<Begin Segment 1>

VY: Okay. Today is Tuesday, March 12, 2019, and we're here in Emeryville, California, with Norm Hayashi. Dana Hoshide is our videographer, and my name is Virginia Yamada. So, Norm, thank you for joining us for this interview today.

NH: Thanks for having me.

VY: Let's begin by having you tell us when you were born and where you born, and the name that you were given at birth.

NH: I was born in Oakland, California, and on the birth certificate I believe it says "Makoto, Norman Hayashi."

VY: And when you were born?

NH: When?

VY: When?

NH: Oh, September 11, 1939, in Oakland.

VY: And do you have any siblings?

NH: I'm the oldest, and my two brothers (...) are two years apart, second brother (Gerald), third brother Patrick is four years, then I have a sister (Marilyn) nine years below me. So a total of four, four children.

VY: Okay, four children with a nine-year span.

NH: With the youngest kid, yeah.

VY: Okay, and how about your parents? What were their names and when and where were they born?

NH: My dad is Henry Taro, T-A-R-O, Hayashi. I believe he was born in Alameda, 1910, and my mother is Aiko Takemoto Hayashi. And I believe it was an arranged marriage, she's from Los Angeles, arranged marriage.

VY: Do you know how they -- oh, so they met through an arranged marriage, okay. Do you know how old they were when they got married?

NH: My dad was twenty-six, I believe, and my mom twenty, twenty years old.

VY: Do you know anything about their early life before they met?

NH: My dad lost his mother at the age of nine, took a trip to Japan, and another brother, they contract meningitis and passed away in Japan. So my dad was nine years old and he was without a mother for a while. Came back, that was just a visit to Japan. My mother, later, I understood, was an orphan or something, she was raised by the Takemoto family.

VY: Interesting. Do you know what kind of work they did before they met, if any?

NH: My mom went to school, designed clothing, how to sew and all that kind of stuff. And my dad, I believe, just worked in the nursery industry growing up, as we, a lot of us kids did.

VY: Okay.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 2>

VY: Well, maybe this is a good time to talk a little bit about the Hayashi nursery. Can you tell me how it began and who started it?

NH: It started... my grandfather went into, he had two younger brothers or older brothers, I'm not sure, they came over and they started selling horticulture (supplies), like fertilizer and things in the store in Alameda. There's a picture of it in there.

VY: When was this?

NH: 1906. And then it's sort of like a flower shop, what we call a flower shop now, and they had a few acres in Alameda and they grew plants. And they would take that over into flower, some kind of wholesale flower market in San Francisco on a ferry, horse and buggy, I believe, at that time. And then later they purchased eleven acres in Oakland on 73rd Avenue, and started just the wholesale nursery, built greenhouses and started a wholesale nursery.

VY: Do you know how much later that was, how many years between when they opened the flower shop and purchased...

NH: My understanding it was maybe 1911.

VY: 1911, so before the alien land laws in California?

NH: Yes, right. And that's where I grew up, on that property, through the sixth grade, I grew up.

VY: So the nursery was run by your grandfather and his brothers?

NH: Right.

VY: How many brothers?

NH: Two brothers. And apparently there was a bit of a falling out, so my grandfather had forty percent share, and I think he bought out the two brothers, and it became just his nursery, my grandfather's nursery.

VY: Okay. Do you know when that happened?

NH: No, I don't.

VY: Okay. Backing up a little bit, when did your grandfather come to America?

NH: 1887 as a schoolboy, probably at the age of seventeen, eighteen. And he worked as a... is that what they call a schoolboy or something? For a fairly wealthy guy in Danville, California. And fortunately the lady was an English teacher, so was able to teach my grandfather English. And he also attended some kind of high school, graduated maybe at the age of nineteen or twenty, tallest guy in the class. Had a picture somewhere.

VY: He was tall, your grandfather was tall?

NH: No, he just had...

VY: Oh, okay, you're joking. [Laughs]

NH: But to his credit, he tried to learn English first. Apparently he was considered well-educated before he came to the United States, so that helped. And I don't know why he started the nursery business. I would imagine because of the ease of entering that profession, I'm not sure about the level of prejudice in those days.

VY: Okay, so you don't know if he knew other people at that time who had nurseries or in the business?

NH: There's supposed to be somebody at Domoto Nursery who started around the same time. But they would either work for him and gain some propagating (knowledge), how to start plants, and (growing methods) through him. And eventually a lot of the people working for him branched out into the nursery, respective nurseries.

VY: I see. So it sounds like he was one of the early nursery pioneers.

NH: I would say so, yes.

VY: Okay, so then the nursery was owned by... your grandfather started it with his brothers, but then he bought them out later. Did they have any other siblings that maybe were not part of the nursery? Did they have any other brothers or sisters?

NH: Sister.

VY: Sister? This was your grandfather had a sister?

NH: Oh, my grandfather's part? I'm not sure. As far as growing up, I never, I just knew one of his brothers, but others, no.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 3>

VY: Did you know your grandfather, do you remember him?

NH: He was an old man when I grew up, and actually slept all the time. But he would come to the nursery, my understanding, this is getting ahead, after the war he worked a little bit, but he said he was too old. He was in his seventies after the war, so the war (took away those years of worknig naturally in the aging process).

VY: What about some of the things he did early on while he was running the nursery? Was he involved in any organizations?

NH: He was (in) some kind of flower, horticulture society in San Francisco. And I think he helped establish the California Flower Market in San Francisco. At one time, he was president of either that other organization or the one in San Francisco. So his command of English must be pretty good. I don't recall, as a kid, talking to him much, in English or Japanese.

VY: Okay. Actually, can you tell us a little bit about the flower market?

NH: You go over there, currently (to sell wholesale to retailers).

VY: How about the history of it? How did it start? Who started it?

NH: That, I don't know.

VY: You don't know, okay.

NH: I understand that it was started by a group of growers, but it eventually split up into three sections, one was called the Japanese section, Italian section, and the rest of the people. It was, I guess it was a clash of cultures more than anything. I don't think it exists that way now, the differentiation.

VY: Interesting. So did they have different parts of the market?

NH: Yeah, you rent a square foot, some guys rent double bays or whatever, and it's enclosed by cyclone fencing, secured, and the usual routine was, usually the activity is about five o'clock in the morning, it's geared toward the flower shops or buyers, they come in, and the principal days were Monday, Wednesday and Friday. So the respective growers would come in about... (my) uncle went about midnight, he would unload it, set everything up. Actually, he stayed there until nine, ten o'clock in the morning, long day.

VY: So what kinds of flowers did he bring?

NH: My grandfather? Probably he started with cut flowers, but then he switched over to what they call ornamentals or potted plants, things contained in containers. And as a finished product, there would be blooming or budded for immediate sale.

VY: Did the Italian flower growers, did they grow different kinds?

NH: Yes. Each, almost every nursery had something unique to their particular organization. Otherwise you're selling the same thing and you're just price competing.

VY: Okay. So where was the Hayashi Nursery located originally?

NH: Seventy-third Avenue near, the cross streets were Kraus and something else, I don't recall.

VY: And did that change? Did the location change?

NH: Yeah, the early pictures show nothing around them, but it built up, and then they were forced, after the war, to sell portions of it because of the population growth. And I believe the grammar school I attended, (Edwin Markham), one block away, I think they were kind of forced to sell that parcel also.

VY: Okay, but that was after the war?

NH: Yeah, after the war.

VY: So before the war, it was still in the same location?

NH: Yes.

VY: Did any other members of the family work in the nursery, the kids or the wives of the brothers?

NH: All the way through the history?

VY: Well, how about early on, like before the war?

NH: Before the war, I don't know, but I imagine his wife put in time. It was just kind of understood. And I don't know about his other family.

VY: It's kind of something families just did?

NH: Yeah. That's where I grew up, I played in the nursery. So I think that kind of grew on me later, I can't stand to be in a little office. I can't stand to be in a little (space)... we had (a large area), half block or block of running around and all that kind of stuff (playing as kids outdoors).

VY: Yeah, so how big was the nursery?

NH: Well, at that time, eleven acres, right there. But slowly it was chipped away, so we were, when I grew up was in the center of the block with houses rimming the nursery, except the frontage, we had a house built on it.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 4>

VY: Okay, so there was one big nursery, but there was houses all around it?

NH: On the perimeter, except the frontage, we had access from the main road, (73rd Avenue). And they had a big house that we all lived in.

VY: So when you say "we all," who was that?

NH: My grandfather and grandmother, my uncle, ten years younger than my dad, my dad and my mother and four kids, three (boys plus my sister later). And we actually ate cafeteria-style, you know, a long table.

VY: Did everybody participate in making dinner or was it primarily...

NH: My mother and grandmother, and my grandmother got a little older. It's interesting you say that, because around the sixth grade, my mother just blew up. (She) went up to the room and started crying and all that. What happened was, when she finished cooking and serving everybody, when she sat down, everybody was finished. So that was six years or seven, I think the next week my dad and mom looked for a new house in Hayward, California.

VY: Oh, really?

NH: Yeah.

VY: Oh, was she just tired of...

NH: She's actually the lowest lady on the totem pole in the house. It wasn't intended, but I'm sure that was...

VY: Oh, I see, because there was other family members there?

NH: No, just my grandmother and grandfather. And then my uncle, there's no female to help with the cooking and everything.

VY: So she was left with most of the work?

NH: Yes.

VY: I see. So then your father went, found a house so they could move out?

NH: Yeah.

VY: I see. That was nice. [Laughs]

NH: Yeah. [Laughs]

VY: Okay, so they moved out into a house, but (Dad) continued to work the same nursery.

NH: Yeah. My dad, at the beginning, before the war, managed the nursery.

VY: Your dad did.

NH: Yeah, through the depression eras and other conflict with my grandfather's siblings went through that.

VY: What kind of conflict was that?

NH: I don't know, but it divided (the family), my grandfather retained sole possession, and the rule was no (family) females working in the nursery (after that time).

