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TI: Well, I started grade school in Tacoma, and this was quite a traumatic event because I could not speak any English, and I struggled through this. However, my favorite subject as I recall was arithmetic, and I still can remember the teacher's name which was Miss Pitcher. Because of my English was so poor, I had to take tutoring after school. And in addition to going to public school, we went to Japanese school because they had a very large Japanese population, and I can recall going to school from after public school from 4:30 to 6:30 every day including Saturdays which was an all-day event. I also went to the Buddhist church there because my parents were Buddhist. We had a, since we had a large Japanese population, there were a lot of kids that I played with, and our favorite games were playing the samurai game. I can still remember such names as Tokugawa Ieyasu, and Toyotomi Hideyoshi. So that kind of stayed with us, with me.

The events that I cherish in Tacoma was that my father had a wonderful array of showcases with all kinds of Japanese confections. He had tsukamochi and made kakimochi, all kinds of omanju and yokan, okashi, different kinds. We lived in Tacoma until 1931 for about five years. He also bought his first car which was a 1930 Model A Ford. It was a kind of olive green. After he learned to drive, he taught my mother how to drive, and she would go out on Sundays and drive, practice her driving when the streets were empty. Japanese school was a lot of fun because we used to have picnics, and we would go to a place called Dash Point and Steilacoom, and they have all kinds of what we call undoukai.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.