<Begin Segment 9>

PW: So once you were discharged or back, I understand you went to D.C. first and then came back to San Francisco. Was everybody back home in San Francisco by then?

HS: Oh, yes, they came back almost... oh yeah, they came back in 1944, about that time. They had difficulty, I know they had difficulty with the bread people, and later on they wanted space. But it was hard to get them, they were purveyors, and they worked to get the bread. What was it... I forgot the name, it was a big canned food, not Del Monte, it was the second biggest canned food. And I was a resident radiologist, those days it was a three-year program. And one year was devoted to therapy, radiation therapy, and we took care of inpatients. And this man was suffering horribly, he had cancer of the jaw and was really a mess coming off all that, and he was dying. And he... oh, the telephone company gave us a bad time, too, telephone service. And this man was a patient at UC Hospital, University of California Hospital, I was a resident. And I was taking care of him because one year I had to take care of radiation patients. He was dying and he said, "Are you the psychiatrist that has the grocery store on Post Street?" I said, "Yes, my family has a grocery store." He said, "I want to apologize." He says, "I wouldn't sell them our canned goods, so apologize to your brother." And my brother, when I told him, he said, he swore.

Anyway, everything always went my way, I don't know why. I was an intern at San Francisco General, and that was the county hospital. At one time, one service was Stanford, the other was Cal, and the nurses always took care of us, almost as a baby. Always took care and said, "Come over here. Look down the hallways, you see that doctor, intern, residents, they're wearing white coats. See that doctor?" Says, "That's a Cal man, that's a Stanford. The Stanford men were always dressed perfectly, the Cal people were... I was thankful when I got the first, the first lecture was given by the professor of surgery, he says, "Look to your left, look to your right." This had never happened. He said, "One of you will be gone before you graduate," which is not true. There were seventy in our class, and only one man, one person, Jimmy Wei, he was Chinese, was expelled. I don't know why. His brother taught pharmacy, and we never asked him. Anyway, it happens.

PW: So postwar, again, to clarify, your family came back to San Francisco, the house, they could just move back into their same house?

HS: We came back to the same house.

PW: And the store, they just reopened the store?

HS: Reopened the store, it was done quickly. And the neighbor next door was called Bop City, because the blacks took over the neighborhood, but Bop City was the only remaining black enterprise. His name was Edwards, he was the chief salesman for, I forgot the Chevrolet dealer in San Francisco. He came, Bop City was a jazz site, and opened at two a.m., and they served alcohol in coffee cups. You name... I can't even think of any of these names, you name any jazz person that was known in the United States, they were there. I never heard any noise, because I would go to sleep at seven-thirty. And Edwards came into the store the day it opened and Asako was keeping store. And he wanted to look over, so he looked at the store and he smiled and picked up a watermelon. Anyway, he was a smart man, Edwards. Asako always remembers that. Well, we had trouble opening the store, but we survived.

PW: Do you remember noticing ways that San Francisco had changed?

HS: You know, I was a resident... that happened in the '60s, and I, of course, was not reading the ethnic dailies, the Nichi Bei and Hokubei. So I didn't know what was going on, but they were, what did they call that, when the redevelopment was going on? There was a big fight about people who had properties, others who did not, those who had properties did extremely well, that included my family. They moved to what was known as Aoki Taiseido was a stationery store, they made that into a grocery store. And the upper level was called Cherryland, it was a dining place. And they did very well with the store, they also were able to get... 1684 Post Street was our home, that's now Japanese Historical Society. From the Japanese Historical Society to the present, the new store, that was our property. And they did very well, the Ashizawas. But I didn't know anything about them, because I was not reading Japanese and redevelopment, I thought it was a good idea, because those homes were old. If I knew about the difficulties some people had, obviously. And you know, the Kinokuniya that was designed by Min Yamazaki. And, of course, in a sense, it's a failure because it's closed, as shopping malls are having a difficult time now. But that would have been a great Japantown if it had been an open mall. But we can't complain, our family did well, some people did not.

PW: So when you were studying radiology, at that point, you were at UC (San Francisco)?

HS: I went to UC Berkeley (as an undergrad) after I got home, discharged in 1946, '47. And I was, applied for medical school in '47, they gave (me) a three-year accelerated program, so I didn't have to take a fourth year. The fourth year became the first of year of medical school, but that was in Berkeley. By that time, I had injured my back because I was lifting hundred-pound rice bags, and I was just this small and I crushed my back. So I got excused, and my sister bought me a car, so I got to get to park on campus, that's unusual. Today, you can't do that, but I got to park right in front of (the Life Sciences building)... what's it called? So everything always happened, I always took two or three of my neighbors that were going to Cal, and took them. And before that was the key system, there was a train. You know all that stuff. But anyway...

PW: So you still lived at home and you commuted to Berkeley?

HS: Yes, because I purposely saved my GI Bill for, I knew I was going to graduate school somewhere.

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