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BN: Okay. So after you come back to Pasadena, where did you... what sorts of jobs did you take on?

FS: Well, I think... okay. After I came back and, as I say, I was still living at Westridge School. And then I got some small jobs. I know, I think I was doing more the gardener's helper kind of stuff. So I remember doing, washing driveways, because in those days, I can do that pretty well, for some really prominent people. One was Tam O'Shanter (owner). Right across the way, the valley, is the Frank family (home), they were related to Van de Kamp family. So I used to continue playing tennis. No, I guess that's even before. We may have already discussed that when I played tennis with John Van de Kamp. After the military, I did other odd jobs like that, but also working with a paper company stocking boxes and things. And I worked (a) regular job was at Hoffman Electronics, a big company not too far south of USC. And then they folded, or the economy went down. They laid me off, but then they laid me off after the top guys, the engineers were laid off. (That) was another experience. I sat in this huge drafting room and all these guys put their stuff in the box and leaving one at a time, so that was quite a visual experience for me.

BN: What did they make, Hoffman Electronics?

FS: Well, I'm not sure. Because they called, what I was doing was some kind of a low frequency tuner, and I don't know what that component was, I was just a good draftsman and I did what the (engineer) told me to do. I think Hoffman Electronics got into other stuff, hi-fi, whatever. And they might have been connected with the aircraft industry, (I think) a lot of those things are linked. And that was purely drafting. But when I got laid off there, I got a job then with an industrial designer that taught at USC, and their office is right down the hill on Palmetto. On the other side where Mihara's restaurant is now. I worked there for just a short time, and then it was time to go to school and it worked out. I already knew the teacher, when I started USC all over while working full time because they allowed people that worked to do some of the courses at night. Their curriculum was five years, so it's the design side that required five years in, so we started night school.

BN: Did you know all through this time that you wanted to go to architecture school?

FS: Not really. Well, architects, I'm still trying to define what it is. I think it's a fantasy thing that most schools don't know what they're really teaching. Because everybody has a different perception of what an architect is. And I'm the process of trying to define that a little bit more. But the only thing for certain is it requires money. So the buildings don't get built until they have money. So it's all related to economics. And in my opinion, most, not all, architects are puppets to the power of the money. Not, what do you call it, where we design buildings to support whatever that money is invested in, whether it's housing, schools, anything. And the premise and understanding of what the architectural field, it's kind of... I noticed most institutions have a hard time trying to really educate architects in a short time to understand. So they don't teach anything about money, they teach about technology and quality of design, the envelope, whatever. Well, but that's how it is. So I didn't know what I was getting into.

BN: What attracted you to the USC program?

FS: There was only two, Cal and USC. I wasn't about to go back to Cal.

BN: You knew, you already tried Cal.

FS: Well, and plus, being an only child and knowing what my parents went through, I felt the need to be at home and be... not that I had a heck of a lot to offer them economically, but I was close to my parents, they were good to me, and I guess it was only natural that I stayed with them and drove them around when they needed to go anywhere. That seems the natural thing. It never occurred to me, it wasn't a choice, it just happened, I guess.

BN: What were they doing at that time? Was your dad still, were they still at the school?

FS: Yeah. My dad was the custodian doing, cleaning the outside and the inside of the school. And my mother was a day laborer doing housework, still walking to the bus stop. She was still younger so she could do that, and doing housework. So nothing really changed for them.

BN: Were you still living there as well?

FS: Yeah, I lived right there. And I think, you know, you live so long, as long as I've lived, too, I can't... I guess I can't thank them enough because, to me, my parents, both of them, allowed me to really take advantage of life and what my field gave me, a chance to travel, a chance to learn, a chance to participate. Everything I've been able to do, I still thank them, that they made the commitment. Well, my mother was born here but my dad had made a commitment to try to be American. But yeah, I'm just totally thankful. I've had a very fascinating life that I'm very grateful to the experience in meeting people and things, yeah. For me, architecture is not about the building, it's about the people in the building.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.