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TI: So tell me a little bit more about your father. What, if you were to describe him as a person, like his personality, how would people describe your father?

TH: Well, I'd say very friendly and, I guess, basically got along well with the people. Because of the business he never really got into, as a joiner for different organizations, because going back to the fact that he would be getting up at four in the morning and then we would close the store at around nine o'clock, and then after that he would then have his evening meal, which then meant that he probably only maybe had six hours of sleep or even less. And so he kept very busy and the store was open seven days a week, full run from Monday to Saturday and on Sunday was open, I guess maybe eight in the morning, and then we'd close at, supposedly at noon, but it was always a case of half hour after the last customer left. People would come in a little later, alright, you service them and you sort of wait around and finally no one would come for a long time, okay, then you shut the door. So he had very long hours, so that's why... but he, going back to personality-wise, yeah, I guess you'd say that he's very friendly, very knowledgeable and I guess he had, he had a pretty good, what would you call it, understanding of people. My wife said, "Yeah, he, he was a..." she would consider him as what, one person that she would say, "Yeah, he was a good guy, good man."

TI: And, and not only good social skills, but could read people well, you say?

TH: Yeah, right.

TI: Now, your father was, was well-educated, and I'm trying... how did he sort of keep his intellectual side going? I mean, was there, was he a reader? What did he do in terms of staying on top of things? Did he...

TH: Well, working as he did those long hours, I don't think he really had much of a chance, but I think you're right. He did probably read when he could, and I'm sure that he read the newspapers, and I remember we'd have the Japanese papers come in and I think that he read that in brief little span of time that he had. And I remember going up closer to December 7th, he would then ask me to look in the newspaper. Now, I don't know whether it was, it must have been an English newspaper, yeah. So he kept up with things and he apparently had bought stocks in Tokyo Electric, and so he was then wondering what the price was as the, the market really can sort of predict what's gonna happen in the future. And so about August of, during the summer, I think it was August of 1941, he was (asking when) the paper would come in and I'd sit there. "Alright, what's the price of Tokyo Electric?" I'd just pick a number (as an example), say, "Eighteen dollars and seventy-five," and pretty soon it was going down, so apparently my dad turned around and he sold it. But later on we find he sold it still at a little profit, so he didn't take a loss. But all of this, thinking back into the history or what was going on, he knew that things were not going well with the relation (between) Japan and United States, and my understanding was that, I guess it was August '41, U.S. put a oil embargo on Japan. And (in my) reading later (on) in (the) diplomatic world, an embargo would be almost the same as an act of declaring (...), so I guess my dad suddenly realized things aren't (going to) go too well.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.