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TI: So, Terry, can you tell me where and when you were born?

HT: Let's see. 1929, January 3, in Kyoto, Japan. I don't know whereabouts that is, I don't know about Japan, but it's near Tokyo, I guess. And I was born in...

TI: Can you spell the place? How do you spell the place?

HT: The name of the place?

TI: Right.

HT: Well, it was near the city of... I can't think of the name. It's fifty years ago. Nagahama. And it's a little village about three miles inland from there, it's called Goshu, G-O-S-H-U, my great grandfather, the temple, Buddhist temple there. So I guess, I think I was born there.

TI: Well, let's talk about that a little bit more. So your great grandfather, so this is on your father's side?

HT: My father's father. He's, of course, a Buddhist minister, with a white beard, and he had a small church out there. What a guy he was. I used to help him, big gong, you know, had a big one in front of the church, he'd use the gong every day and I used to help him, as a little kid, hang on a piece of string. But he was a real good guy. I used to sit on his lap and hide behind his beard, you know, as a kid. And my father would be looking for me, and I'd hide like this. It was funny because my father said, "I wonder where he went." [Laughs] It's so obvious now. That was funny.

TI: And this was your great grandfather?

HT: Yeah.

TI: So he was pretty old when you were...

HT: God, yes, I guess so. He must have been... my father must have been fifty, he must be close to ninety years old, I guess. Yeah, my father... my mother, she was ninety-nine years old. In fact, ninety-nine and eight months. She wanted to be a hundred, but she never made it. My father died in about, I guess, early, about eighties. So my gene is long life.

TI: So you're, like, eighty-one years old now?

HT: Eighty-one now.

TI: So you're still young.

HT: [Laughs] Age-wise, yes, but physically, I don't know. I get pretty tired pretty fast.

TI: So your great-grandfather was a Buddhist minister or priest.

HT: Yes, and his father was, too.

TI: And how about your grandfather? Was he also Buddhist?

HT: My grandfather... yeah, he's the one that was in Goshu, he's... I don't know his father, great-great grandfather I don't know anything about. My grandfather was the one in Japan, with the beard I was talking about. I remember him. God, that was fun. He used to live out in the country. I remember the first time I come from America, there's no buses out there, so we had to walk three miles or four miles in snow, deep snow. And my father used to carry me on his back, and my brother had to walk on the sides because he was mad that my mother used to carry me, and the neighbors, they all carried me because I so short, I'd get lost in the snow out there. But it's funny because I remember this one little town, there's a grade school right off the road, and all the students was looking out the window, and they're laughing because I was wearing American clothes, you know. I had one of those sheepskin coats, one of those furry ones, and god, they used to tease the heck out of us and throw snowballs.

TI: So explain, where did the American clothes come from?

HT: American what?

TI: The American clothes. So is this because you had already been to America and came back?

HT: I don't know where it came from, I never did ask. [Laughs] But I guess he got it first, then he came to American, I guess, before. I don't know, maybe he got it in the Japanese Salvation Army, I don't know. [Laughs] But it was quite an experience the first time.

TI: But on your father's side, it sounds like there was a, generations of Buddhist priests.

HT: Yeah, that's what it was, generation to generation.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.