<Begin Segment 4>

AC: So how was, can you tell me a little bit about going to school when you were a kid?

GI: Well, that was no problem when I was going to grade school and junior high school. But when I got to high school, I see what the other kids are doing and did anything I could do to make it easier for me and have more time off like I used to drive the football field with a truck before they have a game and things like that. I used to help a friend of mine and do some painting on the stage at the high school. He got me out of classes so that I could help him. And so consequently, I used to have to run home sometime when I knew the pink slips were coming out warning that I may not make it if I didn't study a little more, get home, pick it up before my dad got it, you know. But I made it through. I think it, there were many, many other scholars who really, conscientious Nisei students, but I wasn't one of them. But there were a share of, one of my very good friends was a valedictorian of our high school class, and he's still living today. By the way, he's a Buddhist minister, retired, really made a name for himself. But I never, books wasn't for me, studying wasn't for me.

AC: Do you remember any of your teachers?

GI: Any what?

AC: Do you remember any of your teachers?

GI: Yes, I remember quite a few of the teachers. Do you want some of the names?

AC: Any that made an impression on you?

GI: Well, we had a neighbor who was a principal of our school. He was also a teacher of eighth grade, fellow named RH Fergin. I had a teacher in the sixth grade. His name was Bectal. I remember a Miss Oki of first year, first grade teacher, a Miss Cronin. And as I went into high school, there was Miss Arthur, McDonald, bookkeeping, Mr. Oakley was our principal, Miss Garner. That's about all I can remember right off the cuff.

AC: What made them memorable?

GI: Well, I don't imagine any of you gentlemen were ornery kids like we were at my age, but I remember causing our Spanish teacher to shed tears many times. And she was so good to us that I guess we just couldn't help but give her a bad time, not maliciously, but doing things that maybe she didn't tell us to do or we shouldn't do. And the ones that were good sports, I guess, that would tolerate us and bring us through high school were part of the reason that I remember them. I remember this grade school, I think it happened to me maybe once or twice, but we used to get slapped on the wrist with the ruler. We used to have to stand in the corner, that type of thing, and that's true. It's, those teachers remained in my mind a lot longer. But they were all good to us. And I think after we got out of school, we were so thankful to them for the discipline and the good teachings of manners and things they taught us.

AC: So what did you do to the Spanish teacher?

GI: What's that?

AC: What did you do to your Spanish teacher to make her cry?

GI: I don't know. I think we were just heckling her, just playing amongst ourselves in class, not paying attention to her when we should have been, doing whatever, you know. I can still speak enough Spanish to get by. I've been to Peru and to Argentina and to Spain, and I've had a lot of vocation to speak Spanish to the local Spanish people. I remember one time I was, my real estate business, I was selling a restaurant over here between Caldwell and Nampa, and the fellow that came to prospect, he was Chinese, and he had come from Central America. All he could speak was Chinese and Spanish. I closed the deal. So I have this Miss Arthur, that's her. I hope she's still living, and she was a very young teacher, maybe that was the reason too, another reason. She was a young redhead, fiery type of a gal, you know. But probably, her personality caused us to kind of give her a bad time. She was a, I think we gave her the worst time of any teacher we've had, but not beating her or not saying bad things to her, just misbehaving.

And we were that way with, I should bring this out because we might overlook it otherwise. We have other teachers to be so thankful for, and that are the teachers of our Nihongakkou, Japanese school. We couldn't understand why we had to go to Japanese school two hours after our Caucasian friends went home for the day. Every day, we had to walk. We thought it was about a mile to walk to go to Japanese school. In the recent years, I've gone back there and walked to it. It's about two blocks. [Laughs] I guess our feet were smaller and it just seemed like a lot farther than it was. But anyway, at that time, one of them just passed away. His name was Reverend Kyoshi Matsukuma. He became a minister later on. But there's a whole bunch of Japanese students, Japanese students from Japan, attending primarily University of Washington in Seattle. And from there, we had several Japanese school teachers. And it would be one or two hours every day after ordinary school, and they taught us Nihongo. And like I said, most of us griped to go to Japanese school because we tell our parents, "Why do we have to learn Japanese for? We need to learn more English." And the answer was, "Don't ask any questions. You go to Japanese school." Okay. And then so thankful for that. And for myself, it's just been terrific because I have been, all the lives of the Isseis in our community during their lives, I was able to help them in many, many ways like I said my dad did for them. And not only that but the highlights of my ability to speak and write Nihongo as I can and understand it and to read and write not kanji so much but other, katakana, hiragana, that I've made over hundred trips to Japan now since 1957.

By the way, this Oregon Legacy Center, I've got to mention, my good friend that got me started in the travel business is George Azumano of Portland. And I'll have to say that George also got me involved in a few other, other things that's cost me a few bucks through the years, but I really appreciate George. He's been like a big brother to me, and we got along great. We've traveled together at times, and I had a good time. But anyway, getting back to the Japanese language, I couldn't be doing my job. I'm still taking groups to Japan, and I have people from all over the country that I've booked, for instance, City of Albuquerque, New Mexico. I took seventy-five people from there. My wife and I escorted them to their sister city Sasebo in Japan about five or six years ago. I've had sister cities affiliation from Idaho Falls in Idaho. I've taken several of their groups. I've taken from Madras, Oregon. Remember the show, Japanese show, "Love from Oregon," well, I was aware of that. That's how they got acquainted with the Japanese more than anyway. And I have a good friend there that used to work in the credit union that was in the basement of our office many years ago, and he got a hold of me, and I've taken a group from Madras to their sister city, Kitamakimura, in Japan. I couldn't have done any of this and done a good job without being able to speak and understand the language, so I have to be so thankful to those senseis, who I don't know any of them who are alive today now, the last one passed away recently, for teaching us Japanese. And I'm telling you, we gave them a bad time. I can remember... you gentleman wouldn't remember to, the days when the Model T Ford had coils in them. The wooden boxes was, I think it was four of them that had coils in them, the real thin wire on the coil, and that's, they can call that a magneto, I think, and anyway, to eliminate the need of electricity, I think, to keep the car running. Anyway, we used to get those things out, and I didn't do all of it, but to tie worms hung on the corridor, maybe a frog or something, then you went to Japanese school. Oh, he used to make the teacher so mad. [Laughs] Again, we didn't do anything to hurt them or anything, but the ornery things that we did, I consider that all a part of growing up and learning what was right and wrong. I got to appreciate them for that. And of course, it goes as far then I have to appreciate our parents for coming to this country in the first place and for their need to understand the English. Their lack of ability to understand English made us learn Japanese. And so you know, it goes way back that we can thank our generation that are behind us now for the things that we've learned.

AC: So how many years of Japanese school did you go?

GI: I think I went to five or six. I don't know why I quit at that time because I think my sister and my wife went longer than that. But you know, the sad part of it is by not using it, my wife has lost a lot of it. I make it a, I've made it a kind of a practice to use Nihongo quite often, and that has helped me retain it. See, my wife learned a lot more kanji and things, but she hadn't retained it. So anyway, that's kind of a rundown on education and how I behaved in school.

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