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DG: And do you want... what would you like to have happen to your land after you pass away?

AS: What?

DG: What, what do you want to have happen to your land in the future? What would you like your land...

AS: I don't want no houses.

DG: No houses.

AS: No, no, no houses. Well, I sold to the city, right? Whether they can hold that after I'm gone, I can't, I can't promise that. But while I'm living there's gonna be no houses there. Not while I'm living.

DG: So you would like it to always be farmland?

AS: Yeah. And that other place in Seabold, I got twenty-some acres there. I could sell it tomorrow. I got cash offers for that whole thing already. But I, I don't want to sell it. I says, "You gonna put in houses?" "Yes." I says, well, I don't want to see houses. I got enough to see houses on the island already. I don't know, I'm just different, that's all. Everybody else, all the millionaires, farmers, you know, Koura... Koura brothers, Terashita brothers, they all made millions and went all housing, right? You know, it's just like Nob just sold his, was it last year? One-million, three for just five acres. You know how much you can buy land in eastern Oregon for? Five hundred dollars an acre. I don't know. What would you do if you was in my shoes? That's what I want to really ask you.

DG: No, that would be tough. It would be too tempting to sell. So, how, how come you are different? What makes you different?

AS: I don't know. I see too many houses. I don't, I just... look what I'm fighting now just because I sold to the city, you know. You've probably read the Review, right? You probably know what I'm going through. They want to cut my trees down on my own property? When they all get together and try to fight me... you know, I got a lawyer on there now, but... on and on and on, it's just...

DG: Well, I, it's admirable because I like Bainbridge because it's rural and it's trees and land...

AS: That's right.

DG: And I don't want to see a bunch of neighborhoods and developments. But, like you said, the money is... it's hard to resist. So I'm... what's, what's important to you? What's more important to you than money?

AS: I just want to be left alone. Get it?

DG: Uh-huh.

AS: I want to farm and leave me alone. That's my motto, but I don't know. I think you went through this a hundred times already about other farmers and...

DG: We have not talked to farmers like you, though, who are still farming. And I think the only farmers we talked to -- we talked to Sat Sakuma and his family's farming in Bellingham. And, we talked with... Kojima, Tats Kojima and his family quit after...

AS: Sat?

DG: Sat, Sat Sakuma.

AS: Or Tad Sakuma?

DG: No, we talked to Sat.

AS: Sat? Yeah, that's the Sakuma brothers in Mount Vernon. They used to farm here, see. You know where Yoshida is now? That's where Sakuma brothers farmed when they were young. Yeah, Sat still... Isaac was my grade but he passed away. Sat's the younger one. He's, he's probably five, six years younger already. Probably eighty years old now.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.