<Begin Segment 21>

FA: After the war, you said, how did people treat you when they learned you were a resister and you had spent time in prison?

FE: Well, actually, you know, they, I don't think I ever had an occasion to talk to anybody about that. We were probably too involved in getting our life back together, making a living, that once we got back on our track at home, I think the past was almost all forgotten. I didn't even think about it.

FC: So you lost touch with the other resisters and leaders?

FE: Right, uh-huh. I think in our case especially, we won our case, see, so we felt very good, we felt that we didn't have to worry about anything, that we were the victors and the past is past.

FA: So tell me Frank, what did you do after World War II?

FE: After World War II, I first went to work in the business that I knew, produce market, the Hollywood Ranch Market. I worked there for a couple of years, then I started gardening 'cause I heard there was much more money in that. I worked about a year in gardening and when I was out in San Fernando Valley in 120 degrees, I said, "That's enough for me." [Laughs] So I went, took the post office exam and I passed it with a pretty good mark. I forgot exactly what it was but I got called within a few weeks, and went to work for the post office until I retired.

FA: You went to work for the U.S. government?

FE: Yeah, I figured they owed me. I figured the government owed me something, so I went to work for the U.S. government. [Laughs]

FC: Gardening business. Was that, was Art involved in that? Were you and Art together in the gardening business?

FE: No, I went on my own. But Art sort of, he was already in it so he gave me a couple of tools that he wasn't using and I bought some of my own and went into it. But it wasn't for me.

FA: The judo, so when did you open the judo school?

FE: Well, actually, I had joined Hollywood Judo Dojo here in 1937, and been with them until evacuation. Then when I came back from camp I worked out now and then at the Hollywood Dojo. But then when I started working for the post office at night I couldn't attend for the next few years. Then when I got back on the day shift, then I started back in the Dojo. So I've been with them off and on since 1937, which is like sixty-one years.

FA: I never asked you this, Frank, but your marriage broke up after the war.

FE: Yeah, it broke up around the time, 1960s, I think it was. But it had nothing to do with the evacuation or the camp or prison or anything. It was just the matter of our... you know... ideas.

FA: Yeah, nothing to do with that, okay, fine. Never mind.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 1998, 2005 Frank Abe and Densho. All Rights Reserved.