(Interviewer) Did he ever teach you?

No, I never learned to cook for two reasons. My my father and my mother to some extent, you know, they did all the cooking. Okay. And I think you can tell from Lucretia, there's not much need for me to cook. So. So I will cook on occasion. When Lucretia was working, I cooked more often. But now she has this big new kitchen. She. She likes to cook. I would if she asked me, but she never asked. That's fine with me.

(Interviewer) Oh, and then one last thing is that, was your father born as Henry Pang Lee, or was that the paper son name?

You know, his Chinese name was Lei Jing Lui, and I never I never got the details. Lei was Li, of course, but his his last name, Jing Lui or his is given name has some meaning in, in the family culture. The fact that he's named Jing Lui, other relatives could identify actually what generation he was in. So there were some some real relatives, I'm sure, you know, if you have the relative that was a was a paper son, we'd walk through Chinatown. My dad would say, oh, these are your cousins, but they're not really your cousins. Okay? But these people are really your cousins. And and there were a couple of people who had the same Lui at the end of their name. But there was one I remember was called Ngoc Lui and that identified him as a generation previous to my dad. And so the fact that he was a Jing Lui a identified him to other relatives from the village where he was in, you know, in the hierarchy.

(Interviewer) And then did you get a Chinese name?

Yeah, mine is. My dad gave it to me. It's Lei Wai Mun. It translates into leader of men.

Oh, my brother and I were typical Chinese children. They would say, my mom and dad would say, okay, go down to Chinatown, hang out. Don't do anything to embarrass us. That was what my mother would say. My father would say, so we'd go down Chinatown hangout. There was actually very little time because besides the regular school, which lasts till perhaps 3:00, we went to Chinese school, which lasted from about 5 to 7. So we were we were in school for a pretty long time during the day. The other thing is in Chinatown, children at that time generally belonged to, for want of a better description, a kind of community center. They were generally related to churches. They were like church missions. So they're the one I went to the most was called Cameron House. And but there were there was a similar facility at the YMCA. There was a church, a Baptist church in Chinatown that was next to the Chinese playground. There was a Chinese recreation center. So kids joined groups and I would have been known as a Cameron house kid.

(Interviewer) When you went to Chinese school, was it just to learn Chinese or was there like history or?

There was some history, but primarily Chinese school in the day was recitation, and the basic teaching procedure was the teacher would read from this book, and then as a class we would recite back and the tests would be that they would call on you, you'd stand up and recite. Now the majority of us, frankly, what we did was we didn't bother to learn this. We what we did was we wrote the words phonetically in English along the side of the papers. And then when it was time to recite it just stand up and recite. Back then my Chinese was a little better because I was raised by my grandmother first few years, and so I could get if you speak Chinese or, you know, back then I could get the right tone and inflection just by knowing, you know, what the phonetic spelling was today. If I tried to repeat Chinese, you know, I wouldn't be able to get the right tone and inflection. So people would laugh. But back then I was okay. I was good enough to pass. I wasn't a stellar student, but, you know, that was okay.

Virtually all of my friends were from Cameron House, okay? I mean, there were there was a club and were in this club and so forth. But an interesting story is that back in those days, the school was so crowded that classes were divided in the grades by grades. So there would be a what they call a high sixth grade and a low sixth grade. So when somebody came to enroll, they would divide classes. So first group would be designated the high group, which didn't have anything to do with their academic prowess. It just meant they were first in and then later on a second group would come and also enroll in the school. But the net effect of that was interesting for years. It doesn't happen now, but for years we would encounter people and we'd say, Well, they'd say, I went to Commodore Stockton and say, I want to come to Stockton. And they would say, Well, I don't remember you. And then I would say, Well, you know, in such such a year I was in the high six and then that person would say, Oh, I was in a low six, and we might be just two or three months apart age wise, that we would have never encountered each other. So, you know, my my family, I was I didn't have a lot of close friends. I had one friend whom I was good friends with, but I wasn't a very social character. It wasn't that I was unfriendly. I just didn't I guess because the way I was being raised, you know, on my own, I didn't see the need to have a lot of friends.

