<Begin Segment 29>

MN: Now you're married now, you left your job with the state, so what did you do after that? When you came back and married, you're back from your honeymoon, you're not with the state.

KM: Well, I started... during the time that we were in school, Bruce Kaji and I were talking about forming an accounting firm. About that time, a lot of Niseis were starting their own business, and so there was a need for some accountants. So there was a few already existed, but we felt, well, it'd be a good time to start our own. So that's why Bruce and I got together and started an accounting firm in Little Tokyo.

MN: What did you call it?

KM: Kaji and Maruyama. [Laughs]

MN: Where did you have your offices?

KM: We had it in the second story of the Toyo Miyatake Building. We used to be, the studio is on the ground floor and then they had about one, two, three offices on the second floor. There was an insurance man. In fact, Ed Hirota used to have an insurance office next door, and then there was a doctor... Iwata... what was his name? I forgot his name, first name. I know it wasn't Frank Iwata. Anyway, Iwata was the doctor. So there was three offices there.

MN: Now when you and Bruce teamed up and had your business, you folks also became involved in this uranium mining. Can you tell us that story?

KM: Oh, gee. I don't know how we met this guy, but he used to be... I guess from other things that we did for him, but he had a, he was sort of a prospector and a man that... and then I guess the uranium thing started to come out about that particular time, supposed to be a hot item. And anyway, we put some money into buying rights for mining uranium for this particular place in Arizona or wherever it was, Nevada. And so anyway, it went kaput. [Laughs]

MN: Did you make any money out of it?

KM: Huh?

MN: Did you make any money out of it?

KM: No, no, didn't make a dime.

<End Segment 29> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.