<Begin Segment 16>

MN: I've asked all my questions. Is there anything else you want to add?

KK: Well, after I moved over here and my children were old enough, well, my husband was working up in Rolling Hills as a gardener. And one of the persons he worked for was a pilot for United Airlines. And so he said they're looking for some people to hire at United, and he knew we had two boys that were still going to school, but could work during the summer. So he says, "Why don't you try and see if they could work during the summer?" So I took 'em over there for an interview, and while I was there, they said, oh, they were going on a strike, and so they couldn't hire my two sons for the summer. But they wanted some steady workers, and so they asked me if I wanted to work. So I said, I filled out a questionnaire, and so I got the job. [Laughs] And I thought, "Oh, I got the job," and they didn't call my sons because they couldn't use 'em for the summer, for temporary work. And so I got the job. So I started working. So I started working in their kitchen, and all the flights that come in and out, they had these great big units that they push into the airplane. Well, they bring those back, they have trays and trays that you have to clear off and put it on a dish machine to wash. You put dishes upside down and put the trash away, and feed the machine to wash dishes.

Well, I was doing that for a while, and then they told me there was an opening in the pantry. And I thought, oh, I'd love to work in the pantry, that's where you do the cooking. So I thought, oh, I'll see if I can get in there. So anyway, after working in the kitchen for a while, I got to work in the pantry. So I got promoted, sort of. And I enjoyed working in the kitchen because you make salads and stuff like that. And then you turn over dishes. They come already frozen, dishes, to put on the flight. And the coach, they used to feed the coach, too. And they had first class. But anyway, you put it on a dish and you get it ready for the flight, and then you make salad. And for the first class, you cut, slice tomatoes, leaf on the plate, and you store in trays, and they put it on the unit. But I learned a lot at United, how to set up dishes, how to get it ready for a flight to go out, put all the paper cups and things in, and first class dishes, everything is different. First class is different from coach. But anyway, I did all those things. Filled the unit with sodas and all that stuff.

But anyway, after working in that pantry, you make fancy stuff like we catered to Air France, and they want certain hors d'oeuvre, we used to make fancy hors d'oeuvre, yeah, for first class. I enjoyed the work at United and our kitchen.

MN: How long were you there?

KK: I was there for twenty years and ten months. I remember that. [Laughs] And I've been retired for over fifteen years now, maybe more. I don't know what year. I forgot what year I quit.

MN: It might have been a good time, because they don't make those kind of foods.

KK: No, they don't have anything anymore. After I quit, it was about five, six years later, they closed the kitchen, and now United caters lunchboxes that they bring in from different places. Lousy. [Laughs] It's crackers. Cheese and crackers and whatever, if you want to buy it. You either have to eat before or after.

MN: So you retired at a good time.

KK: I retired at a good time, yes. Now there are, they have Continental Airlines, they went together, they came together so now Continental is with United, they're merged. So I don't know how their setup is, so I haven't traveled since they merged. But you know, before they, before I retired, when I first started working for United, the first or second year after I worked for them, I got one of these pass travel, you know, you get a certain amount of privilege for flying. Well, I took my whole family to Washington, D.C. and took a tour of Washington. And then at that time they already had cherry blossoms, just planted I think it was, or was it after? Anyway, I took my whole family, all the kids. They were still going to school, but during the summer I took them. That was the first thing, I took 'em to New York and Washington., D.C.

[Interruption]

MN: Your husband made mochitsuki usu at the house here after the war.

KK: Hmm?

MN: Mochitsuki, the usu? Can you share with us how you made the usu, the pounding...

KK: Oh, Frank made -- did you turn it off? -- Frank made the usu out of cement. You know how they used to have the tin washtub, a round tub? Well, he got one of those small ones about this size, poured cement, and made an usu. And he made a fire and steamed the rice. He made the seiro and got the bamboo and we wove it and put that there. Anyway, we made a fire and we made our own steamed rice. And we pounded mochi for years. And we finally gave up when the new mochitsuku thing came in. And that was so much easier, so much faster, that we decided we'd do that. So we still do that with an automatic... and it's so easy. That thing, just take a little thing and it just flips it around, steams it, flips it around, and you have mochi. Only time you have to take it out is take it out and then work it, make your mochi. But otherwise, we have it down to a science that we can make our own mochi, so we still do every year. I said, "I'm not going to make any mochi," but we still do. [Laughs]

MN: Anything else you want to share?

KK: No, I think that's it.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.