<Begin Segment 29>

MU: Anything else that was memorable for you?

HW: Well...

MU: Oh, sorry.

HW: Let's see, what else? Oh yeah, we had a fiasco with the heating system. [Laughs]

MU: Fiasco with the heating system?

HW: Well, see, we got there in first of September, so to speak. And then towards the end of September, in October it started to get cold.

MU: Yeah.

HW: And first one wing comes down and complain, "We got burned out last night." And the other wing says, "We got frozen out." This went around, so I got a hold of the architect and I says, "Get your air conditioning, heating system drawings out." So, the two of us went over it and then I said, "Well, let's go into these bays there where they adjust all these valves. So I decided how much to adjust each valve and he went along and agreed. And we, the two of us adjusted all the valves in there and the next night, everything was fine. So the Japanese staff there at the hotel, en masse came over -- the heaters, heating people -- says, "We're sorry, we did not do a good enough job. We're not good enough to stay here..."

MU: Oh?

HW: ...and we're going to leave." I says, "No, you're not. You're good enough to do the job, you're good enough to stay here, and you're going to stay." "No," said, "We've got to quit." I says, "You're not gonna quit, you're gonna stay here, 'cause I want you to stay here." [Laughs]

MU: So did you win out?

HW: I won out, yeah. But, you know, tough times -- and they were just going to hara kiri. I knew that was in their minds, so I wouldn't let 'em go.

MU: Well, good for you.

HW: Yeah. It was very interesting times. [Laughs]

MU: Yeah, very good for you. I mean, that takes somebody of understanding to get over that kind of difficulty.

HW: But it was...

<End Segment 29> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.