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MM: You talked about the band experience; I understand you had some pretty famous people, or people who eventually became famous --

RK: Yeah, our intermediate school band was something. We had a female band teacher. And she was, if I may say so, Mrs. Robbins, she was quite a character. But anyway, it was a fun place to be, and... Dan Inouye and I are classmates from the seventh grade on, and so we were in the intermediate school band. At that time we both played the clarinet. And Dan's a very good musician, good, he has a good sense of... good ear for music, good timing. And Dan eventually took on the saxophone. And as ninth graders we tried to form a band. We tried to be, imitate Glenn Miller or Artie Shaw. At any rate, I still remember meeting in the church basement close to the school. And Dan was one of the leaders of this little band that we tried to organize.

MM: So, can we give you credit for the reason that Dan Inouye plays the saxophone, because you were playing the clarinet so well?

RK: No, no. After I got into a high school, when I got to McKinley High School I got recommended to get into the, the senior band in my sophomore year, but I found out that musically I wasn't that in-, I wasn't really good. And I think I took the Seashore Test and I flunked. And I knew that all that I was doing was hard work. I didn't have a ear for it.

MM: Oh.

RK: Although I appreciated music. So I gave up my band and went into student activities.

MM: I also understand you had another artistic side to you. You'd draw, enjoy drawing and so forth? And that you would draw on your fellow kids' surfboards and so forth?

RK: Oh yes, uh-huh. We had what was called boogie boards. Well, we called them paipo boards in those days. And of course we didn't buy them. We made our own out of whatever we could find, mostly a block of redwood. And they went... well, the paipo boards were maybe surfboards, only three feet high. And so we'd -- some of them would be painted or lacquered. And then we wanted to put pictures on 'em. So I used to draw pictures for neighborhood gang. And at that time Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was very popular, so I think I drew all of the seven dwarfs on these boards. On my board -- I saved that for me -- I was Dopey. [Laughs]

MM: Why did you like Dopey?

RK: Well, I thought he was a colorful character and anyway, I liked Dopey. I think we all have elements of that, I hope.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2004 Japanese American National Museum. All Rights Reserved.