<Begin Segment 14>

TI: So I'm going to ask -- Ed's here with us in the room -- any other questions I should ask your dad? Any other stories?

ES: Well, he actually led a much more colorful life in that he was a ham radio operator. That was one of his main hobbies in his free time. But he also didn't have a lot of free time after he purchased an apartment on Fifteenth Avenue and he did all the labor for that himself. Fairly laborious because he didn't have to take off the wallpaper, strip the walls, paint them, patch them, do all the electrical. And he did that for just about every unit that became vacant. So he basically put his, after he moved to the apartment, spent most of his life working that apartment.

TI: Okay, so I have a question, Warren. So you worked really hard in your life, it sounds like.

WS: The what?

TI: You were a really hard worker in your life. Why do you think you worked so hard?

WS: Well, I did different kind of work actually. I did TV repair, and then when the TVs start getting bad, then I quit that job.

TI: But even, so you always had your regular job, but then even your free time, you would have apartments, you would do ham radio, you would always be busy. So why do you think you were always so busy?

WS: I don't know. I keep myself busy so that I'd be able to occupy myself. And then, anyway, after I started working for the city, I would do, let's see... I would go part time to some of the civil engineering work type, which I would be using for my job. I have taken up quite a few different kind of work such as survey, survey work and also the work to be done in the water conservation and things like that. So anyway, I kept myself busy trying to learn something better all the time. And so by the time I started, I was just a senior engineer's aide. Then I was... then I would take the civil engineers, the city job exam, and I would build myself up to a senior engineer. And from regular junior engineer's job to a senior engineer's... let's see, goes from senior... senior aide to a junior aide, and then associate, and then I become a senior engineer. So by the time I finished the course, I was in the supervisor's job as the senior engineer of the City of Seattle with thirty-five years of engineering.

TI: That's an amazing kind of progression. So you started, really, at the bottom and went all the way to the top of this organization. Did it ever slow you down or hinder you because you didn't have a college education?

WS: Well, I did try to pick up the college courses, which is helpful for my job. And I kept on studying in that course as well as... let's see. I got my University of Washington honorary degree in 2008.

TI: Now, how did you feel about that? When you got your honorary degree, how did that make you feel?

WS: Well, I got my college degree, but that was after I finished the... well, after I retired from the city.

TI: So after all these years, after you retired, the University of Washington gave you an honorary degree along with other Japanese Americans who were at the university at the same time during the war and were stopped. But when you received that degree -- I was at the ceremony -- and the president of the university handed it to each person.

WS: Yes.

TI: How did you feel about that? What did it make you feel?

WS: Well, at least I got my degree.

TI: Were you pretty happy when you got it?

WS: Well, I guess so. I was happy to see my son get his PhD at the Oregon State.

TI: No, it's an amazing story because in some ways, I look at your life, and I wonder what your life would have been without the war. Because you would have been at the university, you would have received a university degree, and I wonder what your life would have looked like.

WS: Well, I would be... I would say what? If the war did not interrupt me, I would probably have my degree without too much difficulty. I was working at the Alaska cannery. Lots of the cannery workers were in the same boots as I was doing the cannery, salmon cannery work. And the salmon cannery work was a real good pay, although work about twelve hours a day, and it was a real hard work. But after getting lot of those degree, I noticed that my tuition at the University of Washington was only twenty-five dollars per quarter. And I was able to work that without any difficulty.

TI: But I was just wondering in terms of where your career might have gone. Because back in Japan, you were a really good student. You were number three in your high school.

WS: Yeah.

TI: And so it's clear to me that you had a real good aptitude for school, so that's what I was wondering. If you were able to finish school, what degree would you have gotten, do you think?

WS: I was trying to get a Boeing job, aeronautical engineering. I was signed up for the aeronautical engineering course when I first started at the university.

TI: Now, do you ever have any regrets or bitterness about not getting a college degree?

WS: Well, I wish I could have gotten it, but, well, that's passed now. I think about it now and then, but now I don't know what to say about it.

TI: So I have finished my questions. Ed, anything else that you think I should ask?

ES: No, I can't think of anything.

TI: So, Warren, you did a wonderful job. This was a really interesting interview. Because you have memories from way back, which was really helpful. So thank you for the interview.

ES: I don't know how long I'll be living now, but I'd like to keep it up for another nine more years. [Laughs]

TI: Well, when you reach a hundred, we'll do another one of these, okay? [Laughs] Okay, good. Thank you.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.