<Begin Segment 20>

MN: And then before we get more into your days with the 442, you had started UH in 1940. What were you --

KM: 1941.

MN: 1941. What were you planning to study at UH? What were your plans?

KM: Nothing, I had no plans whatsoever. [Laughs] Best idea was to go to university, Arts and Sciences.

WN: Well, you had a brother-in-law, you had another brother in divinity, another brother going to medical school. Was there any kind of process of elimination that you used?

KM: Well, was it in 1941? If anything, I had thoughts of being a social worker. Even after, when I came back in 1946, as I said earlier, I started to be a group, part time work was a group worker at Palama Settlement taking care of the kids. Summertime, two summers that I spent at the day camp at Palama by the Sea in Waialua, six-week camps where took kids. And one season we had these kids from disgraced homes. I don't know what category you'd call them, there was a home in Kalihi that these kids came from, broken homes. Second year that I worked at Palama by the Sea, these kids were the major kids that I took care of. So I would have gravitated to social work, gravitated.

WN: Do you remember what courses you were taking in that one semester at UH when the war broke out?

KM: I have a blank spot in my mind, really, I do. Like I said, we got discharged January 16th, I think it was, 1942, no, '45, 46. January. Three days later, we enrolled in University of Hawaii, three days after discharge. And I have vague recollections of that first year at university. What I do remember is that for a while, every Saturday night I got together with my veteran friends at Sandy Beach. Every Saturday night was a beer bust.

WN: We're getting a little ahead, we'll save that for the next time. My question was actually for the '41.

KM: Oh, '41?

WN: Yeah, you never finished that semester then?

KM: We never did. I remember I had biology, which was one of my favorite courses at the time, economics, sociology, all those core studies, regular core. These were already required subjects.

MN: And then one more question. I was just wondering, how come you ended up at A House, at Atherton?

KM: Katsuaki was more or less the assistant to Hung Wai Ching at A House. Oh, you mean in '41?

MN: When you first came out from Maui to go to the university.

KM: Yeah, Katsuaki was already dorming in A House.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2021 Densho. All Rights Reserved.