Densho Digital Archive - John Young Interview (denshovh-yjohn-01-0023)

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RM: Well, I would like to ask, just if you could summarize the next few years of your life after you got back from the war, what did you do?

JY: Well, like I said, I led a charmed life. I didn't get a job with, I was working on produce, and got a job with So. Cal Gas Company. I spent thirty-six years with them. And got into management, and hell, right now I'm getting close to a hundred thousand a month for retirement with my IRA and all that. I have a happy marriage, I met a good friend of mine, we weren't wanting to get married because she's in the million, and I want her to give to her family what I have to my family. I asked her if she minds, she said no. So we're just staying together, so it's been six years, October 19th.

RM: Tell us about, a little bit about your parents. You said your mom died in 1949 and your dad in '54?

JY: Fifty-four, yeah.

RM: What were the rest of their lives like? What did they think while you were in the military?

JY: They didn't say much about it. My dad was so old, we was more like a grandparent to me than a father. And I told you my sister was like a mother to me. My mother... well, you don't communicate with your parents that much as Asians. Not like you and I with our kids, it's different. It was a little different. That's why I had to ask my sister all these questions, I said, "Where in the hell did Mom get all the money?" Buying homes. It was only 19 and 2900 at that time, but still, where did she get the money? So she finally told me where the money came from. I was amazed. It takes a woman, I hate to say it. [Laughs] Even the gas company, last two years, I was going to get a young lady as my boss. So my division manager came to me and said, hemmed and hawed trying to explain something. I finally said, "You mean I'm getting a lady boss?" He said, "Yeah, I've been trying to tell you." I said, "My mother was my boss, my wife was my boss, big deal." [Laughs] Hemmed and hawed trying to tell me a younger woman. I said, "She wants my job, she can have it." I was in charge of automotive at that time, and I said, "If she knows anything about it, let her run it," what the hell, I'll do anything she asks. I'm leaving anyway. But she became a good friend, offered me a job, begged me to take the morning job in charge of warehouse, and maintenance man, so for her, I said, "It's costing me two thousand a year," because of my bonus, I worked from two to ten. And besides, I'm known as the midnight superintendent with the gas company, I'm the only supervisor around. All the rest of the guys went home already. Well, that's doing automotive. All I have is the garage, five, six garage to take care of.

RM: What did Kay's family do for the rest of their lives?

JY: They did nothing after Bird's Eye, because the boys were grown up then, they all went to work and contribute toward the house and all that. She didn't do anything, the husband died already, the second husband.

RM: Did you and Kay stay close to her family?

JY: Yeah, she always visited her mother when I'm working, so I said, "Come back from the same route in case your car breaks down." I said, "Just keep it locked and I'll backtrack if you're not home by a certain time." Yes, she was close to her mother, she and her mother really got along.

RM: Did any of you talk about Manzanar together?

JY: Not really, no. That's a thing we want to forget. Even the war, I hate to try to remember anything about it. Not happy memories, or just memories.