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TI: Let's talk about your father's business, because I think the last time we talked about it he was just, just starting doing Mom and Pop stores, but over time he had developed a fairly large business.

MT: Yeah. They found, he and his partner, Ken Shitani, they didn't, they found that a more lucrative thing for them would be if they went into the stores, markets, to become concessionaire for the produce part of it. Other people were doing that, so they started doing that, then they started expanding it to other stores, and so what happened is that they ended up with a dozen stores, twelve stores, store stands, all over the Los Angeles basin.

TI: And so describe what a concessionaire in a, in a store... so this is like a larger, like, grocery store?

MT: Well, today you would call them supermarkets, but it's not as large as that today. I mean, today, those were large markets. They were the ones that had, like Ralph's, Safeway, those were all, but Ralph's, Safeway, AMP, Roberts, those were, they had their own, they ran their own produce part and it was self service, whereas these were others like Fitzsimmons and other, particularly Fitzsimmons, my father would send, was where they would have concessionaires in, in the meat market, the Lures or the Swifts, they would run the meat market and Van de Camp Bakery would run the bakery. They were the largest concessionaires around here. And, and then usually the delicatessen was run by a Jewish family or Italian family or something like that, and then most of the produce in the L.A. basin from a Japanese, the produce. And the difference was that all of these, you were served. They were not self service. There were clerks behind the showcases, what have you, or the produce stand, and they would wait on you. You didn't go pick anything out. And that was important back in those days because then you could ask certain things and if you got friendly with the clerk, they knew you and you were a good customer, they would give you special treatment, like tell you, "Don't buy that today. It's not so good, unless you have to have it." Because they wouldn't sell you anything that's not edible. And they, or they'll say, "Oh, today you should buy this one. It's really good." So, and then other people aren't touching everything, so it was not damaged. The tomatoes were not squeezed, 'cause some people would put their nails in the tomatoes and things to see how juicy it was. And so, so the choice and the better stores were served and they were Japanese. Now, another group that had produce were Jewish people. There were some Italian people, but, on the whole, the most, majority of the people were Japanese in this area.

And my father kept pouring it back into the business and kept expanding and Fitzsimmons stores, which were later bought by Roberts, who later became part of Ralph's, they had, my father had, The Garden Basket was the name of my father's company, and had the first, right of first refusal. Whenever they opened a new store they were given the right of first refusal, and sometimes they turned it down. They said, "This is not a good area. This is not right. We won't be able to sell." So they turned it down, but ones that were good they did. And they had stores in other places, like over at, in South Pasadena. Now, they gauged that and they said they have two kinds of clientele there. South, this was on Huntington (Drive), so south of that were not the rich people, they were the regular, ordinary people, but north of that were all the estates, so they created two stands. It was a very, in those days a very large market. They had one in Kenmar which would have each, you would buy things one pound. This side would have the three pound something, two pound, five pound something, because this is where this side, and they would put the premium products over here and, and various products they couldn't sell on this side, because chauffeurs and maids would come with the person to buy. And this side people would come, like ordinary people, and it was cheaper so they wouldn't go to the more expensive side. My mother started a flower shop in the middle, between the two to separate the two stands. Then once she got it started she had somebody else run it. But they had places they made their own candy, taffy. We'd stick our nose over there and they would give us free taffy. And that was the first time I ever ate hamburger. They mayonnaise and all kinds of huge hamburgers. They had a restaurant there and they had a bakery there, smells so good.

TI: So these were stores that generally Japanese didn't shop at. It was more...

MT: No, no, no. None of them were, this was not in a Japanese area. But there were certain things that my father did that to this day I admire him for. Our best store was in San Pedro, the highest gross. The best people in San Pedro would come to buy there. And he at one point, probably around '39, about 1940, '39 or '40, he took this Kibei fellow who was only twenty-five years old working for us and made him the manager, over the Isseis, over the Kibeis, all the older people, he made him, and I asked him -- I had the nerve to ask him -- I said, "Why'd you do that? He's so young." He said, "He's the best man." And he was the best man. And we're still friends today. He's in his nineties now. We're still friends today. He was, he appreciated what my father did to him to this day. Then another thing I saw was in Long Beach we had, well, San Pedro, we had three stores, but in this... there's a long story on that one, but in Long Beach we had two stores. And one white American boy was in high school, wanted a part time job, so they gave him a part time job there and, which is unusual because we're all, there weren't any whites working for us, then when he graduated school they gave him a full time job there. My father said, "Hire him. He's a good guy." They made him manager. I always said, my father didn't, he said good man, he's gonna promote him. That was, that was really what I noticed and I thought wow, I admire him for that.

TI: So this was a large operation in terms of volume. He was, he was moving lots of produce through all these...

MT: Yeah. Yeah, there were a dozen stores and then he had a wholesale house in Ninth Street Market of Los Angeles, the wholesale area, where he would buy directly from farmers, cut out the middleman, buy, and then other things that he couldn't buy directly like bananas or different things like that, then he would buy from the other wholesale houses. And so he would stock it there and then ship it out to... and each store would send every, every day send what they wanted then he would send things out to them, and that's how they operated.

TI: So in terms of investment, it's like trucks and the wholesale, these new stores.

MT: Yeah. And he built, my father being good with his hands and good at carpentry, he built custom made stands for every store. He built himself, made it in the back of our, in the garage, and I would help him, and he taught me how to be, to make things in carpentry, so when camp time came I can build the chairs and tables and stuff. And he would build these things, then he would have me saw and do things like that.

TI: Now, oftentimes when you build an operation like this it takes money, capital. Did he ever have to go into debt? Did he ever have to borrow money to, to grow like this?

MT: I don't know. That, that part I did not get into. I don't know. I suppose -- the way things happened at the beginning, I think, were he would have the stores and he would go broke and then he'd go back fishing and come back -- I would suspect that the only time he would borrow money was from my uncle. I know the first time he got some money from my uncle. My uncle was very well off because he was a very successful fishing boat, had a fishing boat. He just, he was always within the top five catches in the harbor, so he did very well. For a purse seiner, not a, not compared to a tuna clipper.

TI: And in terms of, I guess in terms of cash flow or... how lucrative was your, your father's business? I mean, is this something that at some point he was actually being able to save money?

MT: Well, he was able to save some money, but primarily he was putting into yen deposits to, so that my, my sister and brother in Japan, they could draw that money for schooling and living and all those kind of things, so he was supporting his family over there. And then he was also sending money to his mother, to help, she, before '34 she had said their house's roof is getting bad, their tile roof is bad so he needed to have a roofing, so he sent her some money and we got there, wasn't fixed. He was so angry 'cause my, my father's youngest brother, who was, who was apple in my grandmother's eye, sweet talked her and got the money so he could go to the geisha houses. Needless to say, my father was upset with him.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.