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TI: One of the things that, while doing my research, I recognized that you were younger than the classmates in your own class. Can you talk a little bit about that? Why you were younger than the other students?

HM: It started because my... I guess my brother thought that because my parents were so much older, that he took it upon himself to be the second parent, I guess. [Laughs] Before I went to grade school, I was able to read fairly well. I could count money because I was working in the grocery store. If need be, I'd go and help, make change and things of this nature. So I was used to counting money, I could read sufficiently well. So when I went to the grade school they thought well, my capabilities were beyond the normal student at that grade level so they pushed me to the next grade. So I was the youngest kid in the class. And the other thing that they looked at me as being kind of strange, was the fact that I didn't like the lunches they had at the school. So, consequently I went home for lunch every day. It was a forty-five minute lunch hour and that meant that I had to go from the school which is about seven blocks away from our house. I used to run home and eat my lunch, and then I used to try to walk back to school. But if it was raining, of course, I'd be running both directions. I did this through the entire period from elementary school through junior high school.

TI: So there's a combination of not only being the youngest in your class, but also doing something different at lunch time, not eating lunch with the other kids and playing at lunch recess, probably.

HM: Yeah. So I was not able to do any of the sports activities during the lunch hour that a lot of the kids were engaged in. So I was considered a little bit different. Well, maybe they had the right to feel that way. [Laughs]

TI: An observation that I'm making right now is realizing you skipped a grade, so you're the youngest in your classroom. But even with that, by the time you got to sixth grade, you were recognized as one of the outstanding students to give the speech. Were there other instances or examples which, where teachers mentioned to you how bright you were?

HM: They selected some of us to do a play for the school. This was the open house, the annual open house for Bailey Gatzert. I remember they selected some of us that they thought [Laughs] had some unique capabilities, and some of them did. In fact, as time progressed, I think all of the people that were in the play went to college and graduated from college and they did something in their life. I think they did it on the basis of the people that they could depend upon, they would know their lines, could act the part, and so forth. They were looking for individuals within each of these classes to pinpoint and try to encourage.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.