<Begin Segment 54>

RW: Tell me the distance that you deliver your flowers to. How far north, how far south?

KO: Well we go as far north as Mount Vernon, Marysville. And we go into the Bellevue area, Mercer Island. And out to Tacoma, into the Kent area. And we go up to Port Angeles with a truckload once a week. We have several customers within a half hour's ride from here. So we cover a pretty wide area. Because of the traffic, the deliveries are getting slower and slower. And that's also increasing your costs of being, staying in business, but I don't know how you're gonna' beat that.

And that pretty well covers our greenhouse area here. I just want to point out that when we first got here, all we had was this set of houses right in front of us here, that we can see going down this aisle. And they were all wooden houses ready to fall down. The benches inside were ready to fall down. So we rebuilt the whole thing, and added those three houses in the back; and I think we've covered just about every inch of this area available for production.

RW: What will you miss most about this site?

KO: Well it's the convenience of delivery, one, but the other thing is that we have some nice neighbors surrounding the greenhouses; never caused us any problems, where other people had lots of problems. And I think those are the two things that I'll miss the most. But certainly being in this area is, delivery is a lot more convenient in reaching all of these different areas that we go to. But that's not gonna' get any better, and we're just gonna' have to learn to live with that. And maybe that's somebody else's problem too, not mine. [Laughs]

RW: I did bring some old photos. I don't know if you're interested in looking at those, and maybe even filming --

ME: Okay, Alice.

AI: Today is May 31st, 1998. We've been speaking with Mr. Kunio Otani, here at Greenwood Greenhouses. 602 North 87th, Seattle, Washington. And interviewers have been Rebecca Walls, and myself, Alice Ito. Matt Emery is the videographer. Thanks Mr. Otani.

ME: Great.

KO: Oh, you're welcome. I hope it all worked out. Reasonably well, anyway.

<End Segment 54> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.