<Begin Segment 3>

TI: So you mentioned your parents had a nursery.

TK: Right.

TI: The greenhouse. What kind of things did they grow?

TK: In the winter they grew flowers, mainly chrysanthemum, and then for Easter they grew Easter lilies, and I think they grew some bedding plants for the spring. And then in summer we raised some tomatoes and cucumber in the greenhouse.

TI: And when you did this who were the customers? Who did your father sell these things to?

TK: Most of the produce that came out of the greenhouse and the flowers, they were sold to some wholesalers in Seattle. And some of it was sold to our landlord, and he had a grocery store.

TI: Okay. So a grocery store on Bainbridge Island?

TK: On Bainbridge Island, yeah.

TI: Now, when he sold it to the wholesalers in Seattle, how did he get the goods from Bainbridge Island to Seattle?

TK: We had a, he had a truck and he used to go to Seattle maybe once a week or something like that, and he had to go on the ferry.

TI: And was this the wholesalers by the public market, like Western Avenue, around there? Do you know where he went?

TK: I think so, yeah. Around Western Avenue or maybe, I don't know, maybe he sold some at the Pike's Place Market or something like that, to some wholesalers or some distributers or something.

TI: Okay. Now did you ever get to go with your father on these trips?

TK: No, I was too young.

TI: I have in my notes this cute little story about how he would have to time when he would, which ferry he would take.

TK: Oh, like in the wintertime he had to buy the fuel oil in Seattle, and so when the, on the truck that we had he had some portable fuel tanks that when he had to buy fuel we used to roll it onto the truck, and then he'd, when he brought the produce into Seattle to sell, he sold it and then he bought the fuel oil. But after, but when he got the fuel oil on the truck, the truck didn't have that much power, so he couldn't go uphill very much, so he, and then so he had to time the ferry so that the ferry would, I mean he would get on the ferry when it was high tide so that the ramp on the ferry would be almost level.

TI: Yeah, 'cause in the Puget Sound the tides go up and down and...

TK: Go up and down quite a bit, and if it was at low tide, to get off the ferry it would've been a, quite a bit of an incline.

TI: And he wouldn't be able to get off the ferry.

TK: And he probably couldn't get off the ferry unless somebody gave him a push. [Laughs]

TI: Yeah, that's, that's a good story. 'Cause I, as a kid, I remember the ferries, and depending on low or high tide they have those ramps that, yeah, that go up and down just based on the tide.

TK: On the tide.

TI: But I'd never thought of you'd have to time it.

TK: Yeah, time it.

TI: That's good.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.