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TI: And you were about, looks like about four years old when the war started, and in your memoir you mentioned one of your earliest childhood memories was sort of watching the family listen to the radio.

MF: Sunday afternoon.

TI: So tell me about that scene.

MF: All I can remember is the... well, a little background. We had a place on Rockaway Beach, it was kind of a, I think it was a summer place. I remember the place, and it was, we were down there because we were down there on the weekends. And I have some vague memory of living someplace else. And remember they would, all the family was there, and they were around the radio, and they were listening and talking and stuff and I didn't really understand it. But what I got is this feeling of... I'm trying to think, it's just like something was really happening, (they were) really kind of upset. You could feel the vibrations on it.

TI: It's interesting to think that that was one of your first childhood memories.

MF: Well, I had others, but that one stuck with me and stuff. I remember other things that... I remember that... I remember down there that me and my cousin Bill, Bill Halter, we both had fallen off a chair or a sofa, and we fractured our skulls, he fractured, and I remember being in the hospital, but I didn't know why. I just remember everything was kind of, you know. And I remember that because of that, they used to not let me go out and play, and I remember looking in the windows and watching all my friends play and my cousins playing and stuff, and they wouldn't let me go out and play.

TI: And like how old were you when that accident happened?

MF: I must have been about three or four years old. I was really young.

TI: Okay, so that was probably difficult for your mom because about that time, or even a couple years later, your dad then went to the Pacific, so she had to...

MF: It was difficult. I can remember I spent a lot of time in hospitals, I can remember what used to happen. I remember telling Tsuchino about this, too, and we'll maybe get through it later, is I'd go to bed at night, and when I'd go to bed, I'd start feeling like my lips went numb. And then I'd go into convulsions after I fell asleep. And then, of course, my mother would have to come in and sit me up. As soon as you sat me up, I'd come out of it and stuff like that. I can remember telling Tsuchino when we were married, "You know if this happens, it hasn't happened in quite a few years, but if this happens, do this." So she kind of looked at me. [Laughs]

TI: And so you sort of grew out of it, this was more of a childhood thing?

MF: It was a childhood thing. Basically, during my early childhood, I had constant problems. I found out later from some of my relatives and some letters that were written back and forth when my father was in the Pacific, they had thought about doing brain surgery on me, because I actually had brain damage from the thing, scarring, I guess. And they said that my grandmother's family doctor told her not to have, don't let 'em operate on me, says, "He'll grow out of it," and of course I did.

TI: That was probably a wise decision.

MF: Oh, yeah, at that time. [Laughs]

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2016 Densho. All Rights Reserved.