<Begin Segment 10>

RD: When you came back, you went back to San Francisco?

SY: No. We went as close as possible to San Francisco. We went to a town called San Mateo --

RD: Say when you came back.

SY: Yeah.

RD: No, say that: "When we came back, we went..."

SY: When we came back, we went back to San Mateo, California, which is nineteen miles south of San Francisco. And it was temporary quarters, we lived in a little house which was really a church. And probably we stayed there less than three weeks, and my parents found a job in Burlingame.

RD: It's a halfway house, right?

SY: No.

RD: It wasn't a halfway house?

SY: Oh, you mean the church?

RD: Yeah.

SY: It was a church, well, I think they just allowed us to stay there temporarily. And we worked for George Fuller, he was the Bethlehem Steel president, and they allowed me to stay, I had my own room. And I went to McKinley elementary school. But living in the mansion, a lot of these kids, they didn't come out and play. They had their own great big territory, and the only way I could entertain myself, I would walk to McKinley school with the hopes that they'll let me play basketball with the bigger kids. And when somebody got hurt or somebody got tired they'd say, "Hey, kid, you want to play?" Then I would get to play. And two miles away it was San Mateo, and there were times I would walk down to San Mateo to see some of my old friends.

RD: What happened to your parents, what happened to your parents' business?

SY: Oh, we let it go. We just sold it, gave it away. Whatever we could sell we sold, and left everything. All of the cameras and flashlights, knives and things like that, we turned it into the police department, and after the war, it was no longer there. But that's okay, radio... hopefully somebody could use it.

RD: That's quite an admirable attitude that you have, Shig.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2010 Raechel Donahue and Garrett Lindemann and Densho. All Rights Reserved.