<Begin Segment 20>

MR: You've been retired for some years now.

YH: Long time. Well, I didn't work a lot. I was a homemaker, actually, until Phyllis, the youngest, let's see, she was in high school, maybe a little before that. He was having problems at the office, so I went to help at the office and I ended up there, and I'd go a couple days a week, then it got more. I don't know anything about nursing, and I learned how to change, take the sheet off and put a new sheet on. [Laughs] And I was working, he'd take me to lunch, then pretty soon the girls, there were no girls left one day, so I was doing, man, I'd come home and I'd just be, somebody came, says, "Mom, you're so tired." I says, "Well, gol, you would be too if you worked all day in this office." [Laughs] And then shortly after, he got sick, so we went in with another doctor, then I just closed up the books, office. They said, "Yeah, you could go back to work," but no way could he go back. He was too sick. He had cancer, and it really took its toll on him. So we closed the business, and it's been pretty nice since then. We don't have a lot of money, but we're very content, I think. More so with the way the doctors are dealing with their business. It's tough on them. But he's very, I think he's very happy. He better be. [Laughs]

MR: You have a lovely location up here. What do you do, how do you spend your time now?

YH: You know, that is so weird because that's what my kids ask us: "What do you do all day?" They call up, we're not home, or if we are... I don't know, I get up, I read the paper for about two hours. I'm a slow reader. [Laughs] And my daughter said, "You know, Mom, if you quit taking the paper you'd get a lot more done." I says, "Well, why do I have to get a lot more done at this stage? I don't have to do anything." And so I just very leisurely, unless there are appointments on the calendar for one reason or another, and I don't do volunteer work. That's the one thing feel like I should, but I couldn't up until -- I took care of my brother all these years, so I feel like, they said give it a rest. But I feel like I've done a lot there. And I, when my younger sister was sick, I was going down to Kaiser and taking, helping her a lot. I don't know, I play golf. I enjoy that. And I used to sew a lot, but my eyes aren't quite, I'm not right into the mode, I guess. I have, and I have tons of material I've got to do something with. And I don't want anybody to open it, say, "Look what she's got hoarded there." I'd feel very, I got to get rid of this before anything happens. We don't do an awful lot, I guess. We'll go out to lunch with some friends once in a while, but he's working in the yard and I'll go out and help a little bit, but I'd just as soon he take care of that. Then, I'm not a real good housekeeper, but I'll go on streaks. Somebody's coming, I work like crazy, and otherwise I'll let it go. But we don't do a heck of a lot. I really can't -- well, I'm doing my apartment I have. I take care of that part. I do all the business, the money. He has no idea. He, but the other day, I was going to go to Bend to look at a piece, and he says, "I'll go with you." The last time I went he didn't want to come with me." I says, "Oh?" He says, "Yeah, I'll come." I said okay. I think he was real anxious to see it, so he, and I didn't realize he, it looked like he came from the garden. Just put his cap on and sat down. [Laughs] I said my god, he had his shorts on and an old shirt, and then, so we're going into the realtor's place and I go to the bank, and he's just sittin' there very calm. But he looked at the apartment. He really thought it was pretty nice. Then he started pushing me from behind, "Maybe it's a good deal."

But he's very supportive of what I do at that point. He never says don't do this or that. And I'll ask him what he thinks, he'll tell me, but he's very low key about that, so we get along great. And I rue the day he found out how to use the machine, the bank machine. It's real funny, one day he asked me, "What are those people doing?" one of the kids. I says, I don't like to tell him because he's pretty good at taking, writing checks. So I finally told him, I said, "But you can't use it all the time." He says, "Oh, you get money out of there?" Oh my, that was really something. He really thought that was great. But he's a little more careful now. He's not the big spender he used to be. [Laughs] So we go, we go walking in the winter. When it's raining and bad we go to the mall, because it's light, 'cause when it gets dark in the winter I think he gets a little depressed. So we go there and we walk, but he doesn't walk, like to walk too long. We walk about half hour to forty-five minutes and he says, "Let's go get coffee," so we go get coffee and sometimes he looks at some goodies. We do that, sit there. Our morning's shot, actually. And then afternoon, take a nap, whatever has to be done. But we're going to work on the kitchen and I'm just a little afraid we might have a little problem with communication between ourselves. He likes, I've been seeing what he likes. Well, if it, I wouldn't care if he cooked, but he doesn't cook. He did when I would, got, my back was bad; he just took right over. He said, "You don't have a good enough pan," he went out and bought a pan. He was doing all the cooking, and it was nice. He didn't miss a beat. He cut a flower, put it in a vase, put it in my room, and do little things that were neat. I don't like to get sick too often, so that's just a short term thing, but we get along really pretty good. We always still argue. Actually, it's bad. We're not the typical loving... we have our problems, but nothing, nothing that I, he won't give in, I won't give in. We give in now.

MR: Who's to say what's typical, though?

YH: It's, he's changed a lot. Mr. Macho has realized there's the other half, and it's nice.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.