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AI: Dave, the YMCA keeps occurring in our conversation, and it's obvious it's an important part of your life. Can you elaborate a little bit more about the Y and...

DT: Yeah, well, as I told you, when I was a young boy, thirteen-year-old boy, a lonesome boy, I went to the YMCA, Japanese YMCA at 1409 Sutter Street, and that lonesome little boy got involved in the YMCA program. And then at the Y, Mr. Fred Koba, who was the youth director, knew about my background, that I was a very lonely boy, parents in Japan, living with a drunken guardian, and so he took me in tow. And as a young boy, fourteen or something, he made me an assistant leader of boy's club. And so that's how I got into the YMCA program. And some, just to give you an example of this little, one little boy that was in my club, and he was also in my tent at Y camp, he had to go to -- middle of the night, he had to go to wee-wee, and he wakes me up, and he said, "Wait a second, I got to get my pants on." In the meantime, he's kind of jumping up and down right outside the tent cabin. And suddenly, I hear a voice saying, "That's all right, Mr. Tatsuno, I'm all through." Well, I said, "That boy is not all through." That boy designed the world's largest airport, the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. He designed the national space center, and now he's not that little boy. At that time I was a leader at eighteen, he was ten years younger, eight years old. Now, he is... I'm... well, he's still around, and he is now, I think, eighty-two or -three. And I had correspondence with him recently, and I sent him some snapshots that I had from Y camp. And so those are memories that are very precious. And I had many, many boys in my club at the Y. Of course, sad to say, some of them are younger than I am, but they're starting to go. And it's part of life.

AI: Well, you're being very modest, because I do know about some recognition and awards that you received from the YMCA. And some of them are very, very prestigious. Can you tell us about some of them?

DT: Well, I would say this; that about five years ago, they had my wife and I fly to Chicago to give me an award for the YMCA. And I made sure that it never got out in the paper. So it never got out in the local paper, it never got out in the Japanese papers at all. But you see, I don't believe rooster crow. I believe that you do things, and you do it because you want to do it, not because you want publicity, and I've never wanted publicity. It's very, very shallow.

AI: And the awards that you got were at this regional level, and I know, national level. What were those?

DT: Oh, yes, I was president of the YMCA for five states in 1960, and I went to speak at the YMCA in Honolulu in 1960. Then, of course, I'd been active with the International Committee of the Y, and as I said, I flew a quarter of a million miles for the YMCA as a living memorial to our son. So it's really had an impact on our life.

AI: It certainly has.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2004 Densho and The Japanese American Museum of San Jose. All Rights Reserved.