Traveling Boy’s Memory Lane Invites all writers to share their stories to the world. As long as websites in the internet are accessible, these stories will be your footprint of your life adventures. They may be happy, sad, playful, religious, political, narrative, poetic, etc. The more creative and the more honest, the better. Years … centuries from now, some alien ship will find this website and will wonder what mankind was all about. Your articles will answer a lot of their questions.
Part 2
Written by guest writer Frank Koo Endo in 1994
In the summer of 1939, the canneries were so busy that my mother suggested that I work along with her at the cannery cleaning mackerel. I applied for my Social Security number and started working there at sixty cents an hour, the same wage as my mother. It was a great feeling to earn so much money!
About that time, many of the parents on Terminal Island that had children going to school in Japan, started to bring them to America. San Pedro High School set up a special English class to accommodate the new students from Japan. I noted that their math and art skills were far superior to us Americans, whether Nisei or Caucasian.
However, because of the cultural differences, we didn’t socialize with them very much in school. They were born in America, taken to Japan and left with relatives, schooled there, and eventually brought back to the United States. They were called Kibei-Nisei.
I began working out at home, lifting weights with my neighborhood friends in the early evenings. All of our weights were actually iron wheels from the fish canneries. I read Strength & Health magazine, which inspired and helped me in the lifting techniques. I continued lifting weights for many years to come.
We had a great baseball team on Terminal Island called the Skippers. They were fully outfitted, just like the pros. During the summer, the Skippers played other Japanese American teams in Southern California. We were the best. In fact, some of the semi-pro Caucasian teams came and played with us and we had some great games. Many of our top players were Kibei-Nisei.
The most popular entertainment event on the island was an occasional Japanese movie shown at the fishermen’s hall. Once in a while I went to see them and learned a great deal about life in Japan as well as the language. There was also a pool hall there, but I was too young, and wasn’t interested in billiards.
Finally in 1940, I began attending San Pedro High School which was located on the hilltop adjacent to Dana Junior High School. I immediately made a point to sign up for gymnastics. As a tenth grader, it appeared that it would be difficult to get into gymnastics because it was so popular and the class was full.
However, I told the coach how enthusiastic I was, so he reluctantly accepted me in the class. I had worked hard on my handstand during the past year at Dana so that I could do my handstand just as good as anyone in the gym. I then decided to work out and familiarize myself on the various apparatus, because the gymnastics competition would begin in six months. Soon, I was selected on the varsity team, given a uniform and began competing in the Marine League. I started to compete on floor exercise and the parallel bars, the apparatus that impressed me so much when I first saw it. After a couple of competitions, placing seconds and thirds, I finally won both events my third time around. That season, I finished among the top four on the team.
In the summer of 1940, I had an offer to work at a produce stand in San Pedro, which I gladly accepted. It was much cleaner than grape-picking or working in the fish cannery. I really began to appreciate the produce business and did so well that I was asked to work the following summer. I knew that my schooling at San Pedro High would soon be over and that I would need to decide what I wanted to do after graduation. Would it be fishing like my father?
Early in 1941, my father was called back to Japan to his dying father who was operating a rice distribution store in Shizuoka. My father was the oldest of five sons in the family and was responsible for the business after the death of his father. So, he remained in Japan.
My gymnastics kept me so busy, that I dropped the sport of judo. My brother and I were still attending Japanese school twice a week. It was still difficult learning the Japanese language but, by this time, I felt more comfortable with the lifestyle of Fish Harbor.
At San Pedro High, I was asked to be one of the two yell leaders for the coming football season. I accepted the offer, and we started to practice toss somersaults as well as familiarize ourselves with the school cheers and songs. Our team went all the way to the finals at Los Angeles Coliseum. It was a great season!
Gymnastics season began. I learned a lot from watching those who I lost to last season. I picked up new skills and added two more events—the side horse and the horizontal bar. Right from my first competition, I was placing first on the parallel bars and floor exercise and second or third on the other events. At the Marine League finals, I won on parallel bars and floor exercise, and ended up as the top scorer of the team. I went on to the City Finals. This was the most exciting time of my life. I was doing fine at school and looked forward to attend junior college and more gymnastics competition.
End of Part Two. Stay tuned for Part Three.