None of us in our family ever watched much television. We didn't have a television until very late. In my interactions in Chinatown, my typical pattern in the day, back in the day was I mentioned sojourners. There's a sort of an analogy here. My family moves to the Richmond district, and I'm attending the school, which is probably 90 to 95% Caucasian and some some, some Chinese Americans thrived in that. Examples would be Allen Seid. Allen Seid was student body president; he's a couple of years older than I. But I can tell you that to become the student body president at Washington High School at that time was quite an achievement. I believe Connie Young Yu must have been a good student to a combination because of my ADD and actually mainly because I really like to play basketball. So the only only thing I was focusing on in high school was playing basketball. But I would have been by analogy, a sojourner. I would go to Washington, come home, stay at home. But every weekend I would return to Chinatown. That's where all my friends were. That's where Cameron House was and everything like that. So my my whole life revolved around being in Chinatown, not in the Richmond District.

(Interviewer) How would you say it in reflection, you know, not growing up with a lot of media interaction and then raising your daughters and obviously there's TV, there's all sorts of impact from what they're seeing on the screen. Did you see kind of how that might impact them or do they ever talk to you about it?

They do. And they they took different paths. My younger daughter once told us when she was little, says, I'm not Chinese and I didn't know how to explain to her. But when you look in the mirror, but she had all Caucasian friends and, you know, interact didn't have and I don't believe you could appreciate this I don't believe to this day she has an Asian friend. There were Asian students that she might have interacted with, but they were not really close friends. My older daughter, Meredith, and Vickie knows her was the complete opposite that siblings would be. She she was all in. But part of that was the fact that we always brought her to AACI meetings. We called her the AACI baby and she she she majored, I'm trying to remember this at UCLA, she had a double major, double minor. She majored in sociology and Asian American Studies. And then I forget what the minors were, but one of them was early childhood education, and there was something else. But she was all in and she was part of a generation, I think, prior to yours, which very much was affected by this this concept they called Asian pride. Are you familiar with the Asian Pride concept? And one of the driving things of that driving that funny word is at the time some movies came out and they called Fast and Furious.

Are you familiar with Fast and Furious? So my my daughter was into things Asian. She played basketball for JACL in a JACL basketball league. And I was telling Vickie, the JACL had I don't know if you know this, but there must be there must be a tremendous history about the JACL involvement in athletics, because they had a program which was just just really incredible. And it dated before the war and continues to this day. And so Meredith was part of that. If you look outside, when you leave, you'll see a purple car on the left, right side of the driveway. That is a Datsun 240-SX. And she bought that car because that was one of the feature cars in the first first Fast and Furious. And it was a very famous car, the race car, and this is what she wanted to change it into was called the Sylvia and the Sylvia was a very famous car for drifting. It had a five-speed transmission. It had a rear axle drive. So the other cars, Japanese cars had front wheel drive and weren't nearly as well regarded as that 240-SX. And I would say to this day, about every couple of months, a young man, usually it's a young man knocks on the door and says, “Would you like to sell that car?” And I used to play with him, but I don't play with him anymore. I would say, “How much do you want?” I said, I'll give you 1500 dollars and I know the history of the car. And I'd say, Oh heck, those are such and such wheels. Those wheels cost $2500. What do you mean? So? So I had a lot of fun with it after Meredith stopped driving that car. You know, we just just a lot of fun. It's pretty much stock now except for the wheels. But in her day, it was all lowered and it had these little things on it.

And oh, my. Meredith, after graduating from UCLA, moved to Hawaii. So When she moved to Hawaii, she left the car with us. But a funny side story is the car at the time is all lowered and, you know, just making a lot of noise. And and so I used to teach middle school and high school, and it got to a point where there were a group of kids, not necessarily Asian and lots of Hispanic kids. They would wait in the school parking lot. And so I came in because I'd come in and I'm roaring. And then, you know, schools have these bumps, so I have to go sideways to go over the bump and then slide down and go over. And then I'm driving the engine just to through these kids. And they they love that. They love that. And let me know if I'm taking up too much time. But there are some funny stories to the kids would ask me about that. And because of Lucretia, I knew some of the drift terminology. I knew what a Sylvia was. And, you know, a lot of kids would say, wow, you know what, a Sylvia is? And so so I use it as a teaching object lesson. I would say, okay, look, see if you can figure out whether or not Mr. Lee really drifts. Okay. And so they, you know, they come back and ask me a little questions. And I always had the answers. And I remember this distinctly. One day a Hispanic kid comes in the room, says, Mr. Lee really drifts. And the other kids said, How do you know? And he said, Well, he has a pipe on his on his console. And a lot of people don't know this, but people that drifted, they would have a pipe on the console. I knew about the pipe. I didn't use it. I just knew about the pipe. So I put it there and they would be done with the pipe as it would be put over the handle of the handbrake to get extra leverage. So when you're drifting, if you want to lock up the wheels, you have extra leverage. So you pull on this thing. So, you know that that that was I remember the thing that convinced them that I that I could drift that I, I don't drift and eventually I put the car back to completely stop. And, you know, I'm very, you know, modest driver. And one other funny story would be kids, you know, probably your age, maybe a little older, would ask me. I say, Mr. Lee, do you watch those Fast and Furious movies? And I would joke with them. I said, Yeah, I watched those movies. But in in my stories, the Asian guy always wins, okay? And they will laugh. But you know, that's that was my standard reply to kids that ask me about Fast and Furious.

