<Begin Segment 7>

TI: You mentioned that at one point, you almost burned the house down. How did that happen?

NM: Oh, during that time, you know, I go to school, come back, I get off one hour early, I go to school one hour late. So I only went to about, school, one and a half hour. But they let me go. So my mother was running the store, and there was a garage there that came with that rental. So I have the truck in there. Everything, when I work in the field, I take it to market, and I sold my turnip and carrots and all that. What I don't sell, I wet it down with a sack, then I leave it in the garage in the back of the store, and then I go to, streetcar, high school, and I finally graduated. But those were the hardest times for me, yeah. And then, in fact, one night, I came home, and then I took a bath, I forgot all about the tank. I have the boiling heat going full blast, and then all of a sudden, wow, everything is on. I turned the water on, steam come out. Boy, I turned the, get the pressure up, then I turned that heater off. Good thing it didn't explode. Almost ready to. They were going, shoom, shoom, you know, all the steam was. I was very lucky at that time, yeah, it didn't blow up. Gee. Those things I still remember. Then I would go to the market, sell, had to sleep, if I don't get up, there were people, lot of Nihonjin that, "Nori, get up." They all telling me, they knew what kind of a thing I was doing, see. They knew I was working there, I was going to school. So they were all good to me.

JS: So where would you sell the vegetables? Where in Fresno would you have to take the...

NM: You know, when we sell it, we sorted, have it on the truck already. And then all we do is just take it off, then it's all wet yet. Then we put it, we park it so we could sell it right away. I take the cover off and then sell it. And then the market, Pacific, P&P or something, they used, ANT, they had all kinds of big groceries. The big store was coming up. Before, it used to be a tiny grocery store. But you know, these American, big Safeway, like that, they came in. And they come to buy it. Said, "Oh, dozen of that," "Where's your good carrots?" [Laughs] All kind of things. They were all good to us, though, yeah. And then Nihonjin was, we're all right there. And they came from Selma, Sanger, River Bottom, like that. So I got to know a lot of guys. Then sometimes we'd, they had donation, like a city, donation, and then they come to us. Okay, we'll give 'em credit on so-and-so, carrot, cucumber, yeah. Then, you know, those days, that Italian squash, zucchini? If it's like this, and they're about this size, it was good. If it's big, they says, "Oh, we don't want it." Now they want it big. [Laughs] Yeah. That's the funny thing. They said the smaller, it's tasty or something. And then, but time changes, you know.

TI: So Nori, I have a question. Was it common for people to work as hard as you?

NM: Huh?

TI: Was it common for others to work as hard as you did? You know, your classmates, people your own age? You worked at night, all day, was it common?

NM: Hardly nobody.

TI: So you were kind of unusual then?

NM: Nobody... I guess I'm the only one that did it, yeah. See, I come back, have kind of a rest at my house, then I parked my car, of course, a truck. And then I go to the market about ten o'clock, and then I sleep in the cab there. And then if I'm sleeping, they wake me up. They knew where I was. [Laughs] But they were all good to me at that time, yeah.

TI: So, Nori, why? Why did you work so hard?

NM: We can't help it. If we don't, if I don't do it, my older brother, he was in L.A., and he never come back. He's still there. He's still there. He's ninety-six now.

JS: Oh.

NM: I'm ninety-four. Yeah, but he's still healthy.

TI: But you needed to do it for the family?

NM: Yeah. Because of the family, I have to... if I quit, my mother said, "No, you've got to go to school." I finally, I was lucky that he passed me, yeah. I think I got a flunking notice, but they let me go, so I graduated Fresno High School.

TI: But it was important for the family for you to make money, too. So you had to work and go to school.

NM: Yeah, all the money, I never got a cent. All right to the family. When I was thirteen, I used to deliver newspaper, too. This is not when I was working in the field. Before that, Depression was so bad, you know, and I had Rafu Shimpo and another Japanese paper, I got fifteen dollars for both of 'em. Both of 'em went to the family rental. And so I never had a nickel in my pocket in school. Yeah. Once in a while I did have, I used to buy a nickel sandwich. French bread, cut it in half, and god, that was a treat for me.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2010 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.