<Begin Segment 16>

TI: Going back to Poughkeepsie, how did you like this, living at this boarding school for, for two years?

MB: Well, not especially. I mean, I was away from family and I realize all school kids have their own little groups, that when we were outside the main group there were a couple nice kids. My roommate's family was Quaker, not the real rigid kind, and he was an insurance man, had a comfortable job and would invite me Sunday dinners. And then I had these other, friend, just the one, not the other roommate, but she came from, from a farmer and I guess they were, I don't know, Slavic or, they had some other Slavic name, S-K-Y ending, you know, and I still could communicate with her and she was very nice. Some who wanted to belong, like her roommate, to the, the core group, had nothing to do with me, but there were others who, I mean, it had, it was not one of the best or expensive boarding schools, but they had some people, like what's his name, Bell? The telephone inventor?

TI: Uh-huh.

MB: His grandson was there and his father was a professor at Florida (University), but he never wanted that attention, never told anybody that his grandfather was Alexander Bell. And there were a few from, it wasn't real expensive boarding school and that's why I chose it. My brother paid for it. Poor guy, he wasn't making very much in the military.

TI: And so you told us earlier, so you stayed there for two years, but you didn't stay there for your senior year and then went back to Walnut Grove? So, so let's go there. So what was Walnut Grove like when you returned? So this is quite a while now. This is sort of years, and you now return.

MB: Well I, we didn't even live with the Walnut Grove people in camp, so yeah, I really didn't have too many friends and it was a difficult adjustment. Their interests were different and they thought I was a snob. I went to Courtland High School, and it, the principal was really not kind. He thought I was a snob, too, but just because I had gone to a different school, but I never really was a big show off or anything like that.

TI: Now, was your, because, was part of this because your schooling was so much better in New York and so when you came you knew more, or what, what was, when they say snob, what was it, what...

MB: Yeah, I was different. You would think that California schools would be equal to New York schools, but I found the quality not as high, because the New York schools, the kids came from better schools.

TI: Well, it wasn't just a regular school, too. This was a private boarding school, so it was like a preparatory school for, for college.

MB: Yeah, it was. But a lot of them, their parents were divorced and so the parents sent them to boarding school. There were a few people who would had from real good background, like, oh, Rockefeller, that Saturday Evening Post, not Rockefeller, but...

BT: Oh, Rockwell, (Norman).

MB: Rockwell, and his kids all went there.

TI: So going back to Walnut Grove, Courtland High School --

MB: So you could see the contrast.

TI: I'm curious, so earlier we talked about how a lot of the Walnut Grove people, they had, like a Japanese accent, and I'm thinking now that you've been --

MB: By then they were better.

TI: Yeah, they were better, but I bet you were, your language was probably a lot different also, by going to New York, a New York school, that your speech was probably a little bit different, maybe more, almost East Coast in terms of how you spoke?

MB: I don't know. I didn't have very many friends at school there, and...

TI: So it sounds like that was a tough year for you then, that senior year was difficult.

MB: Yeah. It was. And I always felt guilty that my brother had to pay so much for my school, but the Japanese, the eldest son is responsible for the family in the event that the father, or the parent gets ill, sick or whatever, and he was a very good, responsible son.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.