<Begin Segment 7>

HH: You went to college?

AI: Yeah. I took a scientific course. When I got to Seabrook I was flunking. I flunked sixth grade. I passed sixth grade on trial. I had Fs in English all the way through. And then the sixth grade teacher says, "I'm not supposed to pass you but I'm going to pass you on trial." So I got to seventh grade and seventh grade I didn't flunk everything. I got maybe several Fs in English. But then eighth grade turned me around. A guy named Richard Ikeda was in a class in front of me, and he used to get all As. I said, gee whiz, how do you get all As? He's an Ikeda and I'm a Ikeda, but he's a smart guy and I'm a dumb guy. So eighth grade, I said, gee, I'm going to see if I could do what Richard did. And so an eighth grade teacher turned me around. I became an A and B student in one year. I went from an F student to an A and B student. Anyway, from then on, then I studied all the way through high school. And because I took a scientific course, because my mother said, "You should take a college prep course," but we were poor, really. And so when I got to senior year, I didn't take my college boards. And I said, "I'm not going to college." So I worked a summer around, after finishing high school, and I was an A and B student then. And so my mother said, "Hey, let's go to Drexel University," I mean, Drexel Institute of Technology, and just see if we can get in. So that's when I went to Philadelphia, took the subways, I still remember taking the bus and then the Elevated to Thirty-second and Market. Walked to Drexel and I interviewed the entrance officer. And my mother must have said... I don't know how she did it, but starting fall, that fall, I was going to Drexel. So because it was a co-op program, that was very helpful. But yeah, I didn't take any college boards, no entrance exams, I got in by sheer grades at Bridgerton High School. So all my other friends joined the Air Force, and I was going to go into the Air Force with the rest of them. There was, our group of Hornets, they joined the Air Force. And so I said, "Heck, I'm going to the Air Force," and my mother said, "No, let's go try Drexel." So I was one of the few out of that group that went to college. So I, luckily there was a co-op program at Drexel where you worked six months and go to school for six months, so I was able to earn eighty-five percent of my college expense. Because as a family, they couldn't afford to send me to college. So during that co-op program I earned good, I guess around twenty-two hundred.

I held, during those six-months' time, I held five jobs. I worked at a climatology, I worked at Seabrook Farms, I worked for geological survey, I made bookshelves, and I made water measurement, so I held five jobs at one time. And I started at eight o'clock in the morning, I didn't even get home until after midnight every day for almost six months. So that's where I was able to earn enough.

HH: When did you get married?

AI: I got married in 1960. When I finished college, because I took ROTC and became an officer and the military. I was in for six months. They asked me at the time, the military asked me if I wanted to become a regular officer. I said I would become a regular officer and serve in the U.S. military for three years, "If you would send me to Japan." They came back two weeks later and says, "No, openings in Japan. You can go to Germany, you can go to Italy, you can go to Spain, several parts of Europe, you can go to Iceland, you can go to Alaska, or you can stay in the United States." And I said, they gave me a choice of three years' service, two years' service or six months. And I took six months' service because they didn't send me to Japan. So after serving for six months, of which three of those six months was attending classes, buildings, learning how to blow bridges and build bridges, so that's what I did in the Corps of Engineers.

HH: What did you study at Drexel?

AI: Oh, I got my mechanical engineering degree. I wanted to become an aeronautical engineer because I wanted to become, I wanted to design airplanes, as a goal I wanted to design airplanes. But when I interview all the airplane companies after finishing college, none of 'em wanted me. So then I went to work for RCA at that time.

HH: As a mechanical engineer, you'd be quite expert at blowing up bridges.

AI: Yeah, right, and I did. [Laughs] In fact, the first time it was in Camp Drum, New York. We wanted to blow up this bridge and it didn't blow. Hit the generator, uh-oh, something's wrong. So you got to go back and trace the wiring all the way back. Sure enough, we didn't connect one of the wires, so that's how we'd blow up the bridge.

HH: And I ask you, you got married...

AI: In 1960, yeah, after I got out of the service, and after the six-month service I got out in November of '58. Then I asked my sister, I said, "Hey," I knew about Eiko, I said, "Hey, can you set me up a date with Eiko?" And she did and we got married. [Laughs] Anyway, after a year of courtship, we got married.

HH: And so after you get married did you live in Seabrook for a while or did you live in Philadelphia?

AI: No, we, I was working at RCA at the time so we moved to Haddon Heights, Haddon Heights, New Jersey and lived there for three years. And then during that time, my oldest son was born in 1961. And then I got a job at... I'm sorry. I worked in Camden, RCA, for one year, went to work for, and then transferred over to Moorestown where Moriuchis' live. I worked there 'til, four years. And then in 1963, I moved to Burroughs in Paoli, and worked there for three years, and been there for the last thirty years.

HH: Then you went back to school, your graduate school?

AI: Yeah. While I was at RCA I went to an evening school at Drexel for a while, then I switched to University of Pennsylvania and I got my master's degree in mechanical engineering in 1966 from Penn. Penn is easier than Drexell. No, it's because Penn has a half-year system whereas Drexel has a quarter system.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 1994 JACL Philadelphia. All Rights Reserved.