So and the good thing about that was, you know, it motivated, I think. Vickie, were you her counselor or were you Allison's counselor? I forget that she had you know, they got… were you [Vickie] at the De Anza or at Foothill? So I don't recall how this was, but they you know, it, you know, it was it was good because neither a daughter was a maybe they inherited this for me that neither of them was a very stellar student, that when Meredith became a Asian [American] studies major, she became very serious. And so she went to UCLA and and my younger daughter is that for want of a better description among the four of us, my younger daughter, the smart one, she she graduated with honors from his in history and but she's kind of a non-conventional person you could tell if she went to UC Santa Cruz she doesn't really you know she she isn’t and a model minority.

(Interviewer) Did you come to a better understanding of your maybe racial identity or your Chinese identity being outside of San Francisco?

I think about it now. I really didn't do much interaction in there. As I said, the main my main activity was playing basketball. And then eventually I had to leave the basketball team. I think I told you that story about me not doing my homework. So I don't know what I did after that, but I didn't interact very much with students at Washington, although in general, my recollection is that students themselves generally got along fine. You know, maybe I was just an outlier. I recall that when I went to Lucretia and I went to a reunion at at UC Berkeley, my best my best friend also went to Berkeley, and we met a guy who had gone to the same high school Caucasian guy. And and I remember he said, “Oh, you went to college? And I, you know, I didn't say anything, but, you know, I did. And in in the vernacular of a movie called Pretty Woman, they asked him, did you go to college? And he said, “Oh, I went all the way and I went all the way in college.” Didn't make use of it all, but I went all the way. So but again, none of that stuff ever really bothered me. Again, that's probably due to this sojourner thing. I mean, I was completely comfortable within my own identity. It didn't matter what this fellow said or what anybody said, I was always comfortable in my you know, with who I was. Thank you.

I started by going to the University of Oregon. And the reason I went to the University of Oregon was I wasn’t a particularly good high school student. One of the incidents, if you ask me about when you know, somebody picked on me, was a my homeroom teacher at Washington High School, held up my report card and he said, look, this guy is all C's. And so, you know, so, you know, at the time I'm proud thinking, well, I just got to hang in until basketball practice so it didn't really bother me. Second incident in high school was one of my teachers called me in with a paper I had written. He said, “You didn't write this.” And and I said, “No, yeah, I wrote it.” And he said, “Well, no Chinese kids can't write like this.” So, you know, and at the times, I'm not particularly interested in school. So, you know, I says, do what you want to do. But the biggest incident that occurred to me was, I don't know if still this is still the case, but in the junior year of high school, there's this this test you take, it's called the PSAT. It's a preliminary SAT. Okay. So I take that test and I get called in and I forget who was I think was a principal that maybe it was the vice principal. They said, you have the highest score in the PSAT of the whole school, but you're a C student. How did you do that? How did you cheat? They thought I cheated. And, you know, I didn't know how to explain to them, you know, especially they wondered about my math scores, and I don't know, I didn't say this to them, but I said, look, the teacher writes the stuff up on a blackboard. I get it. Then he wants us to do the same problem ten times at home. I didn't see the point in doing that.

So, you know, I just kind of a marginal student. Then in my senior year took the SAT tests and ironically and by the way, these days in S.A.T., a perfect score is probably routine. You probably Meredith was telling me that to go to UCLA, you needed a 4.36 or something. Okay. And I'm a straight C student at the time, and it was remarkable. And I remember taking this the SAT tests, getting to it, particularly the math section. I said, well, I better miss a couple of these questions because if I get another perfect score, they're going to call me in again. So I, I forget. I think 1600 was the high score. I score 1550 and they say, okay, that's okay, yeah, they're okay. That, you know, this guy took the test, but I couldn't get into Berkeley. But I wanted to leave home. I wanted to go to a four-year school. And the only school that would accept me was University of Oregon. But when I went to Oregon; I didn't really adapt well there, so I had to come back. I didn't even finish the year, but I finished a year at City College. And at that time, this is 1962, the entrance requirements to a U.C. were much, much less stringent, probably students. Now, Vickie, you wouldn't know who it would be jealous you needed a 2.4 GPA, or you needed to show that you had at least I think it was a 1200 score on the S.A.T. and that was a reason to admit. So I applied to Berkeley and I have this 1550 score, and so they let me in. So, so then I finished up there and graduated in 66, but, you know, I wasn't a particularly I still wasn't a particularly strong student, but, you know, at least I was able to get admitted.

