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MN: So now, going back to your schooling, you were going to Lincoln Grammar School, and then you said you went to Edison, which was both... share with us what Edison was like.

BT: Yeah, on this, on the campus they had, the both, had both the junior high and high school. And the junior high school, most of the classes were held in the bungalows. Yeah.

MN: And then you said the junior high also, a lot of minorities were there, minority students.

BT: Uh-huh.

MN: Now, how did you get to school?

BT: Early on, we just walked. And then in, let's see, I guess around junior year, when I got a bicycle, I would ride the bicycle.

MN: What did you do for lunch?

BT: Sometimes I'd have to go home, or my sister would pack a lunch. Or if we had a little extra change, there used to be two or three hamburger stands right on the campus there, and it's open during the lunch time, so we would buy lunch there. It's like sandwiches for ten cents, potato chip was five cents, and a drink was five cents. So if you had twenty cents you had a full lunch. And if you had a quarter, you had ice cream with it too. [Laughs]

MN: How often were you able to afford something like that?

BT: Not too much. In fact, I guess around junior year I started to, by then I had a paper route, and summertime I went picking grapes, stuff like that.

MN: Now, at school, what was your favorite subject?

BT: I used to like math, but I didn't, I went up to algebra and that's it. But I think my favorite was mechanical drawing. Yeah, I really liked that.

MN: And you must've been pretty good because, can you share the story of what you were allowed to design for the school?

BT: Oh. When the school, they built an addition and they also had an auditorium there, and so the principal wanted someone to design shelving to store the instruments. So the teacher gave me the assignment, and so I drew up the plan for, tuba goes here and saxophone goes here, this and that. And then, so I gave it to the instructor when I finished. He says, "Oh, that looks good." He says, "Take it to the principal." So I took it to the principal and he looked at it, he says, "How do you spell cello?" I had C-H-E-L-L-O. [Laughs] So he didn't say whether the plan was good or not, but he really pointed out that I misspelled the word cello. So I took it back to the teacher, and the teacher says, "Oh yeah, that's, that's not spelled right." He missed it the first time. Yeah.

MN: What about your oldest sister, did she attend Edison High?

BT: Yes, except, let's see, I think senior year she went doing, what do you call that, schoolgirl? She stayed with a Caucasian family to help around the house. So she went to Fresno High School that senior year.

MN: And you mentioned Fresno High School was the top high school.

BT: Well, there's two, Fresno High School and Roosevelt High School, they were two top. And in fact, Roosevelt High School was, it was known for being a white, white kids over there, yeah. There was two Japanese families there, but rest were all white. And Fresno High School was a little bit more, accepted all different, but they were pretty strict too. They, I think it was on, like, they allowed so many blacks or so many Hispanic or like that. But they're, those two were good schools. Like Edison was, being all minority, their credit rating wasn't too good. So if you wanted to go to college, it was best to go to Fresno High School.

MN: Now, you mentioned Roosevelt High School and the two Japanese American families that were going there, but at that time, can you share the story of, they weren't considered Japanese, right?

BT: No. The story went that there were two Chinese families that went to Roosevelt High School, and the rest were white. But just, well, I say recently, but a few years ago I met this lady that, at the Japanese American National Museum, and she went to Roosevelt High School. I said, "Oh wow." I says, "I thought it was Chinese families." Says, "No." I says, "We understood there was two Chinese families." "No." She says that it was her family and another family that was a pharmacist, they had a drug store, so they were the two, what we thought were Chinese families. They, turned out to be they were Japanese families.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.