<Begin Segment 28>

SY: But what other kinds of things did you do, besides, what kinds of things did --

HS: No, '48 I joined that, 'cause I remember 1948 I was in there, and at that time there was girls' clubs and boys' clubs in every area, Seinan, Hollywood, the Valley, and downtown, and so it was one of those that I think I joined in '48. And so in 1950 her club -- was the Long Beach Girls' Club -- and our Quixotics had a joint...

SY: This is your wife's club? Had a dance?

HS: Well... yeah, it was a dance.

SY: Or a social, some sort of social.

HS: No, I guess her club was having a dance, but one of my buddies, this Boogie Yamaguchi, he told me that this Gooch Ichikawa, one of the, those three family friends, was going around with her sister for four years. And so Boogie says, "Fumi has a sister. She's taller and pretty." He said, "Be just right for you." And that was two years before, and so I was anxious to see what his... then when I saw her at this beach party -- I think it was 1950 -- the next day I called her up for a date. [Laughs]

SY: Love at first sight, huh?

HS: Pardon?

SY: It was love at first sight.

HS: Oh yeah. I mean, I saw her and I thought, boy. From then on, two years, every weekend, I would go... I proposed after a year and a half, but she says, "I'm not sure yet." And finally, two years, she says, all of a sudden, out of a clear blue sky, she says, "Okay, I'll marry you." She says, "But we have to wait a year to make plans." So from 1950 to 1953 we were a couple, and then '53 we got married.

SY: So, and this was, so did you stay a member of the Quixotics while you were dating?

HS: Yeah.

SY: And what other, what kinds of things, was it all social that these guys did?

HS: Every month we used to have a social, so after we got going, well, then I would always take her. They'd have picnics, beach parties.

SY: So it was completely, like, fun social activities for the Nisei guys.

HS: Yeah, strictly social. And good friends, yeah.

SY: 'Cause during that period, weren't there some more, kind of rowdier groups? Do you, did you hear about those, the men's clubs?

HS: Well, there was a club called the Exclusive 20s, and they were a downtown bunch. But they got a bad reputation because a few of the guys were always lookin' for fights, and when a club member gets in a fight, then the others would pile in.

SY: So you never had any problems like that with your --

HS: No, they were a downtown bunch.

SY: You never mixed with anybody else?

HS: No.

SY: So you stayed within your...

HS: Yeah, so I stayed... then they had another younger group called the Exclusive Juniors. And I guess, I never knew any of the ones in that group, but...

SY: But at the time you didn't really know too much about anything else. You just stayed sort of as your own.

HS: Yeah, we stayed in that Seinan area. Good friends.

SY: And after you got married, then was that sort of the end of the club?

HS: No, we still, well, as the, toward the tail end, why, by the time I got married there weren't that many single guys left, so I don't know what happened to the club after that.

SY: And were they all guys, mainly, from Gila? Or were they from --

HS: No, they were all from JACL days in the south, that lived in the Seinan area.

<End Segment 28> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.