<Begin Segment 16>

RP: And how long did you stay as a family in Philadelphia? Did you graduate high school?

JN: Yes, I graduated high school there, and went to college for a couple of years, got married.

RP: Did you return to Seattle?

JN: Oh, no. No, I stayed in Philadelphia. I went to work for an electronics firm. I became their... it was in cable television. They made cable television equipment. It wasn't that, meant to be that, but that's what it evolved into. And I became the head of the system design group, and we were very successful. A guy named of Milt Shapp who became governor of Pennsylvania, was the founder of this company. So I became, got involved in the cable systems and then, of course, not of course, then I was, that's, that's another experience. Milt (called me one day and said), "Jimmy, I want you to go into sales." And I thought, "Oh, gosh. I can't talk to a customer on the telephone, let alone..." "No, Jimmy, it's not like selling pots," he knew I was a Fuller Brush man. [Laughs]. So he says, "It's not like selling pots and pans," he says, "It's selling a very technical system and you know everything about it." And he's telling me that, "The whole world is going to seek you out as a valued employee." And I'm thinking, "My God, here's the president of the company, gonna fire me if I don't..." So I took the job, I became the number one salesman for the company, I swear to God, I'm not lying to you, I mean, I'm not exaggerating. And a couple years later, this huge French company sought me out like Milt said, they offered me an unbelievable, crazy salary. And I remember (asking) Larry Cushmore, I said, "What do I do, Larry? They gave me this letter and everything." He says, "Well, look, you just go to Milt and thank him for the years of (...) employment he gave you, kiss him goodbye, and take off." And that's what I did, and I ended up in New York. Then I was with the French company for five years, then I realized that the money was not in selling French products, it was in, my love was still in cable.

Then I saw some of the great things happening in my industry. The whole southeast part of the country was virgin country. There was not a cable system in the state of Georgia, for instance. So I started (into) cable (TV), I went after so-called franchises. You go to city government and you plead your case, and you say, "Look, I want to have a license to operate a cable system, or a franchise." And the South was very receptive to me. This is during the era of the civil rights movement, and that's another story, of course. But anyway, I convinced my wife that I should take our meager savings and let me get this out of my blood. The kids were not born yet. I should go to the South, get a franchise, then I'll start a, build a cable system, and I didn't know with what money or how, and then retire. And if I don't make it, if the money goes away, I told Susan, "Well, then I could always go to work for Bell Telephone, they always wanted me to come work for them." And then I'll work 'til I'm sixty-five and retire and we'll live happily ever after. So she says, "Go for it," and that's how I got into the cable business. I got a franchise in Savannah, Georgia, and started a cable system there. And then we lived in Long Island and in Huntington, which is another crazier story, they gave me the franchise there, and I was in the cable business.

Oh, in the meanwhile, to put food on the table, I went into the cable construction business. (It) was a whole new era (with new groups) of people coming into our industry. It was no longer a small business. Broadcasters, newspaper people were all coming into the business, and they're talking about huge cable companies, cities, not the little towns in Pennsylvania that were a distance away from the TV stations, or the intervening mountains that prevented television signals. No, these were huge cities that were being talked about for wiring. And I knew that was gonna be... and Savannah was going to be one of the test cases, we had three stations in Savannah. And historically it's not a cable television market. But, hell, I knew instinctively that there's programs out of Jacksonville... well anyway, I went in there not knowing really... I was no marketing genius. It became a successful thing. But in the meanwhile, it takes time, and all these big companies wanted to get into the business and I became not only their consultant, but I became their contractor to build systems. I built systems all over the country for about thirteen years. And that's, that was where I really made, you know, that was good money, but it was labor intensive, you see. So I was never a large contractor. But I had three or four jobs at a given time. And then the children came, and I said, "The heck with it, I don't want to travel no more," and I concentrated on Savannah and Huntington, Long Island. But anyway, that is the history of my later life. And at age fifty-six, I sold it all and I retired, and I've been retired for twenty-one years.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2007 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.