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BT: And then before I went into school and going into the army and so on, I used to do a lot of funny things. Like for example, in those days, we were able to blacken our face, and I was doing the impersonation of Larry Parks, who was doing the, he did a movie of Al Jolson as Larry Parks, and darken his face and so on. And so I liked what he was doing, I liked the voice and the sound of Al Jolson, so I started to lip synch that and I watched the movie several times. And then I started to do that by getting charcoal and burning it and making it black and then darkening my face, and then making the lip part white so that you could see the lip. And so that's what I was doing, and when I got back to San Mateo where my father was ill, I thought I would do that again just to tell him that it was like before again, and everything was back to normal. So I started to do that kind of thing at the Buddhist church in San Mateo, and I was in this dressing room to blacken my face, and that's when I met my wife. She was going to be singing, and her older sister, she was with her older sister, and I didn't know who they were, but she was going to sing after me or before me, and I was just getting ready to do my part. So I saw her, but I didn't know, I didn't talk to them or anything. So I did my portion, and this lady was watching me from the side of the stage, and when that Al Jolson number comes on where "sonny boy" and you get on your knees, and here's the microphone up here, and I'm down here, and then this lady thought that I was singing all this, but I was just moving my lips. And so when I got down on my knees, then the microphone's up there and here I'm bellowing away with all this music on tape. And so then she realized that it wasn't my voice, it was just a recording. So we had a big laugh afterwards, and, "Oh, I thought it was your voice singing," but actually it was lip synching.

And so I used to do that kind of thing, but then I remembered seeing my wife at that place, but didn't know who she was or whatever. Then I went back, on weekends, to Fort Ord and then came back on the weekends to San Mateo. And then one weekend, I came back, and San Mateo Buddhist church was having a bazaar, then I saw, my wife was named Fumi, I found out later, and she was manning one of the booths to sell things. And then all of a sudden she disappeared, so I started looking for her, and she ended up resting, taking a break. So I found where she was, so I went up and introduced myself and started talking to her, and that was the start of our comrade relationship. And then two years later, got married. And when I went to UC Berkeley from San Mateo, she came with me. And we stayed in Berkeley while I went to two years of UC Berkeley, got my Bachelor of Science degrees in public administration, and got a job with what was then called the Department of Employment to pay out unemployment insurance to help people get jobs. And worked in Berkeley and then went to Oakland, and then from Oakland, found a, got settled, so we moved to Richmond where I'm living now for over sixty years. And with my wife for sixty-three years together. And so that was the start during that 1950-ish period, 1956.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.