<Begin Segment 11>

JS: So can you tell us about the Rose Bottling Company?

NM: Rose Bottling?

JS: That's where you worked?

NM: I got a picture, you know. I'll show you later, yeah. It was Fresno, one summer, right after I graduated high school. I was around Chinatown, I met Mr. Kimura, he's the owner. He said, "You want a job?" I said, "Yes. Well, what is it?" "Soda water." "Oh, yeah. I'll be there." "Come eight o'clock," I went there. Six years, not one day I missed. I worked hard, right on time. And they wanted me to work 'til the last day. You know, the war started, that's the downfall. Well, everybody had to quit, you know. Everybody had to quit their business, this and that. Anyway, because I went to work for them, I got to go deliver, you know. We went to, from far, certain days we went to Fowler, Selma, Kingsburg, Dinuba, Reedley, Del Rey, and then come back home. Then one day a week, we went to Delano. That's about seventy-five miles. So two trucks went to, we sell everything from wine, soda water. And the soda water is all made by the Mrs. Kimura. She's the one that mixed the sweeteners and flavor, then she'd tell us, what we want? Lemon, lime, orange, strawberry, we had all kinds of soda water, the one she makes, the syrup and all that. And then we helped her, I put the empty bottle right on the top, that kind of deal, we put it upside down. Then washes the bottle, it goes through, then it turns over, and straight up, and come in, come to the machine there, syrup goes in there, then the water, then the soda is made. And then it goes around, and then I take that off of that and I put that into the... so put the, keep on working. So I load that on one little truck there, then about half a dozen, I pull it away, stack 'em up, come back and get that... it was work, yeah. We stack it up about nine high. One of 'em, we kind of throw up, and stack 'em up, you know. Then orange, strawberry cream, root beer, and then they got wine, too. Wines that... fifty gallon, that's heavy, you can't lift it. But rolling it up, we got two guys to put it up on the stand there, then we put the nozzle, and get the wine, we fill the wine, too.

JS: So you filled the wine bottles?

NM: Yeah, wine bottles. We got empty bottles, and we fill that. So they had beer... beer, they don't make. They order it from, they used to call it... I forgot the name of the beer, now. Yeah, we used to have about three or four different [inaudible]... there was a Fresno lager... anyway, we had about two or three beer. We get that, and we sell it to the store. We get it wholesale, see, and then we deliver. Delano, we used to have two trucks go there. Come back empty. Big business in Delano.

JS: Where was the wine from?

NM: Wine?

JS: Uh-huh.

NM: Regular wine, there's Tulare winery, we used to order it from them. We'd get... what kind of wine was it? Regular wine. You name it...

JS: Oh, like chardonnay? White wine or red wine?

NM: It's a red wine and a white wine, all that. It comes in a bottle, they're about eighty-five cents, those days. Today, it's high.

JS: Uh-huh. So you had, at the Rose Bottling Company, you helped refill the bottles and do the loading, and then also delivery?

NM: You know, soda water, we got one type of bottle. One clear, strawberry, lemon. They changed the flavor, Obachan does that. So she's the one that... the Mr. is just man that goes there, "I'm the owner." [Laughs]

JS: He's the honcho.

NM: Yeah, honcho. So we just follow them, yeah. But he'd get connection, of course. He's the one that played Hana, too. Hana, when we come to Reedley, they got Hana and then they don't move. [Laughs] So we got to call, then we go back home, yeah. We used to go all over. Twice a week, we went to the local towns: Fowler, Selma, Kingsburg, Dinuba, Reedley, Del Rey. And we go there twice a... Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then Wednesdays we go to Delano one day. Then the other days, Fresno, they go around. They had two boys there. One boy was too young to work yet, but the other one, they're all gone. They're all gone. Kimura...

JS: Kimura family?

NM: Rose Bottling.

TI: So a question, Coca-cola, what happened when the big, like, soda pop companies...

NM: Pepsi?

TI: Pepsi and Coca-cola, did you compete against them?

NM: Yeah. We go to the Pepsi company and we get it at a wholesale price, and we sell that. So they give us a... we got to make money, too, so they gave us a cutdown price.

TI: I see, so you would help sell that?

NM: So we do carry that, too. Wine, we did it, too. Wine, we got a gallon type, and then a pint type. When we'd make the pint, we get that barrel up there, now then, when it's up, plug it. Yeah, we do that. Soda water, the obasan does that, machine. All we do is just, when it's full, I take it all and put 'em on the truck and push it and stack 'em up and come back. And boy, I had to catch that first box. [Laughs] In the meantime, my empty bottles, I got to put in, it was busy. But it was, going back. Yeah, sometimes I toss it up, sometimes it hits it wrong, pop. But never got hurt, we were lucky.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2010 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.