<Begin Segment 9>

JS: So tell me about Aki Hardware. When did that store open?

SK: No, that was my father's, Kern Street, which was, they started, he started out in, I don't know when. I don't know dates or anything. But he had a store right on Kern Street, which is the same street that the church is on. And, let's see, he, about the middle of the block there, he started over there. And I can't even give you any details about that, because I can't remember. But he, I guess he ran one of the stores, and then his brother ran the Aki, I mean, the store, the grocery store, up another block, Tulare Street.

JS: So the Aki store was on Tulare, but Aki Hardware was on Kern Street.

SK: Right. I don't even know whether they, it was called Aki Hardware or not.

JS: Oh.

SK: But all I know is that I see, looking through my old photo album, his picture's there, but I don't even know what it was called or anything. I just can't recall.

JS: So when, earlier you said you, since you were young, you would help at the store, the family business?

SK: Oh, like everyone in the family, I mean, everyone helped their parents.

JS: So what types of jobs would you do to help?

SK: Well, I was hanging around, I guess. I just, I was always there, let's say. I don't know if I did any work. [Laughs]

JS: So did you have any other part-time jobs when you were going to school?

SK: No. We used to... well, in the summertime, you can go, there were people picking fruit. And if you didn't do anything like that, you were alone in the city by yourself, not doing anything. And some of my friends were going out to the country to make, earn some money. It wasn't too much, we were paid twenty-five cents an hour then. So it must have been lower than before, before I can remember. But if you didn't do anything, I mean, you didn't go out. In the summertime, you just hung around the house or something.

JS: So would you go with your friends to pick fruit, then?

SK: Yes, I did, uh-huh.

JS: And where would you go to pick fruit? Just outside of Fresno?

SK: I don't even know where we went.

JS: Outside of Fresno?

SK: Outside of Fresno.

JS: Uh-huh. So what would you, what type of fruit? Is it peach?

SK: Peach, probably pear. I've been there picking, not pear, but what was that now? I can't even, well, it must have been peach.

JS: Peach or apricot?

SK: Not apricot, no. Nectarine, I think. Yeah, it was nectarine, I think, I remember, one year.

JS: So when did you, your first wife, when did you get married?

SK: Oh, let's see now. Oh, probably 1950.

JS: Oh, okay, so after the war.

SK: After the war.

JS: Okay. Okay.

SK: She was my neighbor, one of my neighbors in camp.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2010 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.