<Begin Segment 9>

AC: Tell me about your emperor award.

KT: Emperor award? Well, that goes back, they do a lot of what they call... well, they want to know different things about your activities, what you have done for the Japanese, the relationship between Japan and us. Like we had a 4-H student here many, many years ago, and then I worked with the different organizations, Japanese chairman of the onion growers, president of the onion growers, as you see up here on the wall, I worked with the universities. So that's, those are the things that the emperor of Japan wants to know the relationship. What I have contributed in the United States to promote Japanese, whether you want integrity or whatever you want to call it. And so that's the way they give awards. And so this is, I've had the fifth rank, and I want to show you the picture before you go of that award. So then when I got that, that's how I happened to... Senator Hatfield thanked me for my achievement award, as well as many of the other organizations. And I was pretty busy. I don't know how I did it. But when you're young, you don't notice it. Every night I was out at a meeting, especially in the wintertime. So when my daughters, they went to Japan, too, so they know everything about Japan, too.

AC: Some of the other farmers in the area have claimed that you are the more successful farmer in this entire area. What is the secret of your success?

KT: Oh, I don't think I'm any better farmer than anybody else, but anyway... well, you mean... what was that question again?

AC: People say that you are the most successful farmer in the whole area.

KT: Oh, you're not just making it up? [Laughs]

AC: I'm not making it up, this is what people are telling me. And I wanted you to know that, and I just wanted to say --

KT: Well, I don't know, they all worked hard. But like I said, in a lifetime, to myself, thinking I have to have some luck. You know, there are a lot of honest people, there are a lot of people that are faithful about this, they're just kind people from heart now, not just talk, and they have unlucky, and one luck after another luck. My neighbor just got run over just like that. You heard about the accident, George tell you? Anyway, we had one, there's my neighbor there, just buried him... not buried, but cremated. And she's in the hospital, I just talked to her today. Those things happen. But anyway, I think I had some pretty good luck, and very fortunate. And then I had good health all the way through. I did have open heart surgery, but my wife, I have to give her credit, 'cause she said, "You can't eat that."

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.