My major was life sciences at the time. My my mother my whole family really just thinking, you know, it would be prestigious if a family member goes to medical school. That was kind of like the, you know, the epitome. So I wasn't particularly interested in school, but I knew that they wanted me to be a pre-med major. So so I did that. Then in terms of other schooling, I did a lot of schooling, but I think people of my generation would probably agree. I stayed in school. I stayed in school because it was the Vietnam era. And if you didn't go to school, the alternative was to go go in the army. And I think I told you in the last session by then, I'm madly in love with Lucretia. I don't I don't want to get drafted. So I. I stay in school and like I said, I stayed in school, went all the way, but only because there wasn't anything I was particularly interested in doing. Except I'll get to this. But I didn't want to go in the army. The one thing I didn't realize even at the time that I. I liked it was I like being a schoolteacher. I mean, there were lots of things I did in the business world and the scientific world and so forth. But the natural, the thing that I did naturally well was just to teach school, especially teaching middle school. And people would kind of marvel at that how well I did teaching middle school and how how well middle school kids actually liked me or like coming to my class because middle school was kind of a notorious age.

(Interviewer) So going back to the Vietnam era, you were at a campus when all, all the isms were going, Mm hmm. Everything from environmentalism to, you know, racism to women's studies to, you know, social justice issues, freedoms. You were in the middle of it.

Yes and no. I am of an age where I actually predated a lot of these things. In fact, the big demonstration that was going on in Berkeley at the time was called the Free Speech Movement. There's a fellow named Mario Savio. He's famous for this. And, you know, as I look back upon pictures of that era, Mario Savio Savio was wearing a a suit and tie. He's wearing a sport coat and tie. And I got to thinking, okay, well, I thought this guy was a radical at the time, but it was interesting. I missed all of the things later. For instance, my cousin and I have friends who went to San Francisco State and San Francisco State was very there was really a lot of stuff going on. There was stuff going on at Cal, too. But maybe in terms of Asian awareness, I think San Francisco State was probably more attuned to that culture or to those issues than in Berkeley, where there was in Berkeley, there were a lot of protests, you know, tear gas, the whole thing. But it seemed to me, at least at the time, that the Asian American focus occurred more at San Francisco State. But Lucretia and I weren't involved in any of that. We had moved from Cal. I did what I would call years of social service. I joined a group, and this is President Johnson at the time. But at that time there were two groups there was the Peace Corps, and then there was something called the Domestic Peace Corps. I didn't want to go overseas, but in a Domestic Peace Corps, you joined them and you went to various migrant camps and taught kids in the migrant camps.

And as I said, I really enjoyed teaching so and I got a teaching credential as a result at Fresno State and then subsequently moved to Los Angeles. And Lucretia followed me down. She, she then went to Fresno State, got a teaching credential. Then we got married and moved to moved to Southern California. There I attended UCLA on what is called an off-campus program. I worked for a company called TRW Systems and the research project at the time was designing life support systems. So I did a doctoral program in building life support systems, but I actually never attended UCLA on campus. I worked in Manhattan Beach at the TRW system facility. I also continued teaching high school, and the reason I was teaching high school and going to this doctoral program at the same time was I got this job teaching high school chemistry at a private school was called the Buckley School, and they were very, very prominent and very well-connected. And so they said to me, boy, we really like you. You're teaching. Can you stay? I said, Well, no, I'm going to go to school. They said, Well, what does it take for you to go to school? I said, Well, I need to go to graduate school for mainly because I'm concerned about getting drafted. So the principal at the school says, don't worry about that, we'll take care of it for you.

