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BT: So after you left that job, then you decided... how did you find the Bridge, by the way? How did you end up there?

FS: [Laughs] Why do you find anything?

BT: Well, were you attracted to that place there?

FS: Yeah. When I was a young guy and working for the Pasadena firm, we were doing work in Glendora, all over the place. Didn't have all the freeways, so you go down Green Street and pick up Foothill or whatever. And I always noticed that thing sticking out, and it had a big space at the end, it had windows on both sides. Yeah, I though that'd be great for an office. And when I knocked on the door, there was a woman artist in the Bridge, but then I asked her if I could share half of it because I wanted to kind of have a place to work. And she said, "Yeah, I don't need it all," because she was just using the Bridge part for stacking her paintings, and she was working in the back, the rotunda. So I literally, that's all I did. I went and asked her if I could share it, and then I kept hoping she'd move out and she did.

BT: What year was that?

FS: Oh gosh, it must have been in the '70s, no, maybe late '60s. Yeah, because I went to Portugal. See, I have to look at all my lists of stuff. That must have been... yeah, Portugal was '65, Japan was '64. And then '66 I worked with the guys in Hawaii, so that must have been late '68. And it was very reasonable, because Old Town was dead yet and there was nothing there.

BT: You had the confidence to want to do it on your own.

FS: Well, yeah. I really don't know. I knew I couldn't stand that office. We had these guys, they're good friends, and they drove jaguars, they lived, we had a fancy office and all that. And heck, we had a list of jobs. Well, it wasn't making money because there would be times when we didn't, as partners, didn't take money home, we had to pay the staff. I didn't know anything about business, that's how my partner, this guy, Italian buddy that was good friends, he got all his money from the bank. He'd get all the money he wanted and then he'd run and he'd eat all the fine food and live, fancy cars, and I did see how the costs, a lot of my money was going to maintaining a silly Jaguar that was ridiculous at that time. So I learned a little bit about business. You know how they operate, it started with a bank. Well, architecture is a crappy business unless you kind of know what you're doing or you got some money to carry you at the beginning. And for me, I didn't have that money, I just... yeah. I thought those guys were good marketers, hustlers, but no, I had to do the hustling. So I brought in more work during that time than they did. So I realized that I didn't fit.

BT: So you feel like, as a Japanese American, you didn't have access to capital like those guys did?

FS: Well, I never knew anybody with money. I didn't meet Ko 'til fifty years later. I didn't know anybody with money. I only knew my background because of the happenstance of the companies I worked for. They were primarily school architects because that's where a lot of money was, just like housing is right now. There weren't that many big time developers, and of course, they wouldn't talk to somebody like me. I don't... see, after that, I'm caught like a lot of guys -- not a lot of guys -- but I remember somebody recently, Nick Nakatani, who wrote that book about Crenshaw. I see where the Yellow Brotherhood and all that time of turmoil of the Vietnam War, and, of course, I'm living that period, too. Not as, when I was in the military, but I'm living it, now in hindsight, what I did at Fort Carson playing the enemy, that was on the government payroll, right? But we had to beat the Korean enemy while they made a movie. And I learned recently from my friend, that it was called "Top Gun," was the name of the movie. And Branson or whatever his name is, they rode motorcycles? He was the star? Anyway, I thought I was a movie star in Fort Carson, too. But yeah, the thing, going into business was what I learned... see, I didn't know how to go to a bank or anything, so I guess I must have developed a level of confidence, and also the people that were in higher level that I worked for, like the president of Citrus College and a few other people, superintendent, and people that knew me, felt I was capable of doing whatever it took. So I had to... that's how I started marketing again, if you will, making connections.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.