<Begin Segment 11>

AH: Before we get into the schooling in Honolulu, I want to stick a little bit with back in... because you went to Lahainaluna school. But your schooling, generally, when you were growing up, what did you like about school? What did you like the least about school and why? I mean, what was your educational experience like quite apart from athletic exploits?

WY: Well, when I went to Lahainaluna, see, I just loved -- my brother naturally played football and baseball, so when I was in grammar school, I would say, "One day, I want to play football." So, so my freshman year, when I was in ninth grade, I went to Lahainaluna. Where I was staying, I couldn't get transportation because it's six miles to Lahaina, and there's no transportation for me to go to school. So I asked the coach that I could be a boarder and stay at the dormitory at Lahainaluna. So they told me that yes, they had room for me. So I stayed at Lahainaluna two years, the freshman and sophomore year. And my job there was, see, I had pick, every morning, I have to go and pick a hundred pound of grass to feed the cows because they had a farm there where they, they raised cows and pigs and chicken, ducks, and lot of vegetables and things. See, they had about 125 boarders there, so they had to feed them and things. And a lot of times, the milk and a lot of the eggs and things, they sell it -- go downtown and they sell it. So that was my job. I'd get up 5 o'clock in the morning, my freshman, sophomore year, and I would go pick 100 pound. Sometimes I had to climb two mountains and 100 pounds on my back coming in. But that really helped me in football because that really strengthened my legs.

AH: Tell me a little bit more about that school, because I was there the other day, and I noticed there was a sign that said that the school started in 1831. In addition to that, it had a printing museum, and I had been there before, a year and a half ago. And my wife teaches a course dealing with the history of the book and that was a very famous place, and she now gives lectures on the place. But it was, it's real interesting that they used to have the first printing press west of the Mississippi. And you're talking about boarders there. Tell me a little bit about that school.

WY: Well, they, they have, they, every year, now they don't have that. See, before, we all had to work. So they had about 125 kids from the island of Molokai, Lanai, Island of Hawaii. All the boarders used to go there and work, and they all have to work. Whether you have money or not, you worked three hours a day for your breakfast, lunch and dinner, and we all went through that. And my job was to go and pick 100 pound grass every morning. So we'd get up 5 o'clock and go down. Rain or shine, you go. You climb up the pathway and you have 100 pound on your back coming up.

AH: That's an amazing thing about that school, is it just goes up, up, up. You're constantly climbing. Your legs must have gotten strong.

WY: Oh, definitely. My legs were -- because I used to climb, actually, I don't exaggerate, I used to climb two mountains. Big mountains where you had to come up with that 100 pound of grass in rain or shine. Sometimes it's slippery when it rains, and when you fall, you cannot throw that 100 pounds on the floor because you have a hard time -- on the ground -- because hard time bringing it up again because it's a small pathway you have to go.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2003 Japanese American National Museum. All Rights Reserved.