all these years, we were able to survive competition from the big boxes.

TI: So how about the future for the store? Because I noticed lots of big shopping centers, there's Target and big box stores, how will you fare in the future?

SO: Well, now with the recession, we thought it's a good time to enlarge the store. So we have an application for, loan application for building permits to go ahead and extend the store forward. So we're not holding back, we're just trying to compete.

TI: Oh, interesting. So you think this is a good time to get bigger.

SO: Yeah.

TI: Now, so today, who's the, who's in charge of the store? I mean, you're the, you're probably the patriarch, you're the oldest there. I mean, but who runs the store now?

SO: I have a niece, she's a pharmacist, and she's the general manager. And she says she'll manage as long as I'm around to help. That's why I'm trying to help her. In the meantime, we hired a manager to take care of the grocery part, and then he being the personnel manager, so taking care of all the workers.

TI: And so I stopped in the store, you were still working the store. How many days a week do you work?

SO: Oh, I'm still working seven days a week, trying to help.

TI: Seven days a week. And about how many hours a day do you work?

SO: Oh, it depends. Sometimes six hours, usually seven hours.

TI: So seven days a week, six to seven hours, and you're eighty-four years old?

SO: This year I'm going to be eighty-four years old, August.

TI: So that's pretty amazing. [Laughs] Going back to who runs the store, you talked about during this recession is a good time to actually expand. Whose idea is that? Is that your idea or someone else's?

SO: Well, I thought I'll wait until a recession comes around so we can get more contractors with a lower price. Although the price of material did go up, but that'll make it easier.

TI: So it sounds like this was, you thought this was a good idea.

SO: Yeah.

TI: Okay, good. Okay. I want to go back and ask, there's something I forgot to ask about. After your father was killed, what happened to his body?

SO: My father died in Oklahoma, and then he was buried over there. But later on, my brother, my oldest brother Noboru, went to get his remains. And he had to have it cremated, and Oklahoma didn't allow any cremation, so he had to take the remains to the next state, Texas, and there he got it cremated and then he brought it back to Kona, and now, he's buried together with his wife.

TI: Okay. Because, and then your mother died in 1952?

SO: Yeah.

TI: And so she was still a fairly young woman at fifty-two, or 1952, probably in her fifties? Oh, yeah, I have the sheet here. So she was born 1907, is that right?

SO: Yeah. No... my father came to Hawaii in 1907.

TI: Or maybe she came here. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm on the wrong... yeah, I don't see how old she was. I think I have it here. So mother... 1893, so '52, so she was about, almost sixty years old.

SO: Yeah, fifty-nine.

TI: Fifty-nine years old. So Susumu, that, I finished all my questions. So what am I forgetting? Is there anything else that you want to talk about?

SO: [Laughs] No.

TI: I know I asked you lots of questions. But I think -- well, think about it, is there anything that I left out that might be important to your, maybe great-great-grandchildren? I mean, people who, I think of all the people who work at the Oshima store, and, say, in fifty years, what are some important things that they should know about you or the store?

SO: Well, Oshima family's been having a heart problem. So last year I lost one niece in California, she was forty-three years old, she had a heart attack. And the year before that, had another niece, she was a schoolteacher, and then she also had a heart attack. And before that, another nephew passed away, he also had a heart attack. He was a retired attorney from New York. So we lost him at age fifty-one. He went to Kona school, didn't go to a special school, but he studied hard and he joined all kind of activities. So when he applied for the Ivy League college, there were six or seven I recall that accepted him. So he went to Brown University, graduated from Brown, majoring in sociology. Then he went to Harvard after that, and went there for two years, then he transferred to New York law school, and then there he graduated four years later and then he became a corporate attorney. And then after working there for seven years, he transferred to another law firm in New Jersey. The first company had about, over a hundred attorneys, three hundred attorneys. And the next law firm he had was, he went to was about over two hundred attorneys, and then after working for five years, they made him a partner of the law firm. And then about three years later, he became manager of the New York office where they had about seventy-five attorneys. Then (retired at) the age of forty-nine, and then (passed away) at fifty-one, all those years he was helping the non-profit organizations with the law work. And then one Friday morning, he had a heart attack, and then he passed away.

TI: At fifty-one, so two years after he had retired.

SO: That's right.

TI: And this was how many years ago? Just a few years ago?

SO: That was three years ago.

TI: Three years ago. That's, yeah, it hits home for me because that would have made him fifty-four now, that's how old I am. So he's the same age as I was. Interesting, okay. Well, Susumu, thank you so much. This is a little bit longer than I told you, this is almost already over two hours, but this was fascinating to hear about your life and everything. So thank you so much for sharing.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.