<Begin Segment 12>

AI: And at this time, you were still treating music as your avocation?

SO: Yes 'cause they -- if you're not a music major at SC, they allow you to take certain things if you qualify. You have to audition. You have to go through a panel of teachers or professors. And I did. And I qualified, so they allowed me to study with Mrs. Wil -- Lillian Wilson, who was a private teacher, too. And they allowed me to take courses in teaching voice.

AI: Were, did you have any thought that you might teach music at some point?

SO: Not then. Not then.

AI: And were you performing at this time while you were in college?

SO: Oh, yes. When the Nisei Veterans Association had approached me, and a lot of the GIs who had died were returning. And I did all the funeral services, the memorial services pretty much.

AI: So that was --

SO: Constantly. So I was, I was performing a lot in the Japanese community too.

AI: So you must have been quite visible at that time. There, there must have been so many services.

SO: Oh, we used to have sometimes three a day, yeah. Yes, 'cause that would, they would take place in the Japanese town because there was the Union church and the Buddhist church, and they had Koyasan Temple and the Nishi. And so yeah, it was, it was quite, it was quite a time then. And the NVA was the only organization at that time. Later they had a lot more.

AI: Well, now, as you were continuing on in college, were you dating at that time, had a social life? What was --

SO: Oh, yeah.

AI: You had mentioned that there were quite a few social activities and dances. And can you tell a little bit about what social life was like in the community?

SO: It was pretty, pretty fun that they had dances almost weekly. And I used to date Tets Besho, who just passed away this summer. Now, he and I met when I was recording Japanese songs -- this is immediately after the war, and he had a dance band. And some of his friends, like Bruce Kaji, who started the museum, he was a trumpeter. He was in there. And it was the Kokusai Recording Company. And we recorded Japanese tunes because we couldn't get the records from Japan. It was short-lived. And we met and I used to date him. We wound up fifty-something years later still very, very good, very dear friends. We worked together at Chinatown as recently as, just before he became ill. The social life was great after World War II in Los Angeles.

AI: Sounds very lively.

SO: Very much so. And then people had to start buying cars so you can get around. And they had the church affairs, the beach parties. It was a lot of fun.

AI: Well now tell me then, when did you graduate, and then you, did you get married soon after that or --

SO: Technically, I never checked into graduation until many, many years later. I had found out that I had, I had a degree in English, and I could have had couple of others if I -- I just kept going. I just kept going, even after I got married, I kept going to college, to SC. I didn't stop until, I think, my daughter was born.

AI: So you, you really continued your --

SO: I enjoyed school.

AI: -- your education.

SO: Whatever interested me, I studied. And I had a good time. I liked school.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.