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FF: But I got to Seattle and so I could finish school, and, but I didn't realize Dad and Mom sort of could have used me to pack and carry things. But, you know, I'm young, I wanted to finish high school if possible. But it was a nice homecoming to see my old Seattle friends and, "You're what? You mean you're back? And what grade are you? I thought you were a grade behind me." Well, in Tule Lake it was a different scenario. My brother, Daibo, who was always a high I.Q. kind of guy, he always says, "You're not very bright, you know." He says, "You want help, why don't you go to summer school?" I said, "What for? I want to play." And he says, "Well, you got all morning to go to school, don't you want to jump from seventh to ninth grade?" I said, "No, I want to play, and I'm goin' to play ball." But for some reason he convinced me I should go and he helped me. And there's a plus to this, that when you come back you may be ahead of some of the people you grew up with, but then at the same time with some of the people. And, but the minus part of it is that if I would have stayed down one year when I came out of camp, then I could have been red shirt at the high school and become more of a varsity letterman or whatever. But when I stuck it out, things didn't work out -- I wanted to be the first Nisei to come back and get a letter for basketball. I was really looking forward to being someone important. But when that dream fell, it really hurt me. 'Cause when you come out of camp, you don't know how to deal with racism and coaches who weren't too hip on you, even if you were good. And I felt I was capable of playing varsity ball, which I did in camp. So my assumption was I would make the team, but it was really hurtful, I believe. So I played community ball, which actually was a nice thing, too.

So going back to the community, yeah, they were, they were an important part of my future. 'Cause I played in the league and I was able to make something of myself where really kind of be on the hotshot championship team and get to travel. So the irony of it all -- I was able to play on a team that went to California to visit my Japanese American friends and play against them and get beaten up badly by them. But that's okay. I got, I was the only one on the team that was practically from Tule Lake so I was able to see all my old friends. And when you're young, that means a lot to you, to be looked upon as that special guy. Although, like I said, we got beaten up. I didn't care, I was happy to see my old buddies, and they were all poor like we were and I remember they had a pizza party for me and I, so I was... that I never forgot, because it meant so much to me to see my old California hotshot good basketball players who would say, "Yeah, come on, we got a party for you," and I didn't know what to expect. I thought Coke and potato chips. But man, pizza, that was like a big feast. And so we had a good night. I never forgot that -- I thought, that was in Sacramento. We went to play the Sacramento Saints or the, I want, I think it was one of the YBA, maybe the Buddhist group, but they were all good players. They just killed us, but hey, we didn't play, we weren't playing for trophies. Just for, I think it was for entertainment. I think it was a real big attendance, you know, playing amongst the whole Japanese American community, I think it was so meaningful to me, and feeling good about it. And we looked so bad, I know we did. 'Cause the players that we played against were actually players who were above me who were real good. And they're gonna field their best team, and I was on a good team, too. But Californians were a little bit ahead of us in terms of ability, knowledge of the game and seriousness of the game. They seemed to know the technicalities, and they had good coaches, too. Not to say we didn't have any, but I think they were geared for really improving the community. 'Cause they were -- well, Sacramento probably was the biggest community as I remember at that time for that northern California. But of course L.A. wasn't still that organized in the late '40s... but after a while, gee, L.A. took over, you know, L.A.'s got so many good athletes now. And I sort of, ironically, keep up with them, you know, because I have friends who coached, and they used to bring teams up to Seattle, which I would help put on a high school tournament here and got to see them, and see the kids who are outstanding. They were far above our kids and, and it's made it nice to have competition, but I think it became too much of a, logistically too expensive for them to travel.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.