VY: Whose rule was that?

NH: My dad and my uncle, when they reestablished (after the war).

VY: Do you know why they made that rule?

NH: Apparently... gee, I hope I don't offend anybody. My grandfather's children were all female, and I guess when it came to dividing it up or whatever caused it, it was a lot of problems there.

VY: Interesting. So your grandfather's children were female.

NH: My grandfather's children were male.

VY: Were male, okay. So he had no female children.

NH: One female, but she went back to Japan and became practically a Japanese citizen. I think she went back quite early (just before the war).

VY: I see. Okay, so I'm just trying to figure out why that rule was. So they didn't want any females to work or own it because they...

NH: In the management part.

VY: In the management part, okay.

NH: Probably they were interfering too much with the management.

VY: Oh, interesting.

NH: Unfortunately, I can't verify any of that, because my dad and my uncle, they passed away.

VY: Okay, so that happened, that was your dad and your uncle that made that rule.

NH: Yeah, my uncle, actually, was quite young, he was late teens at that time, before the war. So the burden was on my father. And he, by nature, is a quiet guy, I don't think he wanted to be in the nursery itself. He was actually a UC Davis (grad), he wanted to be an engineer, and in those days, a lot of prejudice, so he switched to horticulture and ended up in the nursery business.

VY: Because he couldn't find a job?

NH: I don't think he even tried, as far as I can tell. Because he was the sole successor to my grandfather, so he just took the job, assumed the position.

VY: I see. And then his brother joined him.

NH: Later, yeah, after the war. When we get to that, I could give you that detail.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 5>

VY: Okay. So maybe, let's talk about the war. So when the war broke out and Pearl Harbor was bombed by Japan, do you know what your family did to prepare? Well, where was your family sent?

NH: To a holding area, Tanforan, on the west side (of the bay). Then eventually we ended up in Topaz. So it was my dad, mother, at that time, two brothers were born, so that's four, my grandmother and grandfather, plus my uncle, so we all lived together in Topaz. I believe they only had ten days, and so they sold off a lot of the equipment, nobody wanted to lease the property, they tried to lease the property. For nursery purposes, nobody wanted to do it. They sold most of the trucks and tractors and stuff, and we had Caucasian employees, they took a lot of our furniture and held it (for us) wherever they had (room), I don't know what else.

VY: So people held onto it or they purchased it?

NH: The furniture?

VY: Yeah.

NH: They just held it for us, pretty loyal employees.

VY: I see. Do you know of any other arrangements that your family might have made with the nursery?

NH: I think there was one guy in particular, Mr. Gomez, we were pretty close, and we grew similar crops. And I believe they left some of the growing stock with him, different varieties that we can later access and propagate.

VY: Okay, so he had to take care of those, the stock?

NH: Right.

VY: What does one have to do to keep that going?

NH: Just water and fertilizer, make sure it doesn't dry up. [Laughs] Simple. But it's time consuming, and to their credit, they're very helpful.

VY: How about, do you know, while your family was in camp, were they able to pay property taxes?

NH: I believe so, because they retained ownership of it, and they rented the house out and retained ownership.

VY: Okay, so they did rent the house out.

NH: Yes.

VY: Okay, but nobody wanted to lease the nursery.

NH: Yeah, at that time, I believe later, it's just in disrepair and everything (vandalized), that people let it go.

VY: So when your father, I guess it was your father and your grandfather were selling off property and personal belongings, did any other nurseries, were they interested in buying any of the equipment or anything like that?

NH: Well, I think they bought the rolling trucks, tractors, whatever, tools, I don't know.

VY: Do you know if they paid a fair price?

NH: I would imagine not, I would imagine not.

VY: Okay. And at this time, what were the other growers like? Were they all Japanese American, were there Italians?

NH: I believe, I don't know why, the East Bay seemed to cluster a lot of Japanese Americans. I don't know the reason why. On the other side, there tended to be a lot more Chinese Americans, west side, I guess. And the Italians growers were, tends to be over there, too, Daly City area.

VY: Did that change over time?

NH: I think just the emergence of the growing population in Oakland, you're kind of forced to leave. And some people did not have such family succession to take over the family, so they just quit outright.

VY: Okay, we'll talk more about that later.

[Interruption]

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 6>

VY: Yeah, so tell me... well, actually, let's go to Topaz. So how old were you when you were in Topaz?

NH: Two years old.

VY: Two years old?

NH: No, well, two and a half, probably, '42, early '42 we went.

VY: So do you have any memories at all of that time?

NH: It's just like kids, I remember being hot, too much noise, because we were so clustered together. Separation of showers, clanging of the dishes, a bully.

VY: A bully?

NH: That really stands out. I went to a preschool they had, and I had to cross into another barrack area. And coming back, there's kind of (borderline between barrack groups), there's two guys waiting for me. And I forgot if they extorted... you know, I didn't have money in those days, I don't know what they wanted. They looked ten feet tall, probably only sixth graders or so. And one day I didn't come home when I was supposed to, my mom came back, when to school, and (I was in) the school, killing time. She found out that these guys were bullying me. (Narr. note: After that she would wait for me at the barrack line.)

VY: So you were staying at school to kind of stay away from them?

NH: Yeah, I didn't go home when I was supposed to.

VY: You must have been so little at that time.

NH: Yeah, about four years old, maybe. I remember that. I was a shy kid, sickly. So I got kind of picked on all the time or something.

VY: Well, and you were the oldest of all your siblings, so your mother and father had a lot of little children to take care of.

NH: Correct.

VY: Were any of your siblings born in camp?

NH: My other brother, yes, Patrick, the third one, was born in '43, '44, I believe.

VY: Do you remember that?

NH: No. And my dad, after a certain amount of time in the camp, they were okay to go outside of camp and work. So my dad and my uncle went to Chicago, they actually lived there, worked in the shipyards and machine shops, and occasionally they would come home, and my dad, I'd run away from him. That was the hard part, he was a stranger to me. And I think, in a way, that affected my whole relationship with him growing up.

VY: Because he was gone most of the time?

NH: Yeah. There's a certain level of intimacy that (we never attained as father and son). Even working with him over the years is just... I don't know, could have been our personalities (don't jive), too.

VY: So when you say that your dad and your uncle would go to Chicago and work in the shipyard and then come back home, home was Topaz.

NH: Correct.

VY: I see.

NH: And it's only for a short (visit). So in that period, too, then essentially my mom was taking care of my grandparents and the kids, a big burden for my mom.

VY: How old was she at this time?

NH: She must have been late twenties... wait a minute, she was born in '20, 1920, so she was fairly young yet. And my mom had a heart problem so she was sickly all the time, sick, at that time. I didn't realize it 'til later.

VY: Do you remember your grandmother helping out?

NH: No, I don't. I guess I kind of, lot of those things just kind of took for granted.

VY: You were very young.

NH: Yeah.

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<Begin Segment 7>

VY: Later on, did your parents or your siblings, or your uncles and grandparents, did they ever talk about this time in camp?

NH: Very, very little. At that time, after camp, they came back, my uncle and my dad, I guess they wanted to reestablish the nursery. Because slowly, my dad was working as a gardener and my uncle worked for the government, clerical work or something.

VY: When was this?

NH: Right after the war.

VY: Right after, okay.

NH: Then he got drafted in '46, my uncle. So the burden again was on my dad to maintain the family. And I know they, when we came back from the war, everything was demolished. Every glass in the greenhouse was broken.

VY: Yeah, so talk about that. What was it like to return? What condition was the nursery in?

NH: It was practically destroyed. All the metal was taken out, pipes for salvage, and I guess anything of use was vandalized or taken, plain (stolen). And I think prior to that, before we came back, my uncle came early to get the house in shape, and that was kind of vandalized, too, so he had to do a lot of work.

VY: And you said that there were renters in the house while you were in camp?

NH: Yes, they kind of left it in poor condition.

VY: What about the stock that you left with the Gomez family?

NH: Yeah, we were primarily azalea, a plant called azalea, and camellia growers, and apparently my grandfather did most of that work, young plants growing little by little. Unfortunately, that's a two- to three-year crop, so you don't get immediate results for the finished product. So my dad was working the gardening, and whatever spare time, I remember on weekends and stuff, then we worked on rebuilding and stuff like that, my uncle, too.

VY: Oh, I see. So while the nursery was sort of getting back on its feet, your dad was working as a gardener.

NH: Yeah, had to support the family.

VY: I see.

NH: I don't know how they did it, but they managed to save money. It wasn't a large capital investment at the beginning, to just get everything done, piece by piece, I don't know how they did it.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 8>

VY: Okay, so tell me about the things that your family grew at the nursery.

NH: Primarily it was azalea and camellia, and then they branched out to other container type plants, and there's a plant called cyclamen, which I noticed some pictures of when my grandfather used to grow them, so a lot of it was what my grandfather used to grow. I remember they tried cut flowers but they quit that, and I don't know if you're familiar with bedding plants, which are small plants, they tried that and they stopped that.

VY: Do you know why they stopped the cut flowers and the bedding plants?

NH: Probably (too) labor intensive for a short time, and there seemed to be other, also other growers grew that (type). And actually, for a while, for we were one of the few container type growers. So to their credit, they were able to make changes mid-stream, you might say, and survive.

VY: So it was container growing, is that primarily what you did?

NH: Yeah, and it continued all the way to when I came into the nursery.

VY: I see. So give me some examples of a container plant.

NH: (Finished products). Hanging basket with fuchsia, for example, with the flowers in it, and that plant itself, you can sell it up to the twelve-inch specimen or like a five-foot fuchsia tree, or a tree (with cascading) flowers, smaller baskets, and actually, we sold containers, starter fuchsia (plants). We were considered, across the United States, kind of a midsize nursery, so we were kind of caught in between growing small production and big production. And the way we survived, we diversified a lot of things. And at one time I counted our crops (grown) through the whole year, we had a hundred twenty-five varieties, it's way, way too much. But that's different sizes, different price ranges.

