<Begin Segment 14>

TI: Alright, so now we'll go back to Chicago, so install the boiler.

RH: Well, yeah, we were installing the boiler and we couldn't do it ourself, a lot of union things going on which I didn't know anything about. So he had to have the boiler installed and then the inspector came over, check it over, and he says, "Oh, there's a bulge in the bottom of the boiler, it could go any time. But if you give me seventy-five dollars I'll pass it." And my dad says, "No." So he sold the boiler to a junker or somebody and the guy came in and he sold the burner, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, they made a transaction there and he had to go out and buy a new boiler and had it installed and then the inspector says, okay. 'Cause I said, "Well, why didn't you just give him the seventy-five dollars?" And he says, "He'll come back next year for another seventy-five dollars, and then next year for another hundred dollars and a hundred fifty dollars and something like that." He says, "There'll be no end to it." So I said okay.

TI: And okay, so how did the business go?

RH: So it went real well for about ten years or more. Then my dad went with the money that he earned, he finally went to Japan, okay, and he went there and a couple months later he wants to go back again. So he put my brother in charge and he was a smoother talker than me. And so one day I was doing some work in there and I just dropped my tools and I went out for a while, clear my mind. And then I came back and he says, "What are you doing here?" And I says, "I'm coming back to work." He says, "No, man, you're fired."

TI: Your brother fired you.

RH: Yeah, he says, "You're not working here no more." So I says, okay, so I took off. And later on my dad came back and he heard about this and he didn't say anything. And later on he wanted me to come back to work for him and I said, "No, I got a good job," so I had a better job working someplace else, and I never went back. And after that the business went straight down, I don't know, I don't think I had anything to do with it but it just went down. And I think that the clothes, the making of the clothes changed from wool to the synthetic, and so a lot of people started washing their clothes and so forth. And then went down and down and all the dry cleaning business went down and the guys that stayed in business came out back on top. Because the synthetic stuff didn't really work out, but it worked out long enough to put us out of business. So my brother gave up the business and my dad gave it to him and he gave it up.

TI: So in some ways, even though it wasn't really planned by you, it was probably a good time for you to get out of the business because at that point it just started going down and probably was harder and harder for your brother and your father to keep it going.

RH: That's right.

TI: And you were able to get a job. Now it sounds like it was kind of a lot of tension between you and your brother.

RH: Yeah, we really never really got along even during camp life. He went his way, I went mine.

TI: And after this incident where you left the business, were the two of you ever able to connect after that in terms of talking and doing things together?

RH: No, not until he had a stroke recently, like about seven years ago he had a stroke and I would just pick him up at home and take him to breakfast with us. Once a week I'd go to a Korean restaurant, they have breakfast, and he liked that kind of food so I'd pick him up and go. Then about a year ago he had a second stroke and now he can't move at all. So he has to go every place in a wheelchair and I can't do that, and he lives out in Barrington so that's pretty far, fifty miles.

TI: But about seven years ago when you started, when you first started taking him to the restaurant, did the two of you ever talk about the war years or anything in terms of what happened?

RH: No, well, we talk about it once in a while, but just like the fun we had. But I was hanging out with a bunch of other guys that were more adventurous than he, the older guys, they stayed in and played cards and did whatever, like good boys do. And I liked to have fun.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.