<Begin Segment 17>

BN: You're at McKinley, and then from there you go on to high school, right?

FS: Yeah, McKinley is tenth grade. That's probably the most important year for me. And we still have tenth grade reunion. Can you imagine? They're going to have a last one maybe this year, going to try it. There's a guy that, that's how it's kind of a special time for a lot of people, so we were having all these friends that's... of course, they all knew Bobby, because he was president of the school. But yeah, we might have one more. But now it's broadened out into anybody, McKinley people. But it's kind of a special school.

BN: What was special about it that year?

FS: Well, for me it was special in that I could play sports and learn to play a little baseball and basketball and a little bit of football, B football. I guess you could do everything, and I think there were some, one or two teachers, maybe, I think there was a French teacher there that I liked, just a few things like that. It was a unique situation of coming down from a high school, which you were a nobody. I was a freshman in which they, Santa Maria High School didn't have very good counseling or anything. Not that I had a whole lot of counseling at McKinley, I think. I was comfortable talking to teachers, a few teachers, things like that. So yeah, for me, that probably was a very critical year.

BN: And then from there you went on to...

FS: To Pasadena High School, which was four years. It was high school and college. But the pivotal thing for there is, see, that's 1949, and my mother bought me a new car. So I had this black Chevrolet '49 Fleet Line, I think they call it. And with what little money I saved working side jobs, gardener, helper, things like that, I put pipes on it, it's like the Gardena car club thing. You know, lowered the car, all these things. So I'm an eleventh grader going to a four-year campus that has a national Rose Bowl football team, that kind of stuff, and I'm... the football players are looking at me. So they knew that these were guys that were stars of the national Rose Bowl championship, so they knew who I was. So you might say it was kind of an interesting transition when I got that car. Of course, I had a, there was a carrot with it in that I had to drive my parents everywhere. So it had a purpose, obviously.

BN: Just picturing your Issei parents riding your lowered car...

FS: Well, that's only when I went in the army. My mother had to learn to drive with pipes. [Laughs] I made sure they were loud pipes so the girls would turn around. Girls like my wife never looked at those things, the irony of it. Anyway...

BN: Was that unusual? Were you the only guy to have a car in that grade?

FS: A shiny black car on the PCC campus, yeah. There was one other guy who had a lot of money, he was on the football team, his name was Hirohata, Bob Hirohata. And he had a customized car because his father had an insurance company, I believe, but at those times, the car was a big thing. So one of the more famous car people, I think they were called Barris car company.

BN: Chuck Barris.

FS: They chopped the Mercury that he had, that kind of stuff? Well, that's... but he was a football player, so he was already known, but he didn't have a black shiny car that I kept shining. I was his equal. [Laughs]

BN: It was George Barris. Chuck Barris was the game show host. And then you mentioned also you were in these Japanese social clubs, too?

FS: Yeah. I think that might have happened after high school, like PCC. What also, because of the car, I became a fairly decent tennis player from Westridge and the car allowed me to interact with people like John Van de Kamp who is prominent in the city. And now we understand the former mayor's wife wants to honor his house, a substantial historic place. And here I knew him before her because she didn't come here until 1971, I found out. But anyway, I used to pick up John to play tennis, so he knew me from... and the irony if it is he lived right next door to Pacific Oaks children's school where I got involved, because his mother had a house right adjacent to it. And my first girlfriend was a schoolgirl there, so I parked in front of that house for many evenings way back. So PCC was, I had moderate success as a tennis player, so I played on the high school team, then I played on the City College team. But, see, in those days, it wasn't the macho sport, so I always kind of had reluctant, I depended more on my car to be part of the football crowd. I didn't realize people knew I played tennis there, but I found out later a few girls knew I played tennis. I said, oh my, I missed my calling. [Laughs] But I did play varsity tennis.

BN: At this time, when you were in high school, did you have a sense of what you wanted to do or what you wanted to...

FS: Well, have fun.

BN: Or thinking about the future?

FS: Well, I knew I had to work, but I don't think I was thinking career or anything. Because I did a lot of different kinds of things part time. That didn't happen 'til I went in the military, grew up a little. Not a lot, just a little. [Laughs]

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.