So, you know, I'm 23 years old, and I'm thinking, can you really take care of this for me? And the next thing you know, I'd say within a month I get in the mail a draft deferment card, and the draft deferment is called a 2A deferment. And what it is, is to a deferment is a given to a person who is doing a job vital to the national defense. So the fact that I'm teaching high school chemistry and physics at this private high school, apparently it was good enough to be a be a, get a draft deferment. But the real reason that happened is some of the board members were well-connected to the military. And even then I would say that I was liberal minded, but the school was very conservative. It was called the Buckley School for one and four two, I'm pretty sure, but I never asked. The board member who was a military person was Curtis LeMay. So Curtis LeMay was an Air Force general who was just really, you know, a war hawk. But as near as I can tell, he's probably the only one who I think had military connections. So my vision is that Curtis LeMay gets on the phone, calls somebody and says, there's this guy, take care of this.

I used to teach have student teachers come to from San Jose State and they would say, you know, how do you know how how is it the same question? How is it that you can teach middle school? And I told him there's there's this thing called a middle school gene. And the way you can tell if you have the middle school gene is you watch the kids and and as you watch their antics, I would tell the student teachers is the first thing you do is laugh and then you get mad. Then you probably had the middle school gene, but if you get mad first watching them, then you don't have the middle school gene like Lucretia does not have the middle school gene she taught. You can ask her later. She taught middle school for a year. She she doesn't want to be anywhere near a middle school classroom. That two things. One is their antics I could live with, and I mentioned that I had an attention problem. One thing about teaching in a middle school somewhat similar in a high school, but in middle school, you know, the science classes are done by periods. So I just prepare. I had several different preps, but all I have to do is prep for about 50 minutes of instruction. I could design programs that were really interesting to kids. Lucretia will tell you a bit about them, but I had some different ideas about how you approach teaching science and then after 50 minutes, the kids leave, you know, and I've refreshed and then you got to start all over. So the fact that it was less than an hour helped me, but it I wasn't slacking. I was I was preparing what I would think are some pretty good lessons. But, you know, 50 minutes was about the right amount of time for me to plan to do something. So and I was the basketball coach so that the being the basketball coach made me popular with the kids. You know, they'd see me. One of the things about a school is if I'm sure, you know, if the kids see you outside of the classroom, you know, they would you know, they'd look at it differently. And the fact that I coached the basketball teams and organized, you know, the the the the the games and things that that really sat well with the kids.

(Interviewer) Like now I want to segue to you've already been talking about Lucretia and your children, but we heard from Lucretia, her side of the story. We'd like to hear from you. And you said that while you were at Berkeley, you're madly in love. But before the sparks flew, so to speak, how did you two meet? And then when did you know the sparks were flying?

Well, we actually first met in Fresno in college. There used to be an organization called the let's see…Chinese Scholastic Intercollegiate Organization. And what they would do is they would put on yearly programs and invite basically Chinese kids. They I don't think they checked, but they would invite these Asian kids to go to someplace and they would have events. They would have a dances and, you know, foods and things. So the CSIO event in Fresno was a good event because if you go to Fresno, there's nothing else to do. So, you know, all the kids stay together. So, you know, you, me, for instance, the following year was in San Francisco, but in San Francisco, there's too many distractions. There were so so what happens is Lucretia comes to Fresno. You know, she's anticipating meeting someone. Everybody's going, anticipating meeting someone. I go to Fresno. But again, I mentioned I liked playing basketball. There were two big events. Then one big event was a basketball tournament, and the other big event was a formal dance at the end. So my interest is playing in the basketball tournament. So I go down there and I met Lucretia and I said, when this girl's really cute, I like her, but I can't ask her out because the only reason I went down there was to play basketball. So I got basketball shirt, shoes and converse, you know, Converse. I think there's those Chuck Taylors and, you know, my jersey and shorts and stuff, but I don't have anything to wear to a formal. And Lucretia, her mom, was an outstanding seamstress. So Lucretia had this big, beautiful dress. I'm going to show you that dress later. I think that was a dress. But we we meet and at the time thinking, oh, jeez, I really like this girl, but I can't ask her out. I can't go to a formal in my basketball shorts. Right. So we leave.

