<Begin Segment 25>

TI: So Ted really encouraged you to write your story?

RM: Yeah.

TI: And prior to that, how many people knew about your story?

RM: Well, John Bowles. And I had a friend named... terrible short term memory. Norman Godbowl. Let's see, after school he went to Columbia University, I believe, became a journalist, worked as an advertiser here, locally, for a number of years, dated some, some of the loveliest girls in Honolulu before AP hired him, and then he went to Australia. And from Australia he was sent to Vietnam, to the Southeast Asia, I mean, a real shooting war, and so he, he saw all that and he went back to Australia and he, he stayed there. Meantime, he had developed a film studio and made quite a bit of money and married another woman and lost a fortune, I think. And he's another drinking buddy of mine, so every once in a while he'd show up in Honolulu. And he's a writer, so I told him how John Bowles is after me, wants me to -- "Yeah, why don't you do that?" Said, "You should do that." And he lectured me and he said, "You know, writing is a discipline. We have to get up whether you want to or not, early in the morning when it's quiet and nobody's gonna bother you, and sit down in front of that computer and whether you write anything or nothing or if you write pages you stay there. Every day, do that early in the morning when nobody's up." I did that.

TI: And how long did you write?

RM: Six months. Just to write that, twenty-eight pages, took me six months.

TI: And when you were done, what did that feel like?

RM: It drained me quite a bit. Emotionally it drained me quite a bit. It, I was bringing up, writing about all the highlights in my life, not necessarily good, the good and the bad. I dragged out all these skeletons from the closet, and I was really, really afraid of letting it all loose, like all the demons were out of the closet and in the story and I really was afraid to show it to anybody. But then when people read it they, they gave me some very, very encouraging reactions.

TI: And did that surprise you?

RM: Including you.

TI: [Laughs] Did that surprise you, the reactions of people?

RM: Yeah.

TI: How so? Why, why did it surprise you? It is a --

RM: Because I had no idea that it would have that kind of impact. No way of knowing. I thought, hell, all that junk in the closet that I dragged out, people are reading it and they're taking an interest in it, and people are, in particular, responding to it. I'm getting an emotional response out of it. And of course that is absolutely a thrill to anybody that writes anything, yeah, is to have people respond like that.

TI: And how has this changed you? When you see the reaction, you go through the process, you write it, you get the reactions?

RM: Norman came up within a few months. I mailed it to him and I said, "Norman, I've done this thing, I've done this thing." I sent to him and I didn't get much of a response from him, email like, and then he showed up one day and he said, "You know, I really like what you wrote and we'll use this as a outline and I want you to write me six hundred pages and I will find a publisher for you." And I think that reaction floored me even more, because he thought it was really a great story that needed to be told. And so that made me feel very good.

TI: And are you doing that? Are you, are you writing?

RM: [Laughs] I'll tell you, when I was, during the six months that I was writing it, I'd get up early in the morning and I'd sit there whether I wrote one page or twenty, and about seven o'clock, seven-thirty, my wife would come up, turn the damn TV on and I'd go, I'd scream at her. I thought I was gonna have to divorce her to finish this damn story. [Laughs] But I think eventually she understood how to survive, which was to not turn the TV on or bother me during that period of time, and she learned how to leave me alone, although she didn't like it. And I could hear the TV going downstairs, so I think she was okay, but she survived it.

TI: And so does that mean you're still writing or still will write?

RM: No. I've never been an ambitious person. I've done a lot of things I've been successful at, like roaring down a, down a street in a souped up old jalopy, that kind of stuff, did very well. [Laughs] Very well-known for that.

TI: Well, I'll encourage you also because I did read it, I've heard your story, and what's clear to me is you have a very unique perspective that I think is important to tell, so --

RM: Yeah, I don't think anybody else has written about spending, I mean, learning, becoming, trying, a kid trying to become an American and ending up being an all-American juvenile delinquent. Probably the only one, but especially in the context of Pearl Harbor, that's the way it happened. And I think the fact that I was naughty or whatever you want to call it, delinquent, I think the natural inclination was there to start with, in fact, it's part of my character, and the war gave me the opportunity to become, I don't know whether it's the best or the worst of the juvenile delinquent. [Laughs] Some people have, most people have forgiven me for becoming the juvenile delinquent.

TI: We're coming to the end of the interview.

RM: I'll never be the hero of the class. I'll be the juvenile delinquent.

TI: Oh, it's, I think as people get older, I think it's not about right or wrong, hero or whatever, I think, I think people are just looking at...

RM: What impact you had.

TI: Yeah, what happened.

RM: How many, how many bowls of rice did you bring home? [Laughs]

<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.