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FK: Well, it sounds like you had a really close group of kids class-wise and things. Was, did high school then start at, what, eighth grade then, or, Bainbridge High School?

SO: It was, I think it was the junior high first, and I think high school was for the... I can't remember. It was kind of in that funny transition with schools that we had a junior high of two grades, and again, you look at the number of Japanese on there, Japanese American, there were quite a few. I also was a smart aleck and made inappropriate remarks. I remember one point in the seventh grade we would have what they call, like a field day, clean up day in the spring, and you brought, you raked the field and took out the trash and everything else, and when that announcement was made in the gym class I happened to be in, John Snyder, who was the then teacher and principal, announced that there would be this campus day or whatever it was called, and I, like a smart aleck, said what am I supposed to do, bring a tractor or something? There was, and one of those things that you shouldn't be saying, but somehow I said it. But, and then there's another incident which, which I think may picture the Japanese community a little clearer. When I was about seven I got, I was ill and stay, had to stay out of school for a half year or so, and when I went back to school, the teacher, Mabel Binny, announced to the class that -- I was kind of acting up -- she said, "Just don't mind him. He's been sick." And I think I kicked her in the shin. I'm not sure, but what the interesting thing was, in a matter of a couple of days, my mother knew about that incident, and my mother was quite wise. She said to me, "We don't do those things," and that was the end of it, rather than coming down hard and whatever, and I think that might've been, to some extent, a Japanese feature. I'm not sure, but it was kind of, I recall those bad moments along with some of the good moments.

FK: Tell me about high school.

SO: Oh, well, high school was one in which, I think, I learned a lot. I can remember, for whatever reason, maybe this class was too easy, it was a science class that we all had to take in the seventh grade and I can remember at one point Mr. Morley, the teacher, wanted to explain to the class that I was a smart kid and I was getting nothing but A's, every single test was perfect, and he wanted me to explain to the others how I was doing this. And luckily, at that point the periods changed or what have you, so I didn't have to go through the business of saying, "I know this because I'm a smart kid," which is a totally different matter. But it was during high school that I established a long standing relationship with one of the teachers, Catherine Ellison, who, with whom I had never had a class, but she was the class advisor, and I was the president in several cases, and I could remember talking with Catherine Ellison about what to do, and she's the one who encouraged me, like go to school. I had another who told me, "Don't take up art because you're not gonna make a living." [Laughs] I'm not sure how, whether it's sunk in my mind or not, but I've, did that.

So when I think back to high school there's some, some good relationships, but I was never the athlete that some others were. I was lucky to even get on the second or third team or whatever, so that I didn't have that kind of relationship. I had more the, my relationship with Catherine Ellison and others who would encourage me in a slightly different way. They didn't say, hey, football is everything or basketball is everything, so that my -- incidentally, too, the principal, Roy Dennis, was one of our great supporters, and I often try to picture Roy Dennis. He is a guy from Montana originally, I think, who came to this little island and with a whole mouthful of strange sounding names. You know, how do you explain this, like Tsukasa, how, how easily can you explain to someone else what this name is, and all the Kinoshita's, Nishimori, all these names must've sounded strange for someone from Montana who comes out here and teaches, was then, later became the principal. But he was a big, lanky seventh grade teacher I had, and I think a lot of these incidents stand out for me because I think this is the way we should be treated, "we" meaning not only the Japanese Americans, but everyone. Deal with them as people. Respect them for what they believe and don't go around making it unhealthy for people to survive in, in the setting.

So that high school, for me, was a fun time. As I said, I was class officer, so that... and now, remember, our class is not very large, like forty or fifty, and of that group, in that setting, I should say, the Japanese Americans were well represented, not only myself, but like Mits Katayama, Keto Okazaki, we were pretty much co-integrated in terms of our, the respect given to us by our fellow classmates, and that to me meant a whole lot. As we finally get through the incarceration, so forth, those are the lessons that I learned. And I can remember, I think, in high school, that's right, there was a, the annual commencement speech setting, and we were talking about certain topics which were given to us. We didn't manufacture them. But I can remember one of the things that I was involved in was the role of national defense, and now remember, this is 1940, '41, thereabouts, and so timely, I think that topic was so timely that it, even though I didn't know what I was talking about, I read the particular scheme because that's what the teachers had said to do so that we were getting conscious of the war situation, impending, even though we weren't reading the latest newspaper accounts, so that moving into the time of the incarceration and so forth, it was something that, I guess, was so, it was bound to happen, I think.

I think at a later point, Frank, and maybe you'll find this... right after the war began, I was then at that point attending the University of Washington as a freshman, and I was commuting. And one day, which was probably soon after the, soon after the war started, we had to show our citizenship papers, which we didn't have, obviously, other than saying, you had to have proof of birth or your birth certificate. As I was ready to get on the boat, I was stopped by George Freeman, who was one of my classmates at one point, and said I couldn't go on. And that point what do I do? The ferry, it's getting later in the fall and getting dark. You know who came to my rescue? Frank Kitamoto, Sr. He had then at that point a jewelry store in Seattle, and he said to me, come with him, that he had relatives or friends, and so for the first night I stayed in the, I don't know who it was, all I know is that was a good thing. Otherwise, what would I, what was I going to do? But, and during that course of the night, I could remember the, whatever you call them, people who were saying lights out because of the threat of war, and I can remember one person who was making the rounds saying, turn off those lights, which happened to be at your, I guess it must be, what, your dad's place? No, a relative of some sort, I think. But so that's what, what I remember about things like that, that maybe in retrospect mean a lot more to me than they did at that point.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.