<Begin Segment 18>

PW: Then after ten years, Bob resigned and you at some point --

SK: No, he wants to resign but he didn't say that to me. So I said, "Quit." I said, "Just a nice time, it's ten years. I'm tired, too, working for the, you know," because my ikebana was getting full-speed, growing, so I'm so tired to do... and not for the volunteer, just for the going out and coming, I got the family, you know, the cook and everything. So when the daughter was small, we used to take her, so he was, she was sleeping on the table or chair. It doesn't matter where she could sleep, she... but Jerry, no. She want, he wants to stay home and stay in our room.

PW: So what did Bob do after, after that?

SK: After retire?

PW: Yeah.

SK: So he was trying to do translator or, you know, book or something like that, the Japanese novel, like, and he wants to translate those things. But Consul General Yamaguchi, "Still you could work, so come back." So he, that's why Bob went back to the consul general.

PW: And how long did he stay?

SK: Stay, stay 'til '70, '72. I don't know when he quit, what age. I can't remember.

PW: And tell me, is it -- now, I understand he wrote all the Japanese correspondence to Japan.

SK: Yes.

PW: Tell me about that.

SK: Uh-huh. He said he have to write everything, and right after, when he quit the consul general's office and visit, it's all machine line up in that huge place, so he said, "Oh, good thing I'm old," he said. [Laughs] He can't tackle with those computer anymore.

PW: And why, why do you think that he was given that role, to do the correspondence?

SK: Well, he could write. Well, he, that was his job.

PW: But why, why couldn't the other Japanese staff do it?

SK: He said, they, well, said they can't write the kanji.

PW: So it's amazing that Bob had all this knowledge of Japanese.

SK: Yes.

PW: As a Nisei, to be able to do that, because there's a whole formal language of writing and, you know, the kanji, so that was pretty good. Now, Bob was awarded a special award from Japan. Can you tell me about that?

SK: Well, that was, it came out from Toronto mayor, this is bad, because I can't remember. He passed away a couple of years ago, he was living in Etobicoke. He, I think consul general was pushed, he can't put his name in, so... and another person from... not Peterboroug h, Lindsey? That's the mayor there, Bob was involved in Japan sister-city and...

PW: Oh, Lindsay?

SK: Yeah, and Hokkaido. So they nominate, I think, Bob was doing. And he was, that time what's that called? Multiculture... just started, and he was involved in that, too. He was working at the Cultural Centre, and he went to Ottawa, too, so I think that kind of thing...

PW: So was, was that the Order of the Rising Sun?

SK: Yes.

PW: That was the award that he was given from, from Japan.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2005 Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre and Densho. All Rights Reserved.