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KM: And then, in 1960, '61, we had the opportunity to promote and get involved the sponsorship of Tokyo Sumo. And that was a money-making project too. Because although there was strenuous objection from some of the members to get involved with sumo, I had a difficult time getting the boys to go along with the idea of promoting sumo. Because we were already involved with the all-Japan High School Baseball Association where beginning in 1955, a group of all-stars came in from Japan and sponsored their appearance in Honolulu. There would almost always be about fifteen days of visits by these, we would take them to all over the neighbor islands at that time. And then two years later, we would send from Hawaii a group of all-stars and we continued that project from 1955, which is within ten years of, after the war that the 442 was the initial sponsor of this home at home baseball series between Japan and Hawaii until we couldn't handle it any longer back in 1993. Until then, we had this project. So to have the boys agree to taking on a sumo project at that time, a great many of them said, "What is sumo?" They didn't know what is sumo. But I was involved with sumo from Maui and days where I grew up. And my father was an avid fan of sumo who would put on the shortwave radio and listen direct broadcast those days from Japan about the sumo. Because of the five-hour difference, he would listen in the middle of the morning, early in the morning, because sumo would be going on at that, delayed five-hour from Japan. So I was exposed to sumo from very early in my upbringing. And so, somehow, Takao Hedani and I, Takao Hedani was a customs inspector, but he was like a Kibei because he had his high school education in Japan but he was a member of the 442. I had to depend on him because he spoke, I mean, he wrote and read Japanese and so I had to depend on him in our negotiations with the Sumo Kyokai. But from 1962 on, we started to sponsor sumo, and I think we put on... and I'm not too sure, but nine or ten tournaments in Hawaii. And so this Takasago Beya, the stablemasters that we worked with very beginning, believed that sumo was to be introduced to the Western world after World War II. We were strong believer in the way of sumo, sumodo which is the most ancient of Japanese sports. And their lifestyle is, unfortunately, it's so rigid that the younger Japanese men don't get involved with sumo nowadays. Foreigners like the Mongolians are practically taking over the sumo in Japan now. But Takasago Oyakata was individually a promoter. We asked for two promotions, 1962 and '66, or '64. It was at that time that Jesse wanted to go back to Japan, and so we had to work out arrangements for Jesse going to Japan. But thereafter, the Sumo Kyokai saw the light and they went to California, they went to New York, they went to China and they went to Russia, they went to Brazil, they went to Paris and became very popular internationally. Except today, for the first time last year, they appeared in Las Vegas. But from the time we were promoted, we always wanted to get involved with, especially Ralph wanted to put on sumo in Las Vegas, but he was always rejected because the Sumo Kyokai powers that be said, "Oh, no, we cannot get involved with any type of gambling." And so they never approved the appearance of sumo in Las Vegas. I don't know what happened last year, but suddenly they appeared in Las Vegas. So we put on this sumo project, as I said, the last one, it was something about 1988 and 1989 that we put the last promotion, sumo.

MN: So the 442nd Club has been involved in a lot of projects.

KM: And I was the project chairman all the way. And Ralph was, the project required somebody to underwrite the project because we didn't have a big bankroll, the club did not have. We were barely meeting expenses. And so in order to put on this sumo project, somebody had to, we either had to borrow money or advance money that was required from the Japan side. They said they wanted x-number of dollars in their hands before they came out here, whether it was loss or what, that money, that guaranteed money had to be turned over before the budget was started. So we, because we had worked with Ralph on the circuses, and I had worked with him on all the circuses, basically the agreement that I had with Ralph was a handshake deal. We worked together on whatever agreement we had in the very beginning, it was a handshake. It wasn't necessary to put it down in writing, which was, for a lot of people that heard that from me, said, "That's strange." Ralph was a promoter, especially a boxing promoter. And so they said, "Oh, you got to get everything in writing." And Ralph was also a member of the 442 and we had a handshake deal, all of the promotion we had with Ralph.

WN: So the original intent of these promotions was, along with the gambling and the circuses, was originally fundraising.

KM: Fundraising for the building fund.

WN: For the building, right.

KM: Then, you see, this group, Moilili group, they had twelve... it was an athletic club, twelve surviving members of this nonprofit group. And they were elderly, they had no use for the building group. It was leased out to various groups. So they decided... and we were leasing on a very, one a year visa or something like that from the beginning. And so they decided, well, hey, what better than to donate it to us. And so back in 1950-something, lock stock and barrel, they turned over the whole property to us. But at that point it was necessary to renovate the gymnasium. It was a small gymnasium, so we had to renovate it to the complex we now have, and office site, meeting place, together with apartments to bring in some income. And so we had borrow... now we had something to put up for mortgage. And so it took us until 1987 or 1988 to pay off our mortgage. But now, today, finally, we were debt-free because we had put on all these other projects.

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