<Begin Segment 9>

MN: Let me ask about the fishing.

AS: Oh, yes.

MN: Your father fished quite a lot. When you went fishing, did he take the family or just, did he go with his friends?

AS: Oh, he took the family, he would go to Brighton Beach. He'd do surf fishing, and he taught all of us, even my sisters were very good at it. Perch, surf fishing, casting, so we all learned how to cast.

MN: Did your mother make obento for this?

AS: Oh, yes, that was her thing. She'd be up 'til two o'clock in the morning making onigiri and had a little okazu and things like that, obento. And we'd pitch a tent, and that was her thing. And we would have our little lunch on the beach.

MN: So you said you pitched a tent. Did you stay there more than one day?

AS: No. That was just our shade, I guess.

MN: Do you remember what kind of fish you were catching, surf fishing?

AS: Perch. That's all I can remember, perch. And I remember my sister caught a little baby shark. That was a flat one, that's how I remember. That impressed me, I guess, that I can still remember that.

MN: Now, your mother almost died from an octopus.

AS: Right.

MN: Share that story with us.

AS: Like I said, (Dad) would bring home all these little weird (things). She had an octopus, so she would have to cook it. (They had the blue ink). She was tasting the soup, and she almost died then. But I don't know how she recuperated, but she did. She had nine lives.

MN: So aside from this octopus incident, what kind of food did your mother cook at home?

AS: Japanese, whatever we had, I guess.

MN: Tofu or vegetable... what do you call the food you ate at home?

AS: You know, I don't recall.

MN: Okay. Now, in '36, your father took the family to the World's Fair in San Francisco.

AS: Was that '36? I guess so. We drove up there. And I remember the motels were all filled, so he just begged one motel lady to please let us stay at her house because it was late. She let us sleep in her living room, and I remember she had a lot of cats. They were show cats. And she had more trophies on the mantle. (...) They were very nice to us. He would just ask them and it's unbelievable that she opened up her own living room for us.

MN: You slept with the cats?

AS: I don't remember that. All I remember is the gold trophies.

MN: Now, it sounds like your father drove the family to a lot of places. Can you share with us the special seat they made for you in the car?

AS: Oh. My uncle made that. It was a little stool that was the car seat. (...) We had a four door, but it would be like a bench-style, I sat right in the middle seat on the little bench. So I grew up in cars from way back. I still have it (painted over many times).

MN: Oh, you do?

AS: Painted over about five times.

MN: That's precious. Let me ask you about Christmas. Did your family celebrate Christmas?

AS: We did, and my mother would always, every Christmas Eve put a towel over her heard and she would clean out the fireplace. All those ashes came out because Santa was coming. And she just dutifully did that every Christmas Eve. That's all I can remember, seeing her cleaning that fireplace.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.