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MR: You have started over a lot of times. What do you think made it possible for you to keep starting over?

AS: Well, my husband was a man full of energy, full of ideas, and he wanted to be doing something all the time. He didn't want to sit around and do nothing. He says, "I don't want to sit around and wait 'til I die. I got to be doing something." So mostly his idea. After we, I got rid of the fish. I had to because to, when I sold the place, I kept five acres for the fish, and let's see, I think my husband was still alive when he sold the rest of the farm to this Korean man. And he went into developing, and he came to me and said, "You want to sell your farm?" He is going to develop the whole place, and he said he will put in a Sumida Road right in front of your house. I said, "You will"? And so there's a Sumida Lane there, you know. Well, anyway, after I sold, I looked for a place to stay downtown where it will be more convenient to attend operas and symphonies and things I enjoyed, and finally found this place on First Avenue, this American Plaza Condominium. And when I was there, one of my friends said, "Alice, you want to go to a free dance?" I said, "Free dance? What is that?" In Tigard, the Fred Astaire Studio, they were introducing, they wanted to get new people to come in, so they advertised a free dance for this particular Saturday or Sunday, Saturday I think it was. So I said, "Yeah, I'll go," and I went and I had a good time dancing. So after that, I signed up for a class. And at eighty-eight years, when I became eighty-eight, that's a very important date for the Japanese people, I signed up for ballroom dancing, and I have been dancing ever since, enjoying going to different cities for competitions. You know, competitions always make you want to do better and better, you know.

MR: When you think back on why you danced, does that eighth grade teacher, the dancing teacher, have anything to do with it?

AS: Maybe because it was so much fun the way he encouraged us to dance, and it really was fun.

MR: When you're dancing, how does it, how do you feel when you dance?

AS: How do I feel? I feel wonderful. I feel like I'm dancing in air, makes you forget everything, you know.

MR: And you take classes how many times a week?

AS: Just once a week, uh-huh, eight o'clock in the morning because my teacher and his two friends, they bought a, well, they started a sports shop right underneath Todai on the second floor of Pioneer Square, PDX, Oakley Product, and so he has to open his shop at ten. So I go at ten and another student goes at nine, and then he goes to the shop to open the store.

MR: And do you have a regular dance partner?

AS: For competition, we have to dance with our teacher. That's the regulation and, which makes it nice because you're used to practicing with him. And so if I do well at the competition, then the teacher gets rewarded too, so he is all, enthused also.

MR: Going back to eighty-eight, when you started dancing in your eighty-eighth year, why is eighty-eight an important year?

AS: Well, gee, I don't know. The older generation celebrate eighty-eight years. They say it, maybe you make it or don't make it, I don't know.

MR: And how did, there's a book written about you, Music For Alice, and it focuses on the dancing. How did Allen Say decide to write this book?

AS: Yes. You know, I was in a car accident, and I hurt my shoulder. I went to several different doctors, and they were unable to help me. And one doctor said, "Well, the surgery would be the only way to fix it," and I didn't want surgery. And one of my friends said, "Why don't you try shiatsu? He might be able to help you." So I went there, and Allen Say was also going there for treatment because of his writing all the time. His fingers get numb, and he had to get treated. So this shiatsu teacher told him about me, eighty-nine years old at the time, that he should meet me. And he expected, someone real young to be introduced to, and here he introduces me to an eighty-nine-year-old woman is the way he said, you know. [Laughs] And then he came for an interview to the condo where I was staying and asked me a lot of questions. And I don't know what it was that he found in me, but he decided to write a book about the story, based on my life, and I was very flattered. I was very excited, honored.

MR: Well, it's a delightful book. The pictures in the book look so real. Did he use real, did he base them on your real photographs?

AS: He took many, many, many, maybe about one hundred photos. He's a photographer also in San Francisco. That's what he was doing, so he's a great photographer. He's a great artist. He's a great artist. He studied in Japan with a very famous artist, and this teacher was very happy that he took all, he's continuing with this work because last year I think his teacher died in Japan. And he's working on another book now, and he just concentrates so hard on what he's doing. He has no time for social life, all work, beautiful work. Have you seen his other works he's done? Grandfather's Journey is an excellent, oh, the pictures, the art he has done on it is so beautiful. In fact, all of his books, the artwork is just exquisite. And he's spent, what, eighteen months finishing my book, he said. That's quite a long time.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2005 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.