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TI: Well, from your memoir, you mentioned that one of these Japanese coworkers was the one who actually introduced you to Tsuchino.

MF: Well, it was a GI, and it was on the site, and we went to his house. We were going downtown, he came down, went to see his wife, and then she was there at the time and they introduced me.

TI: Okay, so this GI, was his wife Japanese?

MF: Yeah.

TI: Okay, so he had a Japanese wife. So describe that. Describe the meeting with Tsuchino.

MF: [Laughs] Of course, in looking back, my feelings at that time, and when I found out, as the relationship developed, is she didn't really like me. [Laughs] She thought I was kind of arrogant and she was right and stuff like that. Here I was, I had one stripe at the time, and of course, the... I'm trying to remember, I was making maybe $140, a hundred some dollars a month like that. The exchange rate was 360 to a dollar and things were cheap. Later on when we used to... she'd finally go out with me, we'd go to the Asahi beer hall in downtown Fukuoka, and we'd have a steak dinner for two with a pitcher of beer, and it was two thousand yen, which was five dollars, a little over five dollars.

TI: For two people.

MF: For two people. [Laughs] So, you know, I was living the life. It was pretty good.

TI: Well, so you said -- and next week we'll interview Tsuchino so she'll tell her first impressions. What were your first impressions of Tsuchino? She thought you were arrogant, what did you think of her?

MF: I thought she was great. She just knocked me off my feet.

TI: And what knocked you off your feet? What was the thing that... my wife is always good, but she always asks couples, what was it that first attracted you to your spouse? How would you answer that?

MF: Well, she was very, very pretty, I'd say beautiful, very trim and stuff like that, with long black hair, just real shiny black with bangs and stuff like that. It was just, I looked at her, just wow.

TI: Now more so than... you probably saw other Japanese women? I mean, was there something that just, for her just stood out for you?

MF: I don't know, just thinking back... of course, we're thinking back, what, fifty-eight years, fifty-nine years? It's just, it's almost like... oh, wow. It was almost like just looking at her put a spell on me. It's hard to explain.

TI: Now at this point, had you been on dates with other women, Japanese women?

MF: Uh-uh.

TI: So this was not characteristic of you to do something like this.

MF: It was not characteristic. Basically I grew up basically, I would say when I grew up, I was kind of afraid of girls and kind of didn't understand them because I had just a brother and stuff, and there was very few females in our family and stuff like that. And I can remember we had, some of the girls we grew up with in grade school used to always tease us and it kind of turned me off. They played these games with you and stuff like that. So it was kind of... I don't know, just kind of didn't understand women. Of course, I still don't understand women. [Laughs]

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2016 Densho. All Rights Reserved.