VY: That seems like a lot of different things to keep track of, and to know how to grow properly, sell, and who wants to buy them, and coordinate all that.

NH: So, in a way, we were able to service a few retail nurseries, not have a big customer base and have to go all over just (to sell) one type of plant. (For example), when we delivered, we could have ten varieties for them, which I thought was pretty... and most of our nurseries, our customers were all in East Bay, we didn't have to go into San Francisco (too much).

VY: And was that earlier or was that later, the larger customers?

NH: Throughout the whole nursery, the business, I mean, the history of the business.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 9>

VY: Okay, so let's talk about how you decided to get in the nursery business. So when you were a kid, were you interested in continuing to work at the, did you work on the nursery as a kid?

NH: Yes. But the type of work we (kids) did was pulling weeds or making (boxes), dinking around. And we were able to just run around a lot, and I never even thought about entering the nursery. My way was channeled -- my parents didn't force me, but I was good in sciences and all that, and I thought I was going to be an engineer. It was just... without a choice. I don't recall even having a passion to be anything else, and I think in my days, there wasn't much options what kind of career you're going to do. And the changing point was my (mother's death at thirty-seven years old), I was at my freshman year at Cal, I entered Cal as a civil engineering major.

VY: Berkeley?

NH: My mother passed way, and I think I lost my compass. She was the only one interested in what I did at high school and everything. And (often) I just kind of didn't go to class in Cal, sometimes I would go to class. I don't know what I expected. And what happened was I flunked out in a year and a half, then I was kind of ashamed of myself, and the alternative was going back (home), and by then my mother had passed away. (Thought I would have to) go back and I have to go take care of the family, because I'm the oldest. And I was doing that when my mom was sick. She was sick all through my high school years, and the last two years, she was bedridden. So I would just do the laundry and (help with) the cooking and things. I never thought, I just did it. I just did it, and got the kids going. But then I went to Cal, and then the second semester, I lived off campus, I was, worked for a fraternity hashing, serving and washing dishes. (Ate fraternity food), and then I lived with a doctor, I'd rake up his leaves and everything like that. So I kind of separated from the family. But after my mom passed away, I kind of went downhill. Then I tried to join the Marines, and I got accepted, except they take you in the private room because you're a volunteer, "You have anything to say?" And I said, "Well, I have asthma." Well, the recruiter blew his top. [Laughs] He couldn't take me after that. And after that, I decided, god, what am I gonna do? I didn't want to go to work in a factory.

VY: So when was this? Around what year was this?

NH: '59, two years after graduating high school. So I headed to Los Angeles because my mom's mother lived there, and I lived with her a few months. And I went back (to school), I was working, I never had a problem finding outside work. And then...

VY: Did you, I'm sorry, did you know much about your mom's family before that? Did you see them there?

NH: No, we would visit once in a while. She was a widow, Grandmother was a widow at that time, tough gal, smoking and all that kind of thing. But that changed my life, I was very lucky. I had good friends, I met good friends. (With) one of the friends I went to junior (college), pulled up my grades and reentered L.A. State. And one of my (friends became my best friend even now). I had a good core of my age group, and then my hobby was free diving.

VY: Free diving?

NH: Yeah, diving without scuba, spear fishing and all that in L.A. I joined another group of guys, they were all married guys, maybe ten years older, so I had two groups there. One is for my regular activities, a young guy, and the other one is a little more mature thing. Set me on the right course, kind of. [Laughs]

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 10>

VY: Talk about spear fishing. What was that like? What did you do?

NH: Well, Los Angeles is different, because they have Catalina Island and everything, they had what they called pelagic fish, it's blue water (hunting), and (fish) come in and they go. They're not there swimming around like you see in the videos, and fortunately I got with a group that was strictly spear fishing and free diving, no scuba. They weren't a bunch of diehard (guys), have to get the biggest fish and everything, we had a pretty good time. This is Los Angeles.

VY: So what do you do when you go spear fishing?

NH: Just swim out (from the boat) or take a boat to the kelp beds and just kind of watch the bait. Those days, rivers of bait, black things crossing each other. And when the bait breaks, something spooked it, so you dive down slowly, and sure enough, some big yellowtail, hamachi, would come by. And Los Angeles has a fish called a white sea bass that lives in the kelp. And I understand lately there have been some tunas going through there. And, of course, equipment varies according to the size of your fish, bigger fish, bigger guns. Which, in those days, we made our own.

VY: How do you make one?

NH: You have a pattern, and you have the basic trigger. Like I went and got piano wire which has a very good spring to it. And we had a machinist kind of form the shafts for us. Which didn't cost much, it cost ten dollars, now it cost a hundred, something like that. And it's rubber powered, rubber tubing, and the notches on the shaft, pull the trigger and it releases. And it varies, variations of it.

VY: Okay, so you basically made your own, what do you call it, a spear?

NH: Those days it was just starting, the divers were just learning how to capture these big fish. So that was interesting, it was kind of at the beginning. And most of the time we didn't get anything, so that's okay. [Laughs]

VY: What would you do when you did? What did you do with the fish?

NH: You gut it, and they have a holding thing on the boat, bring it home. And that time I was (living) at a boarding house, and I'd just give it to the landlord, they would cook it. Lobster diving.

VY: Did you catch lobster also?

NH: Yeah, free diving. Lot of fun.

VY: That's interesting. So after you left L.A., did you ever do that again?

NH: I came up north. Up north it's rougher diving, roughest diving I've ever done. The water is dirty, you can't see sometimes, most of the time three feet, and what's tricky about diving up here is the currents, because there's a lot of big boulders and things. And mainly up here it's what they call rockfish, ling cod, probably up north it's similar to your type of fish. And what really I like is abalone diving, I like that.

VY: Did you do the abalone diving, did you do that in Monterey?

NH: Monterey is pretty well fished out. For us it's a two-hour drive (north). And up north it's a little different the further up north you go, from San Francisco, more abalone. Easy pickings if the ocean's not rough.

VY: Did you ever have competition from the sea lions?

NH: Oh, yeah. Sea lion was in Los Angeles. One incident I was... the sun was going down, I was diving off of a diving boat, they would take us up (current and anchor) and we'd have to swim wherever we were going. And they put a light on, the sun was going out, and I'm swimming to the light and I'm enjoying a slight current, enjoying just the current taking me back to the boat. And my gun has reflectors on it, tape and stuff, look like fish. All of a sudden a sea lion, bang, grabs my gun and then let go.

VY: Grabs your gun?

NH: And I didn't know what, I look up, and there's a sea lion twenty feet away already, just like that. The other incident was I had a barracuda on a stringer, and this sea lion kept coming around in circles -- this is another incident. And it came right up to me like that, and I took my gun like that, you can't spear it, so the other way, but he's looking, right? So you (look like) Maori? You know how they go, "Waaah?" That's how I made a face, and he wanted that barracuda. But after that I just had it off, out of the water and I swam back to the boat.

VY: So you weren't going to shoot the sea lion, you were just going to try to bop him on the head?

NH: Yeah, I just wanted him to get away from me. I mean, he was that close to me. This was a sea lion, not a little seal, this is a big sea lion.

VY: Okay, well, that's interesting.

NH: That was my life for sixty-two years. I just quit about three years ago.

VY: Spear fishing?

NH: Yeah.

VY: Really.

NH: Oh, abalone diving.

VY: Abalone diving, really?

NH: If there was a passion, that was it.

VY: Did you ever sell the fish that you caught, or the abalone that you caught?

NH: You can't do that, (it's illegal).

VY: Oh, you can't?

NH: Yeah. I would give it to somebody if they wanted abalone, I had a big family, and (my wife's) family, they just (liked abalone), had no problem giving it away.

VY: Is there a quota to how many you can catch?

NH: When I first started it was ten, and then it got down to the last twenty-five per year. I don't know, it was ten per day and I don't know how many days (per year), and the last two to three years, they closed it.

VY: Completely?

NH: Yes. Because I believe the change in the weather, and three or four years ago there was a big die-off, a lot of abalone just died because the water became warm. So the Fish and Game just closed it completely. It's a good thing I was on my, end of my career, but these other guys, I feel sorry for 'em.

VY: It sounds like the abalone population has declined quite a bit.

NH: Yeah.

VY: Okay, so let's go --

NH: Don't get me on diving. [Laughs]

VY: I want to hear about diving. Do you want to talk about anything else about diving?

NH: No. It was part of my life when you, coming up with this interview thing, and I think it affected a lot of my life, what I did.

VY: Well, talk about that. In what ways did it affect your life?

NH: I want to make sure I have a day off to go. When I took over the nursery, we were working seven days, six and a half to seven days. I cut it down to five and a half. Then I rotated the people working on weekends. Somebody had to work on the seventh day, I rotated among four people. But before I took over, my dad and my uncle, they would work seven days.

VY: But then, for you, a day off was to go abalone diving.

NH: Not necessarily. By that time, I got married, and then I had other commitments. [Laughs]

VY: I see.

NH: We try to balance it out, Gail and I.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 11>

VY: Let's see. Okay, so let's go back to the nursery and... so you, originally you were saying that you weren't considering going into the nursery business. Your mom passed away, it sounds like you had a pretty good relationship with your mom.

NH: Yes.

VY: Do you want to talk about that, about what your relationship with your mom was like?

NH: Yeah, she was the human side. She was a bubbly personality, apparently very popular when she was young, very pretty lady. And she always had kind of an adventure side to her, she would read about other cultures, and she always said when my dad retired, they were going to rent a trailer and go around. And then a lot of times she was sick but she was gutsy, try to do things while she was sick. And one of the things in particular, we were, getting out of camp we didn't have too much money, I guess. They couldn't afford a Christmas tree, my mom made a Christmas tree.

VY: She made a Christmas tree?

NH: Yeah, well, she made something conical and put decorations on it and everything like that. Then one other Christmas she had like a treasure hunt, made three maps for three of the boys at that time. Made our shirts, sometimes made our shirts.

