<Begin Segment 8>

AI: So you were in high school?

SO: In addition to high school.

AI: High school during the day. Three evenings a week at Lamont School of Music. Oh, my. And so what, what in your mind, what you were thinking at that time? Here you are in high school, you're studying music seriously?

SO: I was thinking, what did I do to deserve this bad luck? [Laughs] I thought I was being picked on because I thought once a week was sufficient. I've never taken lessons three times a week, just once a week.

AI: So whose decision was it to go, that you would go three --

SO: Oh, the school wouldn't allow a high school girl to -- well, in the first place, only fifty non-college students were allowed into the music school. And that was the minimum requirement because you had to study, not just voice, but you had to study what they call languages. So, you learn how to sing in very -- well, primarily Italian and German.

AI: So, it sounds like you were --

SO: And harmony.

AI: -- you were part of an exceptional group of high school students who were accepted into the school of music?

SO: More or less.

AI: And at that time, did you have any thought that you would continue, that you would actually develop a career in music?

SO: Never. My mother's always told all three of us, you never, never make a living at music. Never. She said it's an avocation. She said, "Never make a living at it."

AI: And how did you feel personally?

SO: I didn't care one way or another.

AI: So even --

SO: It's something you -- I've done most of my life. So I thought most kids took lessons.

AI: And even though your mother was insistent that it was an avocation, it was still a very serious avocation.

SO: No, because like in anything in our family, if you're going to do it, you better know what you're doing, and you better learn it. You don't get up and just do it. So it's, it was a natural process.

AI: I see.

SO: So whether you sing in church or you sing in, at a luncheon, or -- it doesn't matter. If you're going to get up and do it, we weren't allowed to do it at all if you didn't learn something basic.

AI: So that was just the way that you did things in your family?

SO: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

AI: Can you tell me a little bit more about your high school time there in Denver? And then what happened to -- things changed, and your family decided to make a change?

SO: A change?

AI: A move?

SO: Well, no, in high school, I kept ditching. Sluggy, Hatsumi Akiyama, was living, working house girl there. So, and it was near the high school, so I used to ditch a lot and go over to see Sluggy. She's from Portland. She passed away here in Seattle. And then she and, later on he became her husband. He was living at our apartment, Manago Fujino. Pachuke, Pachuke was adopted later by our family. They decided to go to Spokane. So I decided to run away from Denver, and I ran back into camp.

AI: Oh, is that right?

SO: I think that was '44 or '45. Yeah. I'm probably the only person who ran away from home into camp.

AI: Well, tell me, tell me about what you did, where you went, and how you did it.

SO: I had a hard time at the administration getting in. And although they were very, very distant relatives, I lied, and I said they were my uncle and my cousins, the Nimis. So Kazu, Kaz Nimi and his wife, Chika, came to the administration center, and fortunately backed me up. They had no room to, for me to stay because they had two children. And then Naoko, Naoko Takagi, was telling me that there was an open unit in a barrack in her block, in 19. So I went over there and stayed. My mom finally figured out where I was, or maybe Kazu called her. Maybe Kazu Nii-san let her know. But she came to camp to get me.

AI: And, then what happened?

SO: She told me never tell anybody what I did. [Laughs]

AI: Oh, my.

SO: I know.

AI: What an adventure.

SO: It was. It was. Mr. Brierley was there waiting for me. He arranged for Mom to go back.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.