<Begin Segment 27>

TI: And so, Joe, I'm sorry, we're out of time. I guess there's just one question --

JU: [Laughs] I'm willing to talk.

TI: -- that begs to be asked.

JU: What's that?

TI: Do you have any regrets not pursuing a career in the ministry? You come across as someone who's deep, thinking about these things, and wondering if you ever thought -- I'm sure you thought about it. I mean, in fact, you were ordained, but you didn't pursue the career in the ministry. I was wondering if that was ever something you regretted.

JU: Yeah. There are two things there. The regret is that working with a community of people, you have friends for life. There isn't any question. As a philosophy professor, you don't have friends for life. [Laughs] You have colleagues, and they're not friends, they're colleagues. No, some of 'em are. But anyway, belonging to a community is really important, I think, in the sense that you never feel you're alone in the world. You always have people who are really concerned about your being, whatever your being is. And I realized that that can get cut both ways at certain points in your life. They may, they may be too close and too sticky, you know, and won't let you quite be yourself. But you can avoid that. But I think that being a part of a community is very important in life. And the other, the only other thing you can do is, where will a community go in the next ten years? Even in ultimate terms, which I think in terms of because philosophically you've got to, right? You have to think about, where is this all going? And I'm very concerned about that. So my concern becomes more philosophic the more you think about it. And it's my -- you know, I've always thought it was funny that every discipline ends with a PhD. PhD is the highest degree. Why? They never take a course in philosophy. [Laughs] If they required a course in philosophy, there would be moaning and groaning all over the campus.

TI: And yet they get their doctorate, is a PhD.

JU: Their doctor is a PhD. And a PhD is recognized as an academic degree, not a professional degree. And you see, MDs are professional, JDs are professional degrees, and ThDs are professional degrees.

TI: That's interesting, I never thought of that.

JU: And it's very important that PhD, namely a person is thinking for ultimate reasons, not just temporal ones. And that's why I went into philosophy, because I thought really deep people, really thoughtful people are always raising philosophical questions.

TI: Well, and I think this interview characterized that, so I really enjoyed it. The one thing I'd be remiss in saying, I know your first wife passed away around 2000, and I met your lovely second wife, she dropped you off, and I just wanted to make sure we mentioned her. So can you tell me the name of your second wife?

JU: Yeah, Nancy Jane Whiteside.

TI: And how did you meet her?

JU: At church in a library group. 'Cause I joined the library staff of the Hennepin Avenue Church primarily because I was appalled at what they were reading in the church, and the books and the library.

TI: And so through that connection, that's how you met Nancy.

JU: Exactly.

TI: Okay. Well, I'll have to save that story for another time because we're running into it. But Joe, thank you so much for your time.

JU: Well, thank you.

TI: This was wonderful.

JU: It's a lot of fun.

<End Segment 27> - Copyright ©2009 Densho and the Twin Cities JACL. All Rights Reserved.