But the following year, Lucretia has transferred to Berkeley from from junior college. And I still remember seeing her walking through Sather Gate. You know how things stick in your mind. I said, and I remember thinking, Oh, that's that's the girl from Fresno. And then we met at a dance. And then and then we just, you know, stayed together ever since. But we met we met again at a Chinese Student’s Club dance. And that's why we mentioned we met at Berkeley. We had actually met in Fresno, but we didn't get together. So it was just pure chance. But it worked out well. My family had a restaurant in Chinatown. It was called San To Yun. And you go down the stairs is on Clay Street, yah, and it was a real dive restaurant. I mentioned it earlier. So the story is her father, whom I really close to, was really, really close to. But we have actually gone out yet. I've asked her to go out, but we haven't gone out together. And Lucretia is explaining to her dad, who's just a model citizen, it's hard to describe John Chan, but just take my word for it. That's one of a kind. Oh, I told you that story that day about her not wanting to meet someone like her dad. So they go to they're going to go to this, right. Their regular restaurant, but it's not open. So they her dad says, okay, well, I know this restaurant, you know, let's go there. So they come down the stairs. I still kind of remember this. This there's a window there and there's stairs. So you can see feet coming down. But I don't know who it is. I'm just next to that window is this counter where the cash register is. And my job isn't actually to work in a restaurant. My job is to help clean up when they close and then take my dad home. We live in a Richmond district at that time, so, you know, my job is to drive him home and help him clean up and stuff.

But lo and behold, it's Lucretia and her family coming down and there's a huge coincidence there. I happened to be studying. I happened to have his book open every and her dad is just this model guy, and he was really impressed. So, Lucretia tells him I'm going out with this guy and and then they come down the stairs and there's me sitting behind the counter studying. And her dad was really impressed with that. So that after that I could do no wrong. Okay. They take me on family vacations and everything. They really wanted me to marry Lucretia, but the first impression that he got of me was this really studious guy. And Lucretia probably told him I was a pre-med major, so that's good. If you're telling your Asian parents that you're going to date pre-med major. Okay. So, you know, but you know that that one little incident. Yeah. Solidified my standing with her family.

Yes, going back, I told you I was working at TRW Systems and at that point, I really thought I'd become an aerospace scientist, that that was my objective at that time. But in the I guess it's the early seventies, the aerospace industry is in decline and there are layoffs going on at TRW systems and they want to transfer me. Lucretia will verify this. They want to transfer me to a place called Hazelton Laboratories. They want to put me in charge of a lab there. And I came home and told Lucretia, Well, I think I'm going to get laid off. But they have offered me a job at Hazelton Laboratories. And Lucretia says, Where's Hazelton Laboratory? And I said, I was in a place called Falls Church, Virginia, and my geography isn't very good. So she asked me worse. Falls Church, Virginia. I said, I think Virginia is where all those coal mines are. Okay, so she gives me this look like, well, you're going to be awfully lonesome out there by those coal mines by yourself. Now, it later turns out that Falls Church, Virginia, is a suburb of Washington, DC. So if I had known better, I probably would have taken that job just to go. Maybe it was supposedly three-year commitment, but you know, read that they wouldn't have been able to do anything if I didn't keep them for three years. And then she asked me where, where we're going to end up. And I said to her, well, there are labs in Alabama, there are labs in Florida. And so if I stay in Washington or in Falls Church, I probably will end up somewhere in the South.

And Lucretia, I wouldn't describe Lucretia as a bad ass, but she she runs a show. Okay? So she tells me, no, I'm not I'm not going near I'm not going anywhere near those places. So I said to her, well, where would you like to go? And she said, I've always wanted to live in Palo Alto. So I said to her, Well, you can be unemployed anywhere. And that was a time when you could be unemployed anywhere. So I said, We'll move to Palo Alto. And she liked Palo Alto because she liked the city and its infrastructure. It was close to San Mateo, so we moved. We first stayed we first stayed here. Actually, my my father and my mother-in-law were here. And we you know, we stayed with him when I was looking for a job. And Lucretia is looking for a job. It's a very tough time to be looking for a job, actually, because, as I said, there are layoffs going on. So finally I get two offers, and I would say my life is a series of mistakes. My life is a series of making choices that I like. They might not necessarily be the best choice.

