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BY: And at what point did you begin a romance with your wife, Sara?

TI: So we've been married thirty-six years. Well, actually, back up earlier. We first met when we were at the University of Washington. So this would be 1975-ish. And we were both freshmen, and actually it was in our sophomore year that we were in the same creative writing, short story class. I think the reason we were both there was there was a well-known Asian American author, N.V.M. Gonzalez, who was kind of visiting the campus and teaching this short story course. So I signed up for it and she did, and so it was there that we first met. But at that point we were involved in different relationships when we first met, but we noticed each other's writing, and I think that's when we were first interested. It was, I think, ten years after that that we met again, and that's when we started dating.

BY: She's written a lovely piece about that that I suspect you've seen. And she said that you asked her to dinner on a two for one coupon.

TI: [Laughs] You found that.

BY: But what impresses me about that story is that at that point, she seems to have recognized your calling as a storyteller it seems. She was smitten by your storytelling at that point as I recall in this thing she wrote.

TI: Yeah, she noticed, she said she noticed my writing when I was an undergraduate. I was, to help pay my way through college, I was a lifeguard at the Medgar Evers swimming pool, and one of the things I enjoyed was actually teaching swimming lessons. And one of my short stories was about these, or a scene I wrote about was the excitement of these kids coming out of the locker room to get their swimming lessons, and how this one young girl in particular, she didn't know how to swim, but she was so exuberant, she just jumped in the water and just started thrashing. And just described that, and Sara just says she was so captivated by how that scene was played out, so she remembered it. And I was embarrassed because it was the type of writing class where you write it and turn it in to the teacher. And I didn't think of myself as a writer, but Professor Gonzalez, it was one of the first classes, he said, "Oh, I'm just going to read some of these," and he read my story, which I was sort of embarrassed about. Because you have all these real writers, English majors, and I'm this chemistry guy here.

BY: Well, I would argue you are a storyteller, and I would argue that she recognized that.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2020 Densho. All Rights Reserved.