<Begin Segment 15>

JK: Did your family start up the business immediately after returning?

PD: I think so, as soon as they could, could get everything running.

JK: And where did the funding come from to get the business going again?

PD: I guess, I don't know if they had the money or whatever, but I guess they must have borrowed some from the bank or had the wholesalers' trust. They had to get into business and everybody had to. I guess the ball just rolled into place where everybody had to do their thing over again after coming back.

JK: And is the shop, which is located at 240 Jackson Street, is it in its original location?

PD: Oh, it's just a little bit down. The older, the older building, the original one is Tsugaru, the restaurant building, but it's a, it's a Dobashi property which has been remodeled from... there's, there's pictures of the old store that was a wooden frame building, I think probably in this museum, but the store that's remodeled looks like it's a concrete brick building now. But the older store was a, at 224 East Jackson. But that was a wooden building.

JK: So when did you become one of the general managers of this store, after your father, James, to kind of, Henry and Harry ran the shop?

PD: Probably when I was in my thirties or something, I just... when I first made my trip to Japan, I was about twenty-seven, so I did some, some studying while I was there. I just visited some... I was invited to visit some shoyu factories, sake factories, and see the open marketplaces and see different supermarkets in Japan.

JK: And have you considered a different line of work other than running the family business?

PD: Well -- [laughs] -- when I was a real young kid, at one time, I wanted to become an architect, and I had, there was a man living down the street, I think he was an architect, and I took a fancy to him. I think his name was Mr. Paul Zaima, and I used to take my drawings there, whatever, and show it to him. But it never seemed to come too much after that, because I know when my father got ill, and I just turned my attention to the store.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2004 Densho and The Japanese American Museum of San Jose. All Rights Reserved.