<Begin Segment 7>

TI: I want you, you talked a little bit about where you lived in Pacific Heights. Can you describe your home? What was, what did your home look like?

MY: Home in Pacific Heights was three story, what we call flats. I think, what's the new word? Well, we lived in the flat, three flat building, three -- oh, we call it three story building now -- we lived in the middle story, or third... and then it was three flights of stairs up to the third, up to the third floor. We lived on the second floor, so we had one flight of stairs. We had a large entryway because of the configuration of the floor plan. From the front of the house, which faced the Washington Street, the house was essentially divided lengthwise. To the right side there was the living room, what we used to call front parlor, and on the other side was the bedroom. Then there was a back parlor, smaller living room, using today's lexicon, and then behind that there was one bedroom. Behind that there was a huge kitchen and then a little pantryway, and then a huge dining room. Other side of the dining room was the bedroom where my brother and I, Albert and I shared a bedroom. In front of that was Bob's, my oldest brother's bedroom. In front of that was the bathroom, and if you are familiar with the old San Francisco flat structure, the bathroom and the toilet used to be separated. You know that? So there was a the toilet and there was a stairwell, and then in front of that there was a huge entryway and then the front bedroom. And continuing, as you see, there were my sister's bedroom, my brother and my bedroom, Bob's bedroom, and my parents' bedroom, a four bedroom house. Beyond that, a large living room, about this size, and a smaller living room back there, plus a large kitchen about this size, and a dining room, we had a huge table about this size, so you get a fairly --

TI: So it sounds like a, quite a large house, or home.

MY: It was a large house.

TI: And how would this compare to, like Al's house, when you, when you think about, you just described a four bedroom flat?

MY: Well, a friend of mine, Wayne's parents rented a house in Japantown, a similar San Francisco flat, so to say, except it was a single story building. I mean, there they had, I think, two bedrooms and their living room was about half of this room. It was a very smaller structure. And I remember the Ochi family, they lived in another flat, upstairs, downstairs. Their house was midway between our house and Wayne's house in terms of architectural size of the house.

TI: But I was curious, in that neighborhood where your parents would work, how would your house compare to some of the wealthier families? I mean, it seemed like you had quite a bit of space. Were their homes that much different?

MY: Well, I've not been in any of the neighborhood homes other than Al's house, which had a separate three car garage, separate from the house, and then there was upstairs, a two story house that's still there on Washington Street, huge, living in a real typical wealthy home. Huge kitchen with a cook, chauffeur, upstairs maid, and then the houses my dad cleaned and I used to help, they were mansions on Pacific Avenue, Vallejo Street. So that's the only thing I could compare to.

TI: Did you have any thoughts about class back then? I mean, here you're looking at, you're in San Francisco, seeing some wealthy families, and then you'd have friends in Japantown who essentially were immigrant families. Did you ever think about class back then?

MY: No. The issue never really came up. That question, or the issue to come in any way visible would be I spent most of my time in Japantown, Bukkyokai, and Buddhist temple on Sundays, public school -- during public school hours -- because after school was taken up with Japantown.

TI: You mentioned your friend Al, did you ever share with him some of your Japanese culture, whether it's food or anything like that?

MY: No.

TI: Your martial arts?

MY: No, I don't remember any. Maybe martial arts may have come in every so often, but...

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.