<Begin Segment 17>

TI: So let's go there, so tell me about Colorado Springs. What was that like?

JK: Well, my sister at the time was nineteen years old, she found a little apartment and she got a job working in a, for the Spreckles Sugar Company. I don't know if you ever see that brand around. They're big in Colorado Springs.

TI: And this is Haru that --

JK: Haru, yeah.

TI: Haru, and then, 'cause you had, your older sister...

JK: Aiko.

TI: Aiko was the nurse?

JK: Right, she was a nurse.

TI: And she was the one who sponsored you.

JK: Yeah, she sponsored my brother Bob and Haru.

TI: Okay.

JK: And then she moved on to New York.

TI: I see.

JK: So then my brother, older brother Bob, he moved to Boulder, Colorado, where I had an Uncle Dave and Auntie Kumi there.

TI: Okay, so you were just living with your sister, then.

JK: So I just lived with my sister Haru and myself.

TI: Okay. Wow. So a couple teenagers living on their own in Colorado Springs.

JK: Yeah, she always said, as we led on in life, she always she had four children, three daughters and a son, and she always said, boy, she said, "After having to put up with my kid brother for two years," she said, "I can handle any of you, okay?" [Laughs]

TI: Well, because especially coming from that environment in Poston where you were kind of hanging out with the bad boys, and then she had to kind of mother you.

JK: Yeah, exactly. She had to go to the principal's office, da da da. Poor thing. We lost her a couple years ago. Bless her heart, between she and my mother, I don't know how I could've ever survived. And now I'm, she, like my oldest sister, she never ever forgot my birthday.

[Interruption]

TI: Wow. So I guess looking back over all these years, do you ever feel bad in terms of how you were, you acted in terms of, kind of with a big situation for your sister, nineteen years old and she's trying to make it on her own in some ways, and she has to take care of her little brother?

JK: Badass -- excuse me -- badass brother, yeah. No, we talk about everything and, bless her heart, she was always, she always took care of me. I went in the navy and the first thing she did, she sends me a pipe and some tobacco, and she said, "Every good sailor ought to have a pipe." Come on, I'm not Popeye, for god's sake. Yeah, she was a great lady, great, strong lady. Strong lady, she was a powerful lady. Only thing I, over this two year period that we lived together, I had to screen all of her dates, okay? 'Cause she was a very lovely lady and then at that time in Colorado Springs there was a, there's Fort, it used to be called Camp Carson, but it's Fort Carson, and there were a lot of the Nisei soldiers from, that were coming back from the European campaign, and through whatever connection they found out there's a good-lookin' Nisei gal who lives down the street and everything. So she'd get dates for these guys, and I'd give her this [thumbs up], I'd give her that [thumbs down].

TI: [Laughs] So you would check these guys out.

JK: Oh yeah. And then she finally hooked up with an ex-army officer, Uncle Tom, and I always told Uncle Tom, I said, "Aren't you glad that I screened 'em all out so she could find you?"

TI: That's funny. I mean, were, but seriously, were there guys that you just didn't like and you told her, "Don't go out with this person?"

JK: Yeah, well, I'd let her know, "The guy, you know, he's a slimeball. Forget it." I'd, no yeah, I would tell her, "Yeah, he seems like okay."

TI: Okay, so she trusted your judgment. She really...

JK: Well, yeah, we were good buddies. We were good buddies.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.