<Begin Segment 35>

TL: When you married George you were at different points in your life, so maybe a little more comfortable and less of those kinds of worries.

YB: Right. We didn't have to worry so much. How we were going -- George had a good position at Boeing; he was an instructor. And he said, "You don't have to work you know, really. For the two of us," he said, "the house is paid for now, and we'll have enough to live on. Just so you don't go splurging and throwing the money around." "But," he says, "you can still spend and live comfortably." And, I had my own, by that time I had my own social security. So he says, "Why don't you get your own social security direct to the bank, and you can use it the way you want, and pay your debts or whatever you have with that." And then he would buy whatever we had to buy for the house, or even for me. But he was always bringing home -- he says, "Every day is Christmas and every day is Mother's Day," and if he thinks of something, he'd bring home some very cute little things. He would find the most beautiful musical cards. And I says, "Where'd you...?" "I'm not gonna' tell you 'cause I'm the only one's buying it."

TL: What is a musical card?

YB: Have you ever seen one?

TL: No.

YB: I got to go down, I got a box full.

TL: Oh, okay. Well, we'll go look at that sometime. It's something that you wind up?

YB: Wind up and it plays music. It's a great, as big as one of those sheet of papers. Plays music, I think it still plays; I've still got 'em. I don't, these are the things I don't know what to do with everything.

TL: So it sounds like you were able to collect some very enjoyable things together.

YB: Now, Clarence was so busy that his friends, his male friends -- not lady friends, but male friends that would go around with him -- and say, and they'd never call him Clarence, they says, "General, why don't you remember your wife once in a while?" He's so busy, he forgets. He says, "Oh, okay," and he'll think of something to bring home. Or in those days they had a -- what did they call those little candy machine with a pulley? And you pull out a car, a little tiny Austin or whatever toy that was in there; and they said, "Even pull a little car out of the candy machine and take it home to her, [Laughs] if you can't get a real one." So he would bring little things home to please me, but that's at the order of the boys. They'd remind him, "Why don't you think about your wife once in awhile?"

He's so busy with his work, and I realize that legal work must be worrying about other people's problems. And then he had JACL on his mind, and several things going, you know, and the union problems. So every once in a while he might blow up or something, and he can't do it outside, he'll do it at home. And then he's sorry later, but it's got to come out someplace. So, this is something George never did do. If he did, he might go out in the garage and take it out on the tools or something, but he never -- if I'd be quiet so that he'd blow over, he'd say never anything. Then before he says, "I'm sorry, honey." And then it's always kiss and make up, so everything is okay. And I don't know if it was, was it Chinese, but the Japanese, even with the Niseis, very few were real warm, outgoingly warm. The Sanseis are more so. But they still have instilled in them, I think, the Japanese custom of holding themself aloof and being more like a Japanese man, and not show their affection or their feelings either one way or the other. And he was more or less like that. But when he blew up, he did blow up. [Laughs] Not at me, but he did blow up. And if he could do that, one extreme or the other.

But I think that, with George, he was a very warm person, always thinking about your problems. And if he'd go out -- every morning he'd put that flag, because he has a beautiful collection of flags of history of America. The first flag to the present day flag, and all the stars in it; and a story to go with each one, and how it came about, and the song that goes with that period. And people who have studied history, or been in the army or the navy said, "Never knew we had so many flags!" Or there was a story like that. And he used to put it on for the different organizations, and for the Masons and for the Scottish Rite group, and schools and clubs, and everybody's just amazed at the story that goes with it. So that was his hobby. He and Marge put that together, and later I helped him put it on at different functions.

But I used to tell him, I says, "You know George, I am older. And I'm the one that should be going..." "Oh, no you don't. I'm not getting left behind this time." 'Cause I think, pardon to the menfolks, but I think it's harder on the men to be left behind, they tell me, than the women. And so George says, "Not on your life. I'm not gonna' get left behind." So he did, he went on ahead. And it'll be nine years now, that he's been gone. So I've been here for twenty-five years.

<End Segment 35> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.