VY: That's right, because you said she went to design school?

NH: Yeah, making clothes and stuff.

VY: It sounds like she was a very strong and creative and talented woman.

NH: She wasn't bossy or anything like that, it's mostly guidance about her.

VY: And she raised all you kids while she was in camp pretty much by herself.

NH: Uh-huh.

VY: And you were the oldest. Even though you were very young at the time, you were the oldest. Do you feel like you had a close relationship with her, more so than your other siblings?

NH: Maybe because I was the oldest, I had more time with her. And that's interesting, I always felt this sense of responsibility for my two brothers. I don't know where it came from, they never said, "Make sure you do this," I just felt it. And whenever we found things like extra money or things, I always knew I had to split it three ways, and I never got the big share, then the other two, somebody gets it. It's just a sense of responsibility growing up all the time. And we used to go all over (to explore and play). When I think about that, we had kids, I wouldn't send them all over like I did.

VY: Where would you go?

NH: Well, like the nursery, we'd go to, almost to the coliseum area, walk all that way.

VY: So how far is that?

NH: It's one, two, three miles, I'd say, offhand. Of course, the neighborhood and everything, that was relatively safe for kids. And we'd pick up bottles and redeem it at the store and get the pennies for candy and all that kind of stuff. One time I remember I had enough sense, we're going up somewhere, Oakland Hills, and we got lost and it was downpouring, rain, and it started to get dark. But I had enough sense to go to a house that had a porch light on, knocked on the door, says, "We're lost. Could you call my parents?" They invited us in to dry off, said, "No, that's okay." And my dad came.

VY: How old were you?

NH: Had to be the sixth grade, fifth grade, maybe.

VY: And who was with you? Was it your friends?

NH: My two brothers.

VY: Two brothers.

NH: And another neighborhood friend. Just crazy things. [Laughs]

VY: And the family that answered the door, were they surprised to see you at their door?

NH: Yeah. But we were all there soaking wet. We weren't prepared for the rain at all.

VY: Did you remember any other things like that that you did with your brothers?

NH: (Like) skateboarding. We got skates for Christmas one time, and then I built a little, you lie down, (nail) skates on a board. But we got bawled out by (neighbors), they got tired of (us) on the sidewalk making that noise, going around the whole block. Wait a minute, city blocks were long that time.

VY: How has everything changed over time? Because it sounds like you had a lot of territory to cover, but it's probably built up more now?

NH: Yeah, you mean territory, you cover...

VY: Yeah, like geographically, have things changed? Because you're talking about, that was in your neighborhood, right? How have things changed in your neighborhood that you grew up in?

NH: Nothing, no nurseries there now, it's all crowded. The ethnic group is different now in Oakland.

VY: So what was it more like then and how has it changed? What is it like now?

NH: Oh, just too many cars. You don't know anybody, that's what I would assume now.

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

<Begin Segment 12>

VY: Okay, so back to, you were a kid growing up in the nursery, and then you went to school and then you went to Los Angeles and then you came back. And at that time, did you decide to work at the nursery?

NH: No. I dropped out of L.A. State, I only had a year to go.

VY: Okay.

NH: And I changed my major because I was just fed up with engineering things, and I changed to social sciences, perhaps being a counselor or something like that, I don't know why. I thought I was (being) more humanized, but my junior year, I took physical psychology or something, there was only ten, twelve of us, and the teacher was like a, up there like a dictator, up to the podium and everything. And our lab reports had to be right on. If there was a grammatical mistake or something, you lose almost a whole letter point and everything like that, and I said, "That's crazy." I don't know what's wrong with me, I have a problem with rules, structure, I can't understand where I got that from, really. Then my friends were all graduating, and most of them were getting married, it's at that, kind of a sequence of events, I said, "What's the sense?" I did all that stuff, I did laundry and all that. So I came home (to Hayward) and actually, at that time, I came home and I didn't know what to do. And I was actually thinking of going up to Alaska, because Alaska fishing was booming at that time, and I wanted (the kind of experience) that looked exciting. But I (needed money) and the job (at the nursery) was driving a truck. And then after I finished my route or deliveries, I'd come back and I'd help my dad build greenhouses, which I later realized I really liked.

VY: You liked the building?

NH: Yeah, construction and everything. Grew to love it. Then I kind of stuck around, I really don't know why, but I noticed he had, my dad and my uncle had a lot of respect. And I guess what kept me there is they didn't press me or anything, or, "You got to do the nursery," this and that. After five years of driving around... I had a good time driving around.

VY: Let's talk about the time when you were driving. So you were driving for the nursery, for your dad's nursery?

NH: Yes, delivery.

VY: And geographically, what's the span that you covered? Like what's the northmost city you went to?

NH: Up to Centerville at that time, down to Monterey, this way just enough to... like I said, we didn't have a lot of clients, we didn't have to. Then when Safeway came to us to grow for 'em certain things, that expanded my delivery. At that time, chain stores were coming in, a group called Handymen, so when they came in, we're obligated, Woolworth, too, Woolworth's, we're obligated to service all their stores in our immediate area or whatever, outlying. In that case, I went as far as Crescent City, down south to Bakersfield, going to Monterey. And when Safeway took over there, they would set up -- this is before they had their plant section, this is prelude to it, they would set up like a three-week localized, several, half dozen stores in the area and put different plants in there on the parking lot, and attract people. So we serviced that part, and that's when I started driving long ways.

VY: What kind of plants did these different stores want? What were you transporting?

NH: At that time we had various garden-type plants that, like I say, hanging baskets and starter things. And then when it came Christmastime, we sold the poinsettias, lots of poinsettias.

VY: What's it like to grow a poinsettia?

NH: In the old days it was difficult. I remember we'd get the mother plants, big mother plants And at that time, they didn't even have a round, what they call a can, they had the square cans, I don't know, that tofu used to come in? I don't know if you remember that. We'd put the mother plants in there, the big starters, and they'd bloom out, and we'd take cuttings off of that and start our plants. Our finished product was, what we called a six-inch plant, and probably about twenty-four or thirty inches high, twenty-four inches. So that was our main crop. So it was difficult at that time because there wasn't much hybrids available, and we had to stake each flower. The flower was... with a bamboo stake, and we had to cover each flower with tissue paper, soft tissue paper, protection in transit. That was one of my first jobs, and I think that's when I started to have real respect for my dad and my uncle. They had a shipment going out the next day, so just my dad and my uncle and I, we stayed over and we're working by the lights of the greenhouse to prepare the ship. And we worked 'til ten o'clock at night, our dinner was a box of doughnuts. [Laughs] We didn't take breaks. That's another thing, when I took over, I made sure my employees had breaks. And I didn't look for breaks, I was just hungry. But that's the way they were. And they helped each other. We didn't say much, but this was something that came to me later, is when you're working with family, you get this feeling of dependability with them, and you don't worry about what they do and all that kind of stuff.

VY: You know you can count on them, they'll do the work.

NH: Uh-huh.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 13>

VY: So when you were driving back and forth, that was about a five-year period of time, is that right? What was that like? Did you meet different kinds of people along the way?

NH: Oh, that overcame my shyness. Because one of the problems, you're only seeing these people first time, you'll probably never see them again, and I'd get up there and I said, "Boy, I wonder if they're in a good mood." Because we'd have to deliver to the back, it's like a semi, back up into the produce area. If you come early morning, the produce guys got to have their wet stand, the lettuce and everything, and if you come early in the morning, the produce guys got to have their wet stand, the lettuce and everything, ready by opening, so they're working their butt off. And then here I come in with a load of a hundred plants or two hundred plants, and sometimes I'd get the cold shoulder. They'd look at me and don't want to answer me, "I have a delivery." Then finally, the way I would break it, because I had a route to finish, so I had a lot of things. I said, "Take your pallet, and I'll load it on there and make it easy for you to count, I'll put it wherever you want." And the guy would say, "Okay." Or I would say, "Is there a supervisor I can talk to?" That always did it. But that was usually only ten percent. Most of the people were nice, "Hi, good morning," all that kind of stuff. And I had to separate that from it a little bit, my personal feelings, like if somebody gets moody or something, forget it. This is just the way it is. [Laughs]

VY: You didn't take it personally?

NH: Yeah, at the beginning I did.

VY: Okay, so when you were driving back and forth, would you make stops along the way, or was it primarily one destination that you were getting to bring a big load to?

NH: Well, because I didn't work by the hour, I would often leave the night before, like ten o'clock. And I would sleep in the cab. Like, for example, when you go out to Redding, that's a five-hour run, then I had to go Sacramento after the Marysville area, quite a long ways. Then they didn't tell me, I could have left at seven o'clock when we normally started, but I decided I'd just sleep in the van, I mean, in the cab, and take my toilet kit with me. Unfortunately, that was one of the coldest nights. I pull over, it was so cold I couldn't go to sleep. I had newspaper to cover my butt and everything, it was so cold. So I drove as far as I could, and I ran out of gas, my truck. And I assumed there would be a gas station open, but they weren't open way out in the middle of nowhere in those days. So I walked to the town which was about five miles, I believe.

VY: This was probably in the '60s?

NH: Hmm?

VY: When was this, in the early '60s?

NH: Yes. And even the restaurants weren't open yet. I got there (walking) about seven. So I stood around there, and then I ate breakfast and I went to a gas station and took a five gallon can. And a five gallon can is heavy. [Laughs] I walked back. And a farmer pulled up and said, "Hop in." Said, "Where are you down?" I said, "Way down there on the freeway I've got a truck." He said, "That's okay." Took me all the way out there, he waited until I took the air cleaner out and started the truck, and he left. So it's incidents like that or going to town or buy a hamburger, it's a small stand, there's this girl, she's all bubbly, "Welcome," I look around, where's everybody, just me. Said, "You want a hamburger?" "Yeah." "Well, all we have is just regular bread, we don't have hamburger buns." I said, "Okay." But it's just her, enough to lift her spirits or whatever.