So I am offered two positions or have a chance at two jobs. One is at a company called Fairchild Semiconductor, and Fairchild Semiconductor becomes Intel. So I don't know what would have happened, but if I had gone to Fairchild Semiconductor, I probably would have stayed in the semiconductor industry, maybe found those guys that started Intel in business, but instead the other job offer was with something called Westinghouse Learning Corporation and Westinghouse Learning Corporation was doing something called programmed instruction. I didn't mention this, but I was interested in programmed instruction. It was using a computer to to teach. So I took the job at Westinghouse Learning Corporation and worked for not that long, maybe a year. But at that time I was developing curriculum materials and later on I'm sure you mentioned that AACI. AACI had a lot of background at that time in the curriculum field, so that's kind of how I ventured into that. But after a year of doing this, I decided, well, this is a I mean, I like education, but I don't really like doing this. So the see did I go directly to the yeah, I, I found a job teaching middle school here in San Mateo actually. So I did that for four years and was for want of a better description and I was very good at it. And one thing I remember in particular at that time was I was very popular with Asian students. I used to take Asian students on field trips along with African American students, and we'd go to Chinatown. And I remember these kids, you know, the African American kids, particularly my my family, you know, my mom and dad had been in all these associations and things. So we'd go into the back alleys in Chinatown. I'd take them up to the Lee Family Association, you know, knock on a door. And when the person answered, they would recognize me as my they would just record it. So we'd go through all these different places in Chinatown. They really loved that. So. So I did that for a few years.

But then something I forget, you have notes, and so hopefully I'm not jumping past some life changing events occur and I'm perfectly happy teaching middle school. Lucretia is teaching elementary school and she's perfectly happy. We own a house. We're just, you know, everything's good. But what happened is. Proposition 13. Proposition 13 comes and there's a freeze on property tax, which generally was beneficial to homeowners. We were homeowners at the time. But the problem was it it especially in the Palo Alto area and Menlo Park, it really affected school funding. And what happened was this Lucretia worked in a small district called Los Alamitos School District, and they they lost some funding and they had to lay teachers off. And I forget Lucretia will remember, but I think at the time, we're young and it's at the time you had to have something like 13 years of experience before they didn't lay you off. So Lucretia loses her job. She's at home not doing anything. And then she says something that's sort of I wouldn't say it's frightening, but she says, well, I guess it's time to start a family, okay? And I'm going, okay, you just lost your job. I'm working here. I don't have many years in as a teacher, so I don't know if we're going to have a family. And also we had a house. Vickie has been to the house. It was a house we were remodeling. So I needed money to remodel. So I said, I better do something different. So I left teaching and I went to work in industry.

Okay, so let's see. I don't know how to describe this. It doesn't sound like a schoolteacher could just hop right into industry, but if I have one talent, I suppose it's selling myself. So I get a job with a company that's a printing company. And ironically, they they interview me, and they want to know if I know this process. It's called screen process printing. And the reason I know about screen process printing is Lucretia at that time, besides being a teacher is an artist. You know, she did street fairs and she did screen process printing. So I knew the whole process. So I could describe the process to this company, and I'm not that old at the time, but this company, which is the largest screen process printing company in America, I mean, this is a big company. They had just fired their president and they said, well, this guy seems pretty sharp. Let's make him the president. So I go from being a schoolteacher to the CEO and president of the largest screen printing company in America. And screen process printing is a little different. The kinds of things we printed were like, if you look at a video game, there's a glass panel and it has a graphics on it. And that's done by the screen process, screen printing process. So we did lots of printing and our customers were companies like Atari. And I think I told you this story. We actually were the first printers for Apple. Apple Computer was in two buildings in Cupertino at the time. And we print the first Apple logo, you know, the logo with the colors and a little tip and the second printing, a much larger company doing what's called lithographic process came and pushed us out.

And we all said at the time, that's absolutely the wrong thing. And so I don't think you see it that often now, but every once in a while you drive around, you see a car with an Apple logo on it and it's all white. And the reason it's all white is it has been produced using the lithographic process, which puts it on a very, very thin layer of ink, as opposed to the screen process printing, which puts down a very heavy layering. So two things. One, this process is much, much more resilient. And two, we designated that the the the decal be covered with a UV blocker, you know, so that it would stay. But obviously that would be more expensive. So we we didn't we didn't stay with that. So I stayed in the printing business for a while. I should say parenthetically, how does a guy go from having a Ph.D. in physics to working in a printing business?

And it there's an interesting story there. When I was in middle school, I went to a school called Francisco Junior High School. And in those days they looked at Chinese boys especially, and they said, well, these guys aren't going anywhere. They're, you know, that we need to put them in vocational programs. So a Francisco Junior High School, I was in a vocational program and in vocation. I love that program. The classes that I took besides the regular English and math, the vocational programs were classes like Machine Shop, print shop, electrical shop, mechanical drawing, just all these, all these things. And so when I went back and went into the printing business, ironically, having spent probably 12 years in college, the thing that I found most useful in my work after I started doing these things was the fact that I had done a lot of vocational training. So I knew, you know, how the printing process worked. I could read a drawing because of the mechanical drawing, you know, the drawing classes. And so I could operate pretty well in a business that required you to do a lot of vocational type things. So I did that for a few years, not with this company, actually this company in the 1980s was a time almost a recession. So this company actually went out of business. But I, I went to another printing company, and I don't know, is anybody here in a rock and roll music or something or.

