<Begin Segment 7>

LT: George, after your father died and when you were in high school, you were busy with school work. You also were helping at your family's produce market. How did you juggle school and work?

GT: That is true, what I was just telling you, I don't even know myself. But I do know that when Dad passed away, we had to find something to bring income, but one of them was that we sold bedding plants. We still do, but it's vegetable, flower, and I used to sell that in town, Hillsboro stores or feed stores like that. And not much, but a few crates of this, few crates of that, I do remember that. And I would do that every morning as long as the plant season was on, but it interfered with my schooling, which was the first, maybe my second class in the day, I think maybe the second class. But anyway, it was geometry. And when you say geometry, it just seemed like to me it's so tough, but for some reason, it fell in so easy for me. But on top of that, also, the teacher that taught us geometry was my basketball coach. I can remember to this day his name was Happy Hawthorne. We used to call him Happy, I don't know why, I guess he was happy all the time. But he would excuse me, I do know I missed about, oh, I'm going to say probably thirty, forty classes, all of it or part of it. But when it come to test time, I didn't even have to take the test because he said, "George, you don't need to take the test. You know enough." So maybe he's trying to help me out, but he always passed me, and I didn't ever, didn't have to study for it. One thing, it just came so easy to me, I don't know why. But if you asked me now about geometry, I'd probably fail. And at that time, it sure, everything seemed like it came easy. But also, being my basketball coach, it helped a lot, too.

LT: How did your mother help you to juggle your responsibilities?

GT: Well, you know, Mom, she knew that she couldn't do it all by herself, so she made me, my older brother Henry, to help her out at all times. In fact, it interfered with our athletics because my brother Henry was older than me, two years older. But he was about... oh, I'm going to guess he was probably about 5'6" at the most, and he probably weighed about two hundred, weighed around two ten, two hundred twenty pounds. But he was built, he was built tough. So even though he played the line, which is up on the line, whenever they needed a couple, two yards, they'd give the ball to him and he'd bull through there, and he'd get those two yards, and he'd go back to the line. But he was no backfield man because he couldn't run very fast, but he could go straight ahead and make those extra two, three yards they needed. But that's what they used him for. So that was his time to play football, and I got to play basketball, so we didn't ever mix it. We would respect each other. If he had to be, if I was playing basketball, he'd be home helping Mom out. So I think that's the way we did it, but I don't know how many years I did that plant thing. I don't think I had too many years, probably another year or so, but we used to buy our plants way out in East Portland, those people's name right now is, I think the name was Funatake. There was another Funatake in the news the other day, they were married to one of them. But anyway, that's how this all started. We used to get our bedding plants from there and we sold it in Hillsboro and the outlying areas, and that was one of my chores. I'd do that every morning until the season was over, probably about summertime was all over. But I did it during the school time.

LT: What about Japanese language school?

GT: Yes, we did. On top of the, I was going to the Caucasian school like we're supposed to, we got one more thrown at us on a Sunday. It was clear out in the little town of Banks, it's not so small anymore. But we had to drive out there. I used to ride with a family of Iwasakis, they were down the road from us about a mile. I do know that he always furnished the transportation. But I resented that because it seemed like you go to school five days a week, then throw another one on there, it just didn't seem fair, so I resented that very much. Now I look back on it, I wished I had, because I wished I would learn the Japanese language. It would have been so helpful right now, because right now I'm trying to learn that stuff and trying to mix it up, and I wished I had learned then instead of fighting it as I did. I remember sitting in one of the teachers, my classroom, if you could open up the window or right beside me, open up the window and just step outside, which I did quite often. Because our sensei, as we called him, Mr. Tsutsui, I think his name was, sensei, he didn't care. He was just easygoing, he'd say, "You want to run around the town of Banks, go ahead. If you want to learn something, you stay with me." But I used to remember that I used to step out that window, it was about that height that I could just step out of it and I'm outside on the street already. And I used to bum around the town of Banks, and then I'd come back in. I'd go in and out, but I never did study like I should have. I'm sorry now that I didn't do a better job.

LT: Speaking about Japanese language and culture, were there cultural events that you and your family participated in?

GT: Let's see. Now too much, you know. There was a lot of stuff going on in the Portland area, but in our area, we didn't have too much, except they had that one year annual picnic, all the berry farmers would gather someplace north of Forest Grove, and there was swimming. I do remember we'd look forward to that because you can get all the soda pop you want to drink and ice cream you want to eat, but that was one of those days that we thought it was great. But that's the only thing I can think of, except maybe when it comes to New Year's Day, I know we did something. I do know Mom and Dad used to make us mochi, mochitsuki, you call that... yeah. I do remember we'd get together with some family, I remember them pounding, and how they'd reach their hand in there and those sticks would come down. I don't know how those ladies did it, but they'd sit there and turn it over, I guess, that mix in there, and they'd turn it over and then somebody would come down and beat on it. But I don't think anybody ever lost their hand, but I don't see how they did it. Then there was a tradition that you should eat one anyway. I had an awful time getting one down. I thought that was the darndest thing to eat I've ever seen. It's all the flour-like thing. I do remember that Mom and Dad insist that we all eat one, anyway. So like I say, I had an awful time getting one down. It was with something else, it was some kind of a soup type of a thing, what do they call that?

LT: Ozoni?

GT: Ozoni, that's the word. How could I ever forget that, because that was... ozoni, that's right. We had to have one down. Most of my family had an awful time except for Mom and Dad.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2013 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.