VY: Well, it sounds like people in general were pretty friendly and supportive.

NH: Yes. You get out of the city limits, that's the way I found, from your area, Washington and Seattle. Twenty years ago, anyway. [Laughs]

VY: Did you stop at truck stops during this time?

NH: Sometimes, but usually... later I asked for another fifty-gallon tank (put on the truck), enough to get me places.

VY: So most of the time it was more of a day trip, not necessarily...

NH: If I went up to Crystal City, it was overnight, I'd sleep somewhere. Oh, side note to that, they had (signs), smoked salmon or something, I didn't know what that was. It was usually in a bar, restaurant, so I pulled over, and I thought I'd take some home, I bought some, it's homemade and they sell it right at the bar. It was so good I ate everything up when I got home.

VY: It didn't make it home? [Laughs]

NH: I got home, but I got smoked salmon, but it was so good I ate it.

VY: Okay.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 14>

VY: Do you remember anything else about that time when you were driving?

NH: I saw a lot of California.

VY: Oh, okay.

NH: Yeah, different terrains and everything. And actually, I used to love to drive trucks because we had eight gears if we had to. And if you did it right, there was kind of a flow to it, I just liked that. But I was getting about thirty years old, I say, I'd better... so at that time, I was kind of committed to hang around. So I asked my uncle, I just can't drive anymore. He says, "Okay." He thought about it for two minutes, "You take over the personnel." Big mistake. I lost my first guy the first day.

VY: Why?

NH: I could see he's not doing things right, but he had been working there years. You don't do things like that, correct guys, especially (from new guys like me).

VY: So you saw him doing something incorrectly?

NH: Yeah, picks up something, transfers it right in. I'm used to working with both hands (at once), little things like that.

VY: So you corrected him and he quit?

NH: Yeah, about ten minutes later, walked out and never came back. Some guys don't like (to be bossed), some guys you have to do it.

VY: Sounds like you learned from that experience, though.

NH: Hmm?

VY: Sounds like you learned from that experience?

NH: Lot of learning. And I kind of managed the way I would like to manage. I don't like to be accountable for everything. I expect the guys to be self-starting and not have constant supervision.

VY: Able to work independently.

NH: Yes.

VY: How many people would be working for you?

NH: We averaged about fifteen, eighteen, the most we had was about thirty-five.

VY: And how big was the nursery?

NH: We had, at one time, 18 acres I believe, mostly greenhouses.

VY: Were they growing things in different stages?

NH: Yes. We always had a crop coming or overlapping.

VY: So who was responsible for managing that part, keeping track of the different growing stages?

NH: My cousin later came in, my cousin's husband. I turned that fuchsia section over to him which is the one crop... and my wife, I killed the "no females," she came in and worked part time, and she would work over there (in a different section).

VY: You got rid of the "no female" rule?

NH: Yeah.

VY: Okay.

NH: The female in management. We had female workers, but... so I told him he can run it independently. My wife, they did a really good job. In the afternoons, my wife would come into the office and do the paperwork, which I hated, but she likes it, did a good job on that.

VY: So good teamwork.

NH: Yeah. But overall, my uncle did other things, my dad did most of the maintenance. We built most of the greenhouses ourselves, we installed a boiler and things, we did a lot of the things on our own.

VY: How many greenhouses?

NH: Two hundred, two hundred fifty, three hundred square feet.

VY: And you grew a lot of different kinds of things, it sounds like.

NH: Yeah, like Christmas time, it pretty, dominated at least half the crop.

VY: So how long, what's the growing process for, say, a poinsettia?

NH: At that time... originally it was the way I told you, the small, but later the hybrids came out and it was easier to grow. So timing would be about five months initially. And we didn't have to stake it anymore, do additional work. And I guess what started the downhill of our type of operation is unfortunately the chain companies came and changed the makeup of your customers. There were fewer flower shops, fewer garden places.

VY: More larger companies and stores like Home Depot?

NH: Correct. Fortunately, you're a little bit like an independent grower, the large chains buy on consignment, so they don't care if the plant needs watering a lot of times. They just don't take that real personal care.

VY: Do you feel like the things that you grew changed over time because of that, because of the kinds of plants that the bigger companies were interested in having you bring to them?

NH: Well, what happened, like the poinsettia, for example, when we grew it, it was designed for the flower shops, which would be a gift, expensive gift. And even last year, things had been going two or three dollars for a final product. And I was at Home Depot buying a tool box or something, and the poinsettias, and the customers, they just lay it in their little buggy on its side. I know the leaves bruise easy, the color of the plants... so it became kind of a, I don't know what you call it, a cheap item. And it's for a decoration more than anything now.

VY: Not as precious.

NH: Yeah. So that kind of ruined the product.

VY: Does it bother you when you see things like that, when people don't take care of their plants and just tip 'em over on the side like that?

NH: I'm not going to get punched in the face. [Laughs]

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 15>

VY: Well, okay, can you maybe just walk through... what's it like from beginning to end from a plant, like from the beginning of the plant to the end of the plant? What does that look like? How do you start it and take care of it?

NH: There's a seed process, of course, it's put in a certain type of soil under bottom heat, bottom heat is like little tubes of warm water or electrical heat. And the top would be the irrigation, mist type, very fine water, and that usually goes about three weeks to a month. They root out either the seed or cuttings, put in there, they have roots, and then it's transplanted to the next size, maybe two-inch pot. It grows a little bit, and then from there, it goes into the finished container, one plant or two plants. And as that's growing, like Gayle's section, they would trim it at certain stages for the market. Poinsettia are an example, they had too much bright days, it wouldn't bloom on time for Christmas. And Easter lily, you know what that is? If you miss that, you really miss, because that blooms in four days, three days, short period. If you miss, because cloudy days and lack of heat, you miss the mark and you have to dump everything.

VY: Did that happen very often?

NH: Not to us. We did lose 300, 350 thousand dollars, cold weather (freeze). Four days of not going over a certain, not going over freezing, (temperature) under freezing, our water pipes, it froze in the water, we couldn't irrigate. At that time, some of these plants were in a non-cool house, no heating apparatus to keep it warm. It just froze and we lost the plants.

VY: And so what happened? You just had to throw them all way?

NH: Throw them away. There's a farm bureau here, and they were set up to help farmers, and we're considered a farmer. You have to submit a proposal, and I submitted, I thought if I underbid I would get at least a couple hundred thousand. A guy told me, "You missed it by twenty-five thousand," so I can't claim any. I said, "Well, can I change it?" He says, "No." So we lost the whole crop. And that revenue is carrying off, transition to cover our spring crops. I really don't know how we got through that.

VY: It seems like that would create a chain reaction when something like that happens.

NH: Yeah. But most of the time we didn't have to finance, so maybe my uncle secured a loan to carry us through. And one thing about nursery industry, all you have to pay is your employees and your basic taxes. And our houses are not, greenhouses or anything were not rentals, we built everything, so everything was paid for.

VY: So when you say "we built things," who built those? Was it mostly you and your family?

NH: My dad.

VY: You and your dad?

NH: Yeah. He designed a lot of the things, and like I say, I'd come back... actually he would wait for me, sometimes we'd need two guys. And I'd come back from my route and help him. It's amazing, though, things fit. And I remember you had to dig a lot of holes, you know, for the posts. But I liked that work. It's amazing. My dad didn't say, "Do this," and all that, he taught me the basics and I picked things up. And my dad, like I say, was engineering, he understood the basic principles. And he went to night school for welding, I don't know what else kind of things he went through. I did the same after a while, I took welding and a couple other items I thought would help.

VY: It sounds like all the things that you learned all through school came into play as you took over the nursery and had to do all these different things, it seems like you used all those things over the years.

NH: Yeah, that's kind of the exciting part. That's the way, I realized later, too late, that that's the way I like things. I like things thrown at me and then and then let me wallow out of it some way or other, solve my own problems, get my own tools. And at that time, we didn't have a waiting period for the house to finish in order to move in, it's just whenever we had time. So sometimes it took a long time to finish something, we were so busy. In the meantime, we were maintaining other equipment or repairing other equipment. It's the way we ran it, we just... like big companies, they'll have specific guys doing specific chores, but my uncle and myself and my dad, we had to multitask.

VY: Can you describe what it's like to build a greenhouse? What's that process?

NH: First you lay it out with a surveyor thing. I already had surveying because of my... and my dad understood all that. We had our own transit and everything, we'd survey it out and mark the spots, dig the holes, hand dig it.

VY: Sounds like a lot of work.

NH: Yeah. I would look down and isn't that deep enough of a hole, three feet down. And then we had two reference posts, beginning and end, on a string and then set our posts on. These are four by four posts, quite heavy. But my dad was careful, took little things like, in a hole, you put a little bit of concrete that much at the bottom, so it wouldn't sink. And lay these posts out with a string and with a level. And then my dad designed a truss, this part truss. We'd premake that in a jig, jig is where you put the pieces in and you just block them together.

VY: What were they made out of?

NH: Redwood. Redwood is, does not deteriorate, it was also painted white to reflect the light and preserve the wood. And actually, when we closed the nursery forty, fifty years later, they were still standing, so that's amazing. We would put the top up, string boards, precut that, put it up. When I do things now, it's really, I admire my dad because these were 220 feet, 230 feet long and, like I say, things fit. [Laughs]

VY: He was good at measuring.

NH: Yeah.

VY: Do you think that your experience in the nursery business is the same was other people's?

VY: No. There were some nurseries that didn't make their equipment, they always brought it out or somebody else to come in and repair it. Other places didn't need our demand for our type of crop. Actually, you'd call it a fast turnover crop for a greenhouse, less than a year. Some people just didn't want to put in certain things.

VY: So you did fast turnover crops, that was the main thing you did?

NH: I think the criteria was about a year, max. But azalea was a three-year crop, and they stopped that.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 16>

VY: How many nurseries... maybe you don't know, but how many nurseries like you were there, that did those kind of crops?

