<Begin Segment 18>

TI: So Victor and Margaret were working, what about Pearl? What, what was she doing during this time, during the war?

RM: She was always a good girl, always did what she was told to do, never fought back, which is diametrically opposed to direction I was traveling. I was about as bad as I could possibly be, and she was as lily white as she could be, but yet she's the one that probably suffered most, of anybody in the family. She's the one that committed suicide. And she did it a number of ways. I mean, even committing suicide is not, not easy, and especially during the war when you, you just don't have things to, to die with, whether it be pills or medications or guns or whatever.

TI: But during this period, when she was trying to commit suicide, this period, was this, this was after the war or did it start during the war?

RM: This is, of course, after the war.

TI: Okay, so after the war. But during the war, did you notice anything? You said that she would always kind of do what she was told. I mean, was this a hard time during the war also for her?

RM: She, before she died, I guess she was preparing for it so that she, I came home late at night one night and she was burning all her papers, personal papers. She wanted to become a novelist. She thought about, with a name like Pearl, she, she thought about, shucks, now I can't remember the name of it, that lady that wrote novels about China...

TI: Pearl Buck? Pearl Buck?

RM: Pearl Buck, yeah. And of course that was how she grew up, reading this kind of stuff, and so that's how she wanted to be. And of course Pearl Buck's novels are all social conditions and I think she probably wanted to do that kind of thing, too, so I think she was, probably felt very deeply about things, especially feelings, and then liked to put it down on paper. Unfortunately, when she decided to die she decided to destroy all the things that would be evidence of what her personality was like. Her Oahu is an example; her picture's cut out of it.

KN: Oh, she did that?

RM: Yeah. And then everything that she had written, which had been a lot, all hand, handwritten, she tried to burn. She failed at that the first time around because she didn't realize paper's that hard to burn. And so I had to, late at night, I'm probably drunk, comin' home and I had to show her that you got to put kindling in between the wood, between the paper or otherwise it won't burn. Otherwise you're gonna find complete sheets of paper there later, a manuscript. I did take everything over to Brian Niiya, left it at the Cultural Center. Actually, my brother took all that stuff over there. I added to it because I had all the stuff that my mother kept for herself, like the photograph albums, that kind of stuff. The last year was a period of time in which Karen, my niece, my brother Victor's daughter, put it all together and then she made discs for us, DVDs, and so we've got all, instead of the albums we just have to keep the DVD now and we've got all the pictures on there. So that was great. She did a great job.

TI: Going back to when your sister is burning her papers, what registered with you when you saw that? You realized that her writings were really important to her and here she was destroying that. Did, what did you think about that?

RM: I wasn't bein' a scholar at that particular point. In fact, I didn't do any work at all, basically, and eventually failed my classes. But it doesn't mean that Punahou didn't leave its mark on me, I think. I think if you read the story that I wrote I think it probably gives some indication that I do have some sense and I do have some conscience. It wasn't all bad. I learned quite a bit, especially about people. I mentioned working on an airplane, you're constantly working with people and that's probably what I learned that has been more valuable to me than anything else was, what people are like and how to treat 'em.

TI: And so, during this time, were there signs that you felt that she was, she was troubled?

RM: 'Course, I was troubled. I was doing everything abnormally and so I imagine that, I couldn't understand why she wasn't revolting from a lot of things and in constant rebellion like I was. She just, just kept it all internal and I think at one point she just could not take it any longer.

KN: It's very interesting that in your family you had two children who are trying to go to work, trying to go to school and work, and they're trying to do this all without parental supervision, and the two younger children are, in their own ways, reflecting or expressing that there's something wrong with this situation.

RM: Well, of course, I don't, I think you're talkin' about conscience at that point, aren't you?

KN: I don't know. I mean, just in that--

RM: What's right, what's wrong kind of thing. I was goin' for everything bad. Everything that I was not permitted to do I was doing. If somebody told me to do something I'd do just the opposite, especially when, later, after the war when my mother came home. It got to the point where it was ultimately intolerable.

TI: So Ramsay, tell me, explain to me, so someone tells you to go left then you go right, I mean, what, why'd you do that? What were you thinking? Why would you always want to do the opposite?

RM: The only thing I can think of is a bad seed, you know? [Laughs] Although I'm being, I'm trying to be funny there, but, but I really suspect that I may have had an affinity toward the negative side.

TI: But I mean -- and I do mean this to be fair to you -- you've just, you're going through a very difficult time. I mean, your parents have been taken away...

RM: It should've been very difficult.

TI: Well I think it was difficult and, and what your reaction was --

RM: Not to me. I was doing all things that I would've been told not to do and enjoying every bit of it, yes.

TI: So you were enjoying it? This was, it was, like, pure enjoyment or was it rebellion? Was it like --

RM: It was total rebellion and I think that I, in many respects, got a lot of satisfaction from it, yes. I mean, I could've been mad at the US of A, I could've been mad at Uncle Sam, I could've been mad at Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but no, it wasn't personalized in any particular way. I was just being bad.

TI: It's like a rebellion against all authority almost.

RM: A very good friend of mine is Masaji -- you know who Masaji Marumoto is?

TI: I don't.

KN: The lawyer.

RM: He, locally, he was the first Japanese Supreme Court justice, and of course he was very close to the Japanese community from the very beginning. They were raised, I think, I think Marumotos came from Kona. I knew his son, Wendell. Last time I saw him, saw him at Long's Drug Store and about half hour later I came out of Long's Drug Store and Wendell was out in the parking lot lookin' for his car, so -- he's had some problems himself and I am not sure whether he's going to get a book done, but if he, he used to be a Phi Beta Kappa kind of guy and if anybody got an A in class or A-plus in class Wendell was the one. He's little bitty guy --

KN: So you went to school with him?

RM: Yeah, little bitty guy with big huge glasses, at the books all the time. [Laughs] And at this point, of course, he's tryin' to put a very hefty volume together, I think, particularly about the politics and things in, here in Honolulu, and I hope he gets it done because it'll be a very, very interesting book and he'll be quoting all these politicians that we grew up with.

KN: So you went to school with this gentleman, you went to school with him at Punahou, and then --

RM: He's a '52er.

KN: But you said you were '53. What happened? Some time --

RM: This is, they moved on and left me because I didn't, hadn't finished, hadn't finished all my work in '52 and that's the reason why I went back in '53, because I just could not tolerate making up the work. In fact, I went to Roosevelt. I forget what the lady's name, she's kind of famous as a, the advisor, class advisor kind of thing, and she told me, "Ramsay, you're gonna have to get that work caught up or Roosevelt School is not gonna take you." [Laughs] So at that point I really gave up, decided I'd come back in '53, and that's the reason why I'm '53.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.