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AC: You had mentioned that you had to take vegetables into town to sell at the farmers' market. How was that?

JS: Well, the way our operation went, my dad probably went to -- this was a wholesale market down on Tenth and Belmont, I think it was -- he would take vegetables during season. And then sometimes during the off season, why, some of those people would, down in Lake Labish or somewhere, would have, they'd bring up some vegetables to our place out in Carver, and we repacked 'em and we'd take 'em down to sit in the market. I think the second year that I was out of school, I had to cheat a little bit to get my driver's license, I think, about a year, 'cause I think some record that I, I got my driver's license in 1933 -- it's in my driver's license record, in fact, it's on my driver's license, I think, the first year I got my license, 1933. Well, I wasn't old, quite old enough to be legal then. But I went to market, and I guess it's an indication of how much trust my dad had in me and how tough times were, because the first year I was out of school I stayed home and he went to market. During the season he'd get up at one o'clock in the morning or something, we'd be down at the market and he'd sit around and sometimes he'd sell stuff to some brokers'd buy outside the market, before the market opened. Otherwise you waited 'til you got inside, and we had a stall alongside a number of local growers there. I guess that's how I became acquainted with a number of the Chinese growers and a number of the Japanese growers, the Iidas and the Onos and the Yamaguchis and those folks, from Vancouver, and some of the folks from Columbia Slough and Milwaukie, and some who trucked vegetables from the North Dalles or Dallesport and Hood River into the Portland market. Now this was, this is not, not retail. This was a wholesale, so we sold to retailers, Piggly Wiggly, Pacific Fruit, any, a number of those operations.

So I was exposed to this when I wasn't really ready, you know? Just imagine sending a fourteen or fifteen year old kid today to deal with those sharpies down in the wholesale market. And like my dad used to tell me, "Well now, if it's Pacific Fruit be really careful because you might not get what you thought you were going to get, if you consign for anything. Sell for cash," because sometimes market was so tough that I'd come home with less money in my pocket than I went to town with, because I ate some of it and I didn't sell hardly anything, so I left produce on consignment. But I was always treated fairly. I think the fellows would look at me and felt sorry for me, so I was treated quite good. Anyways, that's how I, that's the marketplace I went to. I was not involved -- I remember as a kid, the Yam Hill market, over on West side, when Fred Meyer's was just a little bakery and meat shop across the street from some of those stalls there on Yam Hill, and... where'd we start this, on my education process? Maybe we better hold off for a while, see where we are and get reorganized.

[Interruption]

JS: Yes, the folks from Vancouver that came in, had stalls alongside of me, and from Milwaukie, they had their -- well, from Vancouver they had a lot of vegetable crops, green vegetable crops that they'd bunch. And there were quite a few Chinese in there too, so when the, it was kind of interesting because it was during the period of Japan invading Manchuria. So the Chinese community and the Japanese community really had their problems getting along with each other, but as far as farmers were concerned, well, it didn't seem like it bothered associations. And so the folks that, there were a number of, number of... [phone rings]

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.