NH: At that time there was Sunnyside Nursery, another one... actually, that's about all, but he was a big nursery. There might have been a couple other growers, oh, Kawahara, who was a smaller type bedding plant. When they moved, they started growing crops like we grew. But there was crops beyond our area, that grew similar crops.

VY: Was Sunnyside Nursery also a Japanese American...

NH: Yeah, Yoshida family, very good family. They tried to buy us out, and at that time I wasn't married. They buy us out and we would manage it. So my uncle, I was not, at that time, not an official partner, later they gave me a partnership. My uncle said, "Well, I'm not going." Because I'd been to Sunnyside, and they're a big corporation, and I just told them, "I'm going to lose my little freedom I have," so he didn't sell. He could have had a very good salary, much more probably than he was pulling out of our nursery, and probably could have retired earlier, he kept it from... by then I was ten years into working there. Those, all those factors kind of added in what my family did for me, so I didn't quit. It wasn't, you have to sign a contract to work for so many years. Gave me a lot of leeway, gave me, I didn't know it, a voice in the decision-making. [Laughs] I didn't know it at that time.

VY: Do you think, were most of the other families, most of the other nurseries, were they family-run?

NH: Yes. Usually two people, brothers or something. I don't know too many nurseries, the Yoshida family, the kids came in. I think Kawahara later, the kids came in. And I think those kids appreciate, I later appreciated the freedom. There's a freedom there, when you work for your family, you know there's a lot of constrictions, but there's a lot of freedom, it's hard to explain.

VY: Did a lot of kids go into this family business?

NH: I don't think so, I don't think so.

VY: Why do you think that is?

NH: It was a time, long hours, it was hard work. If I had my choice now, I don't think I'd go into that business. Just plain hard work. And each generation, they want their kids to be more successful, I don't know what, professional-wise or whatever, don't they? And when I'm growing up, I hear these subtle things, "Oh, he's a doctor, he's gonna study to be a lawyer, or he's a captain in the army," subtle things like these high positions. And to myself, I thought, "So what?" to myself. I took an aptitude test, and one was not being a lawyer and not being a minister, the lowest things (scoring).

VY: Those are the things you should not be.

NH: Yes. [Laughs]

VY: What were the things you should be?

NH: It was all mathematics type of things, science things. So I just went that way and unfortunately, in our high school, four year program, was college prep. And I wanted to take auto mechanics just to learn, but the counselor said no. Senior year you got to take solid geometry or some stuff. See, I didn't, at that time, didn't work a lot making things and stuff, they came a little later.

VY: Do you think that's because you just didn't have the opportunity to do it or because you weren't interested?

NH: I was pretty busy in school, grammar school and junior high school and high school. I was pretty busy studying.

VY: In grammar school?

NH: Yeah.

VY: What did you study then, what did you like?

NH: Basic stuff. But I was always given extra credit stuff. I hated that my friend and I, we'd have to make up a special project. But later on I understood that you learn more, you learn things that you don't learn... and I guess we kept up in our regular studies, we were able to do that.

VY: What were your friends like, actually, back in grammar school? Who were your friends? Tell me about that.

NH: Just practically within walking distance, one guy, my best friend was like me, we're thrown in academic situations and stuff like that. They were all hakujins, all of them. I never had any Asian friends, so actually, growing up, palling around with my two brothers, we'd do things. And until I left to Los Angeles, then I started going with Asian people, actually Japanese Americans. I joined a Japanese American diving club, free diving club. I lived in a boarding house with all Japanese Americans. And so my best friends, I made friends there, we went to the same college together.

VY: That's interesting. So when you were a kid, were your friends not from other nursery families, then?

NH: (Yes).

VY: I see.

NH: We were kind of forced to go to church to try and assimilate. I hated that because there was a bully there. I don't know why, he just came and he hit me in the arm as hard as he could. I hated that. But I'm not a fighter, I don't even know how to fight.

VY: What would you do when he did that?

NH: I would try to suppress the crying, and then fortunately the school started, he'd leave me alone.

VY: Did that happen frequently?

NH: It became worse after I was selected to go to Mt. Herman. Mt. Herman was a week, representing church and do activities in the Santa Cruz area.

VY: And it got worse then?

NH: Yeah, the hits came, two hits instead of one.

VY: Why do you think that is? Do you think he wanted to go to Mt. Herman?

NH: I don't know. Same thing, I went to Cal, I took judo or something, freshman. And one guy there was a junior, he was going to show the things, and he really got me. Flipped me over and I got out of breath, and I know he did it on purpose, because he was kind of a bullying type of guy. I said, what the heck? And at that time, I respect people older than me and bigger than me. Later I verbally fought back.

VY: So later on you learned to kind of stick up for yourself?

NH: Yeah, or I'd pretend like -- it happened in grammar school, too, two hakujin guys, they were the biggest guys in our class, played touch football, they hit you harder and this and that. But after a while, you could get up and then you hit them or something, and after a while, little bit of respect.

VY: Why do you think all these different kids picked on you?

NH: I was quiet. I guess I looked like a meek kid. And I was asthmatic as a kid, so I felt different. It felt like I'm not a complete (person)... I don't know.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 17>

VY: Did you ever, so when your family had time to do things, like say, do you remember when you were a kid, going to picnics or anything like that with other families?

NH: It was usually church sponsored, or prefecture or something like that, we would go.

VY: So those were mostly Japanese American?

NH: Yeah. And my grandmother and mother, I guess, would make an obento type of Japanese food, they'd have activities for kids, sack race and all that kind of stuff. Actually that was, fairly, only exposure, before church, attended church on a regular basis.

VY: With other Japanese Americans?

NH: Yeah. My dad would visit a few families here and there that he knew, but we never played with (these) kids, too far away.

VY: Too far away. So how often do you think that happened when you would have these picnics?

NH: Once a year maybe.

VY: Once a year, so not very often. Do you remember meeting other kids and what you thought of each other?

NH: No, I don't remember.

VY: You were probably little.

NH: Yeah, except when we would go to church. Junior high school, part of high school, I kind of went to church, too. Locally, San Lorenzo.

VY: Did you like church, did you like going to church?

NH: Not really, shhh. [Laughs]

VY: Did you learn Japanese when you were a kid?

NH: I took Japanese, no, I didn't. I didn't want to go to Japanese school, I didn't want to take piano lessons, I should have, to be musically... I don't know. When I went to Cal, I took Japanese One at Cal. Flunked it. [Laughs] I thought I could learn all the kanji or all the hiragana just before the final, that's how stupid I was. I thought I could memorize it. That's (just) when my mother passed away, just before. Passed away in December, so we were on a semester basis.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 18>

VY: Well, you've been in this area your whole life, right? You've been in the East Bay your whole life.

NH: Like I said, I went to L.A., I stayed in L.A. for five years, (nineteen to twenty-four years old).

VY: Five years.

NH: And basically, I think that period was one of the best periods because it molded me to who I am now. Airhead, you know. [Laughs] Because it got me out of that elitist type of profession, because, like I say, one group of guys, like auto and body fender, and they did other things. And I don't know why, I always thought I had to go to college to get educated. And they were having, they were at ease, having fun and everything.

VY: It seems like when you came back from L.A., you came back from L.A. knowing more who you were, or more comfortable with who you were.

NH: Yeah, I didn't have the high expectations of myself. And when I was in L.A., I never had problems finding a job, and I've walked out of a couple jobs where the mother... I had a job as a draftsman, and they argued and I'm in the front office, and they'd been arguing almost every day. After two days, I quit. I just didn't like that environment. I had another job in the aircraft industry as a draftsman, and the guy showing me around, there's miles and miles of desks, and draftsmen and all that. And then he tells me, it was the killing point, he says, "You got the job, but can you redo your application and print?" I said, why? Well, I went home and I thought about it, I thought about all this, so many people, and I called him and I said, "I don't think I can accept the job." That was one reason (to redo the application), the other reason is so much people there.

VY: A lot of people.

NH: Yeah, doing the same thing. And it would have helped me, I only had to work just, I think, two days versus five days drawing the same type of salary, it was a good salary. But then it didn't mean anything to me. All through L.A. (time), all I had was a hundred dollars in the bank, I never needed a whole lot of money, just very little expenses.

VY: What other kind of jobs did you have when you were in L.A.?

NH: Delivery boy, at a printing shop, and I learned the printing (trade) so well that, I was twenty-one, that the owner, he says, "I'll turn the business over to you, you can run it." I said, "No thanks," I don't know why. I didn't want to do that. Then when he sold it to another guy, that the guy kept me on as kind of the lead man, like a foreman type of job. It was okay, but then the conditions were different. The previous owner, he treated me like family and everything, so I decided to quit and I went to work in the gas station for half the salary, because I actually wanted to learn how to work on cars. So before I got an interview, I said, "Can I work on cars?" He says, "Yeah." "I don't know anything," he said, "That's okay." So I worked with a bunch of Hawaii guys, I had a great time. [Laughs]

VY: Did the Hawaii guys seem different than the other folks?

NH: Oh, yeah. Friendly, all of them. And they all treat you, embrace you. My best friend now is kind of Hawaii roots.

VY: Sounds like you were always interested in how things worked, figuring out how to build things and make things work.

NH: I wish I could stop. Because everywhere I go, it's just like that. I look at this thing and how you guys operate and everything. I don't know what's wrong, I'm never going to use it in my life.

VY: Sounds like you do, though, sounds like you do use everything.

NH: I drive Gayle crazy, though. [Laughs]

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 19>

VY: Oh, how did you meet? How did you and your wife meet?

NH: It's funny, I was in my mid-thirties, already. I had one relationship about three or four years, it turned out a little sour. And I just didn't feel like going out or stuff like that. My family was always trying to set me up with somebody. This one guy, one of our customers used to go to L.A., he was like a broker, we'd buy plants, goes on, practically every week, on a buying trip. "You'd like to meet a younger..." her father grew ornamental plants outside, different type of nursery. I said, "Okay," I don't know why, I said, "Okay." And we met, and the following weekend, I drove down, I took Saturday off and I drove down, stayed at a motel near (her family). Did we go to Catalina Island? Yeah, we took the boat over to Catalina, rented a golf cart, I mean, one of those carts, a thing I don't know even how to drive. Three months later, I proposed. We've been married about forty-one, forty-two years, forty-one. But she understands the hours of a nursery person.

