<Begin Segment 1>

TI: We're gonna start interview number two with you, Bob.

BS: Okay.

TI: And today is Friday, June 3, 2011. We're at the Densho offices doing this interview. On camera is Dana Hoshide, observing we have Casey Ikeda and Nina Wallace, and I'm the interviewer, Tom Ikeda. And so, Bob, the first interview we covered pretty much the prewar and wartime, and to start this interview off, during the war your father lost his eyesight, so why don't we start right there and tell me about that?

BS: Okay, we lived in the NP Hotel, and my dad had this girlfriend. I don't know if they were married or not. When you're a little kid you don't, you're not really that... I'm living with my aunt and uncle, and I'd come down on weekends, live with my dad. So he had this girlfriend, and he was going to a doctor, and his eyesight on... his one eye, he lost sight of one eye while still boxing, and then the other eye, his left eye, started to deteriorate, so he went to the doctor and had that checked out. And they told him that we should try cataract surgery, and so he -- he didn't know much about it, and he did a little research on it and figured that that was the right way to go to save that, the left eye -- so he had the surgery, and it failed. He lost both eyes, sight in both eyes. So his girlfriend left, and so he was, he was pretty much on his own except when I came after school or on weekends to take him around. And I became my dad's seeing eye dog. So Saturday or Sunday, I'd go down Saturday morning and we had this ritual. We would, I would take my dad -- he'd get dressed up. He always wore a shirt and a tie and a suit. And as I said earlier, we lived in this one room, single room occupancy unit, nine by thirteen, and there was this closet and the closet had all his clothes, and when he was boxing he acquired a pretty nice wardrobe, and so he always dressed in a suit. So I'd take him around the Chinatown-International District -- and don't forget, I'm ten, eleven years old then -- and we'd go by the barbershop on Jackson Street, Vince's Barbershop, and we'd stop in the barbershop, and you could hear the rattling of the domino chips in the back, in the back room where they're playing haikyu. Paikyu, they call it now. And we'd go in the back and the guys that were winning would give me a little money. I always had money in my pocket. And we'd go in the back room and I'd get a nickel or a dime from the winners, right, and my dad would get a cigar from these guys, and then we'd go down and go into Delphine's barbershop. That's in the Atlas Hotel, where one of the restaurants are now, and it was Delphine's barbershop and it was the biggest barbershop in Chinatown. They had six chairs, three on each side. And in the back room you could hear the click, click, click, so I'd bring my dad there and made, oh, I might've made twenty-five, thirty-five cents going around, talking to the winners, and my dad was still a hero, sports hero, even though he had quit boxing seven, eight years before that. And we'd leave Delphine's barbershop and then we'd pass Ray's barbershop, and I said, "Dad, why don't we go in there?" he says, "We're Tagalog and they're Ilocano." That's that, you know, that...

TI: Like tribal?

BS: Tribal kind of thing, and so we never went into Ray's and I felt bad about that. I said there goes another quarter or thirty-five cents. Then I took, bring Dad to Tai Tung for lunch. We either went to breakfast early at the Jackson Cafe or the Paramount Cafe that was on Jackson, or if it was closer to lunch we went and got hum bow at Tai Tung. And we'd sit there and I'd say, "Dad, you have to take the paper off the bottom." He'd say, "Bobby, I know that. I knew this before you were born." And so we'd eat there, and I'd take him to the Filipino Improvement Club, the club that, owned by Rudy Santos, the biggest gambling hall in the state of Washington.

TI: And before we go there, back to Tai Tung, how did the Chinese community treat your father?

BS: Oh, he was a, they're old sports fans of the old man at that time, and he was quite a hero with the workers there, and so they had his photo up there, too, in boxing pose. And so he was pretty popular there, and so he did well in the Chinese community. To the Filipino Improvement Club and a lot of gambling going on there, and they served lunch there, but since we had hum bow already we didn't have to eat lunch. That's on Maynard, and then we'd go back to King Street. We'd walk down King Street, and Dad said, "Let's stop into Mike's Tavern." Mike's Tavern was on the corner of Sixth and King, on the south, on the southeast corner of Sixth and King. It's a brick building now owned by Howard Dong. And he said, "I want to go see my friend Felix. He's having a beer today." So we walk into the tavern. You know my dad had a cane. Tap, tap, tap, tap, so everybody knew he was coming, tap, tap. We walk in, and as soon as we walk in the door of the tavern we hear this argument going on, these two guys yelling at each other, and one of 'em is Felix, my dad's friend. And someone, either him or the guy that he was arguing with, the big Swedish guy, Nordic American guy, were arguing over this five dollar loan or bet, whatever it was, and we sat down and they were still arguing, and Dad said, "Bobby, take me over to that fellow that's talking to Felix." I says, "Okay, Dad." He says, "Put my left hand on his right shoulder." "Okay, Dad." So we go, tap, tap, tap, tap. I put his hand, and he goes [throws a punch] boom, and he drops the guy. My dad's blind, but he could, he could feel his shoulder, he knew where his chin was, he goes pop and he goes down. He says, "Bobby, we better go now." So out the door we go, and we go down King Street. Tap, tap, tap, tap and he's dragging me down King Street and towards Fifth Avenue, and all of a sudden we hear this, "Hey, Sammy. Sammy, stop." He says, "Bobby, who's that?" I said, "It's the cops, Dad." He says, "It's okay. Let me do the talking." So everybody knew him, right? And the cops, "So what's happening back there, Sammy, at Mike's Tavern?" He says, "I don't know, officer. I don't see nothing." So anyway, that was, and of course they laughed, and blood is streaming down my dad's knuckle. Now, Dad was not a violent guy. He was a very, very patient guy, was really a fun kind of guy, but if he got riled up with someone picking on his friends he came to their defense, even though he was sightless. He knew he could cause some harm. Anyway, that was my old man.

TI: That's a good story. Now how did, so how did you, what did you think when you saw your dad do these things? I mean, did you, were you surprised when he punched this guy?

BS: Yeah, because growing up I never saw him lose his temper at all. And my brother and I, we'd fuss and when you're living in that one room hotel room there isn't much to do, so my brother and I, when we got to, when he came up from Tacoma we'd bounce on the bed. That was a trampoline. That was a pretty big bed, and so he never got angry with that. He'd just sort of grab us when we were in the air and sort of set us down and tickle us or whatever it was, but I never saw him lose his temper at any other time except that once in that tavern.

TI: Now, during this period, how did your dad support himself?

BS: He had the social security and some kind of disability. It might've been from the boxing industry, just couple dollars a month, not very much.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.