<Begin Segment 6>

MN: I want to ask you about your father now. What did he do for a living?

JK: Well, he was a truck driver, and he moved people's houses from one place to another. I know that in the early years, the people from Boyle Heights would find a house in the west side, Tenth Street, Thirty-sixth Street, by the M.E. church. And they built another community on Normandie and Jefferson. It became another community with all the trimmings.

MN: So your father helped move a lot of the furniture.

JK: Oh, yes. They went into partnership with two others, and the one thing I remember, this one partner was a chubby... he was one of the local sumotoris, and he was sort of a semi-pro for the big boys that toured America. So we had, oh, I don't know, like a [inaudible] for sumotoris, and, well, they came over later. The big old fat ones came over later.

MN: Now, did your father do a lot of overnight trips on his business?

JK: It was mostly daily, because those days, every ken, prefecture, had a picnic in the summertime. I would call them drunken brawls. All the ken, oh, my god. "Oh, you belong to this ken." "Oh, you belong to this ken." Because my father was moving soda pop, fruits, stage props, stage curtains, all the things that went into presenting shows, amateur shows, and we traveled with them. White Point, oh, that was a place. Orange County, El Monte, yes. They had picnics all over the county.

MN: How old were you when you started to help your father?

JK: Oh, wow. Because there's food involved, and picnics, fruits, and soda pop. That was our favorite, to help move it.

MN: Were you pretty young?

JK: Yeah, I guess.

MN: Grammar school? JK: Yeah, probably... fourth grade. Fourth grade was ten, eleven?

MN: So you did a lot of the loading and unloading of food?

JK: Oh, yes, helping.

MN: Was summer the busiest time with the kenjinkai picnics?

JK: Oh, yes. Every kenjinkai has a picnic. And then besides that, the Dry Cleaners Association, who else? Anybody that had an excuse, that had a picnic. Summertime, the picnics, oh, my god. We went here, there, everywhere. We started in Elysian park.

MN: Tell me about White Point. You mentioned White Point.

JK: Oh, White Point was... I guess it was a hot spring. And they had a lot of cabins. The cabins were in one building, outdoor swimming pool right in the rocks, hot spring bath, and too bad it didn't last. Probably lasted, oh, I guess about five years before a storm really broke it up. The outdoor swimming pool was broken up, so no more swimming pool outdoors. They had pool, they had massages, they had everything for aching bodies.

MN: You were just a kid, though. What did you do at White Point? Did you go swimming out there?

JK: Yeah, we went swimming.

MN: Did you go look for abalone, octopus?

JK: Yeah. Then abalone, and the little shell.

MN: Tsubu?

JK: Tsubu. Haven't heard that word for a long time. Tsubu, stick a needle in, eat them.

MN: You ate 'em at the beach?

JK: Yeah.

MN: Did you just do shoyu?

JK: Yeah. Yes, those were the days. Because White Point not only had, well, rooms where people were healthy, but picnics and games and prizes. Too bad it didn't last as long as...

MN: Now, let me ask you a little bit about your mother. She had eight children. Did she have any time to do any outside work?

JK: No. She... well, after the kids grew up, and Koyasan moved from Central Avenue to First Street, there were men and women who were taking care of the church. And the church got bigger, larger. So my mother had nothing to do except cook for the ministers. So she started cooking for the ministers. So she became a church at the...

MN: And your family is associated with Koyasan.

JK: My folks were.

MN: You know, in 2008, the Los Angeles City Council voted to give historic status to the tree that was planted in the old Koyasan spot. You saw that tree planted, didn't you?

JK: I was there when they brought the plant. It was yea high. It was just bigger than my full height, I guess. And it just kept on growing.

MN: How did you feel about the fact that the city council recognized this tree?

JK: Well, I got my picture in the papers. [Laughs] I think it was a highlight of the spot.

MN: You mentioned your mother became a cook at Koyasan. What did she cook at home?

JK: By that time, I was mostly on my own.

MN: But growing up, what kind of food did you eat at home?

JK: Well, she brought some things home from work.

MN: Was it Japanese food or American food?

JK: Yeah, Japanese food.

MN: Now, Jack, you were growing up during the Great Depression. How did... did it affect your family at all?

JK: All I remember is when we were, after we had moved to the neighborhood near Fukui, that was 1929, '28. And a lady from down the street had a nursery. She was taking care of many children who were children of men and women who were working in Little Tokyo. And then the mother came up to my friend asking for twenty-five cents loan. And I just happened to hear something, so I was curious. Yes, she was asking for twenty-five cents loan to buy some milk for her children. I said, oh, my gosh. Well, of course, to me... but that was about it, hardship cases. But I think we did pretty well through the hardship, because we shared.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.