VY: When you got married, were you already running the nursery?

NH: Yes.

VY: Okay.

NH: Just starting to. Oftentimes, I have to say, my uncle and my dad, they encourage going to seminars put on by various universities. So we would go to Ohio three days, seminars. A lot of their programs for their students there, researching everything. And oftentimes, research from that turns out to be a regular practice in the industry. So you get the kind of outline and everything, you try it, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Went to Ohio and Seattle area, did we go to Florida? Might have gone to Florida. She would go with me, and because I couldn't go to all the seminars, she would go to a couple, take better notes than me. When she finished, she'd come home and redo it and it was all neat, like I was in a seminar. No questions asked, I didn't even ask her to do it, she just did it.

VY: Sounds like you guys have been a good team.

NH: Yeah, exactly, that's the word, team.

VY: So then you changed the rule and women could be part of the management.

NH: No, they couldn't. I don't know what exactly, they didn't say management. Because, like I said, we had women working at that time, couple of them.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 20>

NH: Well, one of my big mistakes was hiring high school girls that were friends, half a dozen of them at one time, biggest mistake in my life.

VY: What happened?

NH: They're either arguing with each other or playing around. One time I found all these Coke bottles on the ground, and one of the gals had orange soda all over her shirt. Someone would come in late, like ten minutes late, it doesn't matter. One time I kept them ten minutes over, well, the mother came in, she got mad and said, "My daughter is not working here anymore." Daughter turns around real sweet and said, "Goodbye." [Laughs] She wasn't mad, but the mother was mad. Big mistake, they're just too young. Never hire a group of friends, you have to kind of split them up. That was before your time. [Laughs]

VY: How about some good workers that you remember? Do you remember any good workers that stand out?

NH: Oh, yeah. One especially... well, lot of it has to do with personality, one guy who eventually became a... easy going guy, easy to get along with, never argues, but he can make decisions. There was another guy who was super clean, he wore a white shirt to a nursery, and he'd go home super clean, and he liked to clean up. So I gave him the key and he'd come in a six o'clock, even though he doesn't punch in 'til seven. And he'd start cleaning things up, he'll take the trucks out, park 'em, things like that so you don't have to.

VY: How long did he work for you?

NH: Until we closed. Limited English.

VY: Limited English?

NH: Yeah.

VY: What was his native language?

NH: He was Mexico. At that time, the industry relied on the green card or whatever, before the green card. Just like the way the restaurant business is changing now because the wages are going up, depend on entry people.

VY: Did you have a lot of workers from Mexico?

NH: Yeah.

VY: Okay.

NH: Three quarters.

VY: Three quarters.

NH: It's not because... because our wages, everybody got paid the same, not Hispanic people, same, there just wasn't anybody who liked to do dirty work, you know, getting their hands dirty. And it's not really dirty because the soil was clean, really. It's not like going in a dirty mud puddle. Physically, I guess a lot of the work is just, people don't understand it because they didn't grow up that way, for one thing.

VY: Sounds like it's a lot of hard work.

NH: Lot of physical work.

VY: Lot of physical work. Did you have a lot of people who would try it out and just realize that they couldn't do it?

NH: Yes, it's about a couple weeks or so. Mostly, to me, they were clock watchers. I can tell their head's not in it.

VY: How would you find new people to work for you?

NH: Early part, never had a problem, people were looking for jobs. Eventually I went to summertime high school, summertime, give kids a part time job for the summer. That's okay, short time.

VY: Do you think the kids that worked there during the summer, did they do pretty good, because they knew it was going to be a short time?

NH: Yes.

VY: Did any of them ever come back?

NH: No, they went on to further education. We had one gal that, she was late, ten, fifteen minutes every day. And I just got fed up one day and I pulled her timecard, and she came to the office, and she knew. And she was saying, well, this and that, and I said, "Well, I can't help that, but I'll have to repeat the work order for you," and there were some group of people short one person.

VY: So you let her go?

NH: Yeah. She was a good worker and everything, but she was late all the time. I had a part time worker two days, and she got to the point where she was missing one of the days out of two. I had to let her go, that's my mom's friend from the church. It was just, work four hours a day. Her daughter got all mad and I said, "What do you want me to do? I depend on part time worker." She didn't understand. They think that I should accommodate her, because she's only working, she's an old lady and all that kind of thing. Part time workers are important because they have to fill that timeslot and get work done.

VY: Is that because it's seasonal? Like there's more work different times of year?

NH: Yeah, some work we didn't have to have. Some people wanted that short hour thing. We didn't have a lot of part time workers.

VY: No, was it mostly full time?

NH: Yes.

VY: Was it hard finding people that would stay for a long period of time?

NH: Yeah. We didn't even have a one percent turnover, we had a pretty stable work crew.

VY: So people did stay for a long time.

NH: Yeah. There's some young people, of course, they get married or something and need a higher wage, and they wanted something more stable, or not stable... and I never held any grudge or anything, they just, people want to progress, right? And, unfortunately, when it's a small nursery, there's no place to go.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 21>

VY: So over time, what kind of changes have you seen in the industry? Has it gotten smaller?

NH: Well, the big nursery, one of them, couple of them survived, most of them, they closed up because of a housing development, especially in the last two, three years, bare land that could be knocked out, it's a premium now.

VY: Is that because, initially, when the nurseries were started, there was not a lot of houses built, it was more open, and then over time that became more of a premium area for people to live?

NH: Right. Usually on open land, ex-farmland. When we first started our nursery, I used to hunt out there for pheasant. I used to walk two feet off our property into the farmers, he let me hunt for pheasant, and there was quail there. We never had a fence around the nursery and nobody broke into it, middle of nowhere. But I think, also, the last two generations, probably, they don't have time to do simple gardening, they don't have the need to have flowers in their house, whatever. But mainly, I guess, as you notice, a lot of the houses around here don't have yards. But it takes a lot of work to maintain a yard anyway. People that love it, they do a good job, because their energy's focused into it.

VY: So you think that, is it more the... did the nurseries just sort of close their business down completely, or did some of them move to a different area that was a little, had more space?

NH: Yes, most of them moved out of the area. If they did, I'm not familiar with a lot of cut flower growers that moved out. I think that's what happened on the other side, west side, there were a lot of cut flower growers and they were just kind of forced out of the area. You can't start early, you have tractors mixing soil, you have to be careful when you're spraying, because some of the houses would come right up to the property.

VY: Did that become a problem as time went by, like as more houses were built closer to your nursery, did people complain about things?

NH: They complained one time, I had a couple break-ins, so I put this barbed wire thing on top, and so happened, he came over and he says, "This is just like Vietnam." So I took it down, two days later, I was broken in again. And when people break in, they vandalize, they didn't actually take things. But they would break things, probably kids. And I understand, nobody likes to look at barbed wire and all that kind of thing, so I took it down and I left it off.

VY: Did the break-ins happen very often?

NH: No. If they break in to a heated house and then do something to the heating system or leave the doors open, we could lose the crop overnight or something. I had to secure the greenhouses, too, as we go on. If somebody was bent on vandalism or anything, that wouldn't stop 'em, they'd just break in.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 22>

VY: Okay, so let's talk about how different nurseries interacted with each other.

NH: To my viewpoint, there was very little interaction. One of the things that, I know there was a California flower market, they would have an annual dinner, that's where we would meet a lot of the other cut flower growers and things like that.

VY: The flower market?

NH: Yeah. Sometimes I would meet 'em in like a seminar type of place, looking for more information. They would often have open air nurseries for somebody, a field trip type of thing, and I would go and, cut flower grower, and see what they're doing. One of the, for example, was reclaiming the water, the irrigation water, they had the system set up to reclaim it and then purify the water and reuse it, but it had really nothing to do with the nursery, cut their growing part. That would be the only reason why I would go over there, little things like that. If they were building things, my dad and I often went, just to get ideas. Not to copy, just get a... we did have a couple of large nurseries, I won't mention their names, they'd come over and see what we're growing periodically. One of the nurseries bought one of these specimen plants that we were known for, he bought maybe a hundred items. Then he split the delivery, and in the second delivery, I asked him, "Are you going to take it?" and he said, "Yeah, we're going to take it." Well, I couldn't hang onto it because it's two or three weeks, blew him out. And he took it, and then the following year, he put an order in again, and I'm sorry, I can't fill it, you reneged on your order, more or less. Well, it ended up he used it, tried to duplicate the growing, and I don't think he was successful. And we had other items like, I remember we had this little conical pot with some kind of fir, looks like a Christmas tree, and that's for the garden -- my uncle was innovative in a way, he tried things. He'd knock it out of a can and put it in a clay pot and sold the flowers, and they would decorate it. Well, about five, six years later, this big nursery grew hundreds of 'em. He'd bring in a special, like a Vietnamese at that time, I believe, came over and all they would do is decorate those plants, they'd predecorate it and sell it, so that ruined the market for our little hundred plants or so.

VY: They would decorate them and sell them?

NH: Yeah. Less work for retail. But I think they had a lot of chains and stuff. So we didn't interact much.

VY: So the different nurseries didn't really interact a whole lot with each other?

NH: For example, I think cut flower would see a cut flower grower more. They knew each other, what was growing, and same thing, kind of look and see what your competition's doing.

VY: So do you feel like it was more competitive and less friendly?

NH: No. I think everybody had their own markets one way or other, we didn't feel that we would steal from each other. And like I say, we had a lot of items and we serviced very few customers compared to other people, and that's the way we existed. And it cut down on our traveling time, we didn't have to go all over for one little item, and most of the time we sold out, or we sold ninety percent. Ten percent's nothing to sell.

