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FK: In the early, early times when you were growing up on the island, can you tell me something about that, about when you were a kid on the island, where you went to school, who your friends were and things like that?

GN: Yeah, I have... of course, growing up at the barber shop, mostly Caucasian trade, and I grew up with more Caucasian kids than I did with Japanese kids. And I joined the Boy Scouts when I was twelve years old. Classmates, like I say, mostly were... I think there was eight Japanese kids in our class. But I fooled around a lot with the Caucasian kids, and we did a lot, lot of things together. Of course, Bainbridge was wide open then. It wasn't the city like it is now. So, I've got good memories about Bainbridge.

FK: So, did you play mostly with kids in your neighborhood then or were they kids from school?

GN: Mostly the neighborhood, but when we got to school, got to be friends with kids from Silverdale and Eagledale and Port Blakely.

FK: So, your family started out farming after they left Port Blakely, then, is that right?

GN: I'm not quite sure. My understanding is they started a barber shop.

FK: Right away?

GN: And then after a couple years, my dad started farming, I think around 1923. So about, I would say two, three years later. But he, while he was still farming, he would still come down and help cut hair. And I'd like to tell you the story about Mr. Sakai. He would never let my mother cut his hair. He didn't want females to cut his hair, so my dad had to leave the farm to cut his hair. [Laughs]

FK: [Laughs] Okay. Now, when did... how did your family get into the grocery business then?

GN: Let's see, John, my oldest brother -- I think they got married in 1933. At that time, he was, learned how to cut meat from an old German, German meat cutter in Winslow, Charlie Brimmer, and so when Charlie passed on, my brother John took over the business. And he started small, just mainly, mainly butcher shop and then a few groceries. And then 19'... can't remember, 1939, he built that building that still stands, the Eagle Harbor Market, and then he converted that into a meat market and groceries. In them days, were sixty, seventy percent deliveries. Mostly the customers were from Hawley and Wing Point, and in the summertime, it'd be summer people that lived at Yeomalt on the waterfront, and a few, few in the country club.

FK: So were your parents still working at that time, then, when John started the grocery store?

GN: My folks?

FK: Yeah.

GN: Yeah, yeah. I think he had a... my dad was at the farm. Yeah, I remember when my dad raised a pig, and all the meat leftovers and the veg-, produce, my dad would cook that in a big, big oil drum and feed the, feed the pigs. And when it got big enough, he butchered it, and John sold it.

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