VY: So people would place large orders and you would fulfill them.

NH: A lot of the orders were prebooked before the season. We were known as contract growers, which that kind of backfired sometimes because they overestimated, or very optimistic, they would sell it and it would rain and they can't sell their product.

VY: So what would happen then if they ordered it from you but they couldn't sell it?

NH: Sometimes we didn't have to eat it and... for example, tomato plants grew too big for a small one, we'd have to dump the crop. Because he was a good customer throughout other years, we'd have to take the loss. They would try to help us out, take half of that thing to try to sell. It has its ups and downs, positive and negative about contract growing.

VY: Seems like you really have to think about the future when you're planning, for financial planning and what you're growing, seems like that you really have to have a lot of different financial systems in place and strategies to make sure that you can keep going and that you fulfill all the different kinds of orders.

NH: Well, we were limited by the space itself, and a time constraint in order to grow that particular crop. Safeway, for example, wanted to promote bedding plants, small starter plants, but it meant we'd have to hire twelve more people just for that production. We'd have to give twenty-five percent of our plant space for that area, so we refused it. Safeway was a good customer, they would pay in two weeks. Send them an invoice, two weeks they'd pay.

VY: But sometimes you couldn't take the contract.

NH: Yeah. And they understood it, we still got other contracts for other things, but we had a good relationship with a Northern Cal buyer.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 23>

VY: You talked about irrigation earlier. Could you talk a little bit about irrigation and that process?

NH: Well, first of all, we had well water. And my dad and I, mostly him, set up the piping from the area to different areas. And most of the time we hand watered each plant. Because we had different crops going into that area. There's what they call spaghetti, a small tube system, goes into the major, and it's low volume, you don't need a lot of pressure. But because our crops turned over maybe three times in one particular area, it was hard to adapt to different things. And, actually, I kind of think our hand watering allowed us to grow quality plants, because a lot of the big growers, they changed the soil composition so it's lighter and different components, so when you water it and water doesn't sit in it, and the plant is, kind of goes through fast, and you don't have overwatering. Only problem with that, when you take it to the customer, they'd better be aware of it, or the thing will dry up real fast.

VY: Doesn't retain the moisture.

NH: Yeah. So we had well water, and some things we couldn't grow because of the salinity.

VY: So what kinds of things grow better with the well water?

NH: Almost everything we grew. [Laughs] Because azaleas we could not propagate in our Union City place.

VY: Could not?

NH: Yeah. So, initially, they would take cuttings and they would, rented a small greenhouse in somebody's backyard who was a former grower. But that became a hassle, he had good water. We tried other things, we tried putting de-ionized water, way of treating the water, but it just wasn't worth the expense, so we dropped that azalea, camellia line. But it went into our fast production, one year max.

VY: What does that mean, went into fast production?

NH: Well, I would say a crop has to be finished in one year, out the door.

VY: Oh, okay. So after that time, all of your crops, you wanted to be one-year crops.

NH: Yeah. It was kind of a transition, it didn't happen (at once) exactly, we switched over, we fully switched over. I guess practically every year we tried to introduce something new, we thought we could grow that the market would accept. And sometimes there's no acceptance from the customer. But it was not in a large quantity, we would have, take a big loss. We didn't just jump in and grow a hundred thousand, something, and hope we'd sell it.

VY: Did anything ever surprise you as far as you thought one thing might sell but it didn't, or something that you didn't think would sell did?

NH: My uncle tried bonsai, kind of ahead of its time. He bought the little things and bought little cutie, the guys and the little bridge, we'd have a pine, small thing. But unless you were into bonsai, you wouldn't know how to really train it and it didn't go over well, one thing.

VY: So he thought it would do well, but it did not.

NH: There were a lot of items that it would take the, perhaps a year or something, we didn't grow a lot of, because they become what they call specimen plants, bigger plants and everything, so we just grew limited quantities. We never tried to double production because it was a good seller. It's better to have your one-year turnover rather than pass that.

VY: Did you ever see anything selling that maybe you didn't grow, but you saw it selling well that surprised you?

NH: Yeah, it was what I call perennials, outdoor color plants. Our main goal is plants with color at the time of sale, no matter what. And I tried that, and it already had the stigma of being an inexpensive plant no matter what. At the end I had to kind of drop the price, or here, take double that, I'll give you one. But then I was getting into outdoor growing again, which we stopped growing, we stopped growing things outside.

VY: Why?

NH: Cold winters. The growers from Los Angeles, because they had a fairly temperate climate, they can grow it and ship it up here cheaper than we can grow it, and it didn't make sense.

VY: Was there competition from other areas, other than Los Angeles, that affected the industry here?

NH: Later, I don't think it directly impacted us because they were, we were out of certain items already, we stopped growing, that was in the Vacaville area.

VY: Vacaville?

NH: Yeah. A lot of Southern California, I think a couple of them went into that area. But we drove by there a few months ago, and half the nursery is not in production.

VY: In Southern California?

NH: Vacaville.

VY: Vacaville.

NH: And one closed down several years ago. Came across the same problem, cold weather, erratic.

VY: So it seems like the whole area, the whole East Bay, north and south, everything has reduced as far as the nursery business goes.

NH: Zero. I don't know if there's any around. I'm not sure, I've been out of it about twenty-five years.

VY: It's been that long?

NH: '95, 1995. Even the retailers, small retail nurseries, they're not around, that won some of our customers. And unfortunately, when Gayle and I, we go to buy plants for the house, it's expensive, really expensive. It's really expensive to design and plant your houses nowadays.

VY: And there weren't a lot of options to get plants anymore.

NH: Uh-huh, yes.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 24>

VY: I was wondering if you'd like to talk a little bit about your uncle, and he keeps coming up, and I was wondering, throughout your life, he seems like he was kind of a father figure.

NH: Exactly. I don't know how you hit that. My dad was on the quiet side, very, very nice man, smart man, but he couldn't relate as a father, really. But my uncle, ten years younger, and like I said, I kind of grew up with him in the same, in Oakland. My uncle was single and he's actually a teenager or something later. And he had this sense of taking care of the family more than my dad. My dad, I think, did, but my uncle really tried to keep the family together. And I remember when I was sick and asthmatic, he was the one that, most of the time, come up and pick me up in Oakland, or take me there to the doctor and then I take the bus home from East Oakland to 73rd, and he'd meet me at the bus stop. He was kind of like the fill in guy. And later, when I started working with him, I could talk personal things with him, and he with me. I don't know why, he was a different type of guy.

VY: It sounds like you had a good connection.

NH: Yes. My dad and my uncle got along because my dad tended to the building and things, my uncle was, he was also a business college grad. He did the administrative part and some of the, he later did some of the planting and everything like that.

VY: Did your uncle have a family?

NH: Yes, he had five children. I'm kind of like one of their, their kids treat me (really well), get along like they're one of them.

VY: So you're still close?

NH: Yes, uh-huh. My uncle passed away a few years ago, but we see our auntie once in a while. Our cousins take care of us.

VY: Did any of your other siblings go into the nursery business?

NH: They probably put their time during the summer and here and there. But one thing about my dad, he encouraged to work out (of his business), like when I was fifteen years old, he got me a job in a supermarket, so I was a produce clerk for a while, I learned that he wanted us to expose (outside), but I knew I always had a job at the nursery. And even when I was (young), would make boxes for two cents or three cents each, little things. Summertime we would go and work (at the nursery), like about three o'clock (p.m.), when I was old enough, my brother and I, he let us drive the truck around the open land to learn how to drive, back up and everything. But my sister worked there and my younger brother, Gerald, my second brother, worked there. My second brother and I, we kind of worked all the time, we were two years apart. It wasn't just me, he'd come along. So I'm closest to my second brother a lot. We share a lot of the experiences I've told you about. But I don't think, nobody even had an idea to work in the nursery. When you work in a nursery as a kid, you see the bottom, you don't see the other part, or you don't have the freedom to say, oh, it's too hot, let's go home, and stuff like that.

VY: Well, let's see. Is there anything else that you would like to share with us today before we conclude today?

NH: I'd just like to say, it's because of you, you guys, and Dana Ogo Shew who brought this up, it brings up a lot, and kind of validates my life, my decisions that I made. I wouldn't have met my wife, for one thing, and then when I think about it, all these little things that happened, even from a kid growing up, it's who I am today because of that. Working in a nursery and all that as a young kid, and going away from it, coming back, and being able to see other professions, compare it. But the main thing is my dad and my uncle, they gave me, even when I was working, they didn't say, did a lot of controlling, you might say, to make my own decisions, do things my way, and I was able do things without even asking them permission. If it wasn't for that, I don't think I would have been in the nursery business. I don't know what I, I would probably end up as the framer, framing carpentry, because I liked that kind of thing, but I didn't know that until later. The crucial part when you were making decisions for what are you going to do in your life, I didn't have this process. A lot of it is, oh, I'm going to get stuck at a desk, I'm going to be stuck in the office and everything. For example, when I chose civil engineering, I wanted to be on the outdoors, but I don't like snakes, that's a big problem. [Laughs] So I was kind of hesitant to go into that profession. But I chose that branch just because I didn't want to be, wearing a tie would be the worst thing for me. Wearing a white shirt would be even worse. [Laughs] But it's funny, until you guys started researching this, our family history, I never thought twice of this. And then I considered myself very lucky, that at crucial points in my life, I was able to adapt to it or make a decision, that thing. I kind of feel sorry for people now that they don't have the freedom to have different type of jobs to see what they like, you don't seem to have that choice. You can't be bouncing around a lot. That's the sad part of it. And I actually thank you guys for bringing this up again. At my age, I'm kind of reflective, you might say, about things I've done. Not too many regrets. (Narr. note: The nursery business helped keep the families together. We had the freedom to take care of family situations while attending to nursery operations. This wasn't a 9 to 5 job.)

VY: That's wonderful, thank you so much, it's been a pleasure.

NH: Yeah, likewise.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.