Okay, so I'm out of a job at that point. This is a few years after here that I came to know a guy named Lavonne Muscovy, and his name is probably lost to history. He had a print shop called TEA Lautrec lithography. And Lavonne said to me, “Oh, Ron, I see you're you don't have this job anymore. I'm going to give you this print shop because I want to retire.” He was kind of old at the time. And and so he gives me this print shop, and I'm running a print shop. Lucretia, who's very good at keeping books, is the bookkeeper. And the significance of TEA Lautrec lithography is that Lavonne was what you would call a house shop for Bill Graham. Bill Graham, this is a time when Bill Graham is doing all these rock concerts, okay? And so we when we took over the print shop, we at the time weren't really printing these things. But he, for instance, the shop printed of 200 and some rock posters done at Winterland. And for Bill Graham, we had printed probably maybe 210 of them. So we had printed like well, on the wall he had these shelves and on the shelves were these sample posters and he had some posters like Grateful Dead posters, Pink Floyd posters, just all these really probably those posters now are, you know, two or $300 apiece. And I would guess he had more than 10,000 posters there, but I couldn't make a go of it. It was a variety reason I couldn't make a go of it. So I told Lavonne, Lavonne I can't make this okay. And one of the reasons was he was a union, so he had union workers and his history goes all the way back to when, you know, labor movement in San Francisco. He was, you know, one of those fellows. And I said, well, Lavonne, I can't make it, so I'm going to give you back the shop. And the reason I couldn't make it was I told you, I learned a lot of things, but I couldn't operate a press, okay? If I could have operated a press or done a film or something that would contribute to the shop, then I would have been okay, but let's see. At the time we were doing Journey posters. Do you guys know Journey or you do? Whoa. You guys are older than I thought. Okay, so we're doing all the Journey posters. That's that's to show you there. But I left the shop, and because I felt bad, I didn't keep a single poster. Everybody in my family has a poster from TEA Lautrec Lithography that you see that we have a very large collection of posters.

But because I felt guilty, I didn't I didn't take a single I did take one poster which was in my sales kit, but I gave that away. So and ironically on site stories that that's the most famous Grateful Dead poster ever printed. It was called the Egyptian Tour Poster. And I don't know what it was worth, but I can tell you that it was the most famous poster ever printed. And as an example, when we would go to Bill Graham's office, he had the Egyptian tour poster on the wall behind his desk. That's how much he thought about it. So so let's see what happens. Print shop. I know this is a long story, but I did a lot of things somewhere along the line. I think it was after this, but I'm not sure.

I mentioned I had a lot of knowledge about vocational, vocational things and a very good friend of my own and AACI is this fellow named Paul Fong. You must know. Paul okay, so Paul comes to me and says, My family owns this property in Palo Alto. I want to form a limited partnership and I want to build some condos on it. But Paul didn't want to. I didn't want to take that on. And if you have learned anything from listening to me, it is that I'm sure I, I sort of look smarter than I am. Okay. So Paul says, Ron, why don't you form a limited partnership and build these condos for me? And I said, well, I'm not doing anything. Okay, I'll do that. So we formed a limited partnership, found an architect to build these condos there on Middlefield Road and then lo and behold, it came that one of his one of Paul's family members wanted to be in charge of this project. It was pretty much turnkey at that point. He just had to, you know, just say go. So I didn't really object to that, you know, because, you know, this is his family and it's their property. So I said, okay. So I left that project and I had see, that's when I decided to go back to teaching. Okay? So I couldn't find a teaching job. I mean, nobody would hire me because at that point I'm pretty old, okay? It's just older. So I would apply, I'd settle. Ideally, I would go to Palo Alto and this is a bit of an AACI story I think. They're interviewing me and they say, well, what have you been doing? So I tell them, and then I said, Now what are you doing now? And I said, well, I'm doing two things.

One is I'm on this curriculum commission evaluating textbooks, okay? And the other thing I was doing was I was helping on another curriculum commission which called a science curriculum commission. There was a Japanese American fellow who was in charge of this project. His name was Ken Kitajima. So I have trouble finding a job. Eventually October comes and I see, I see this listing for a science teaching job in San Jose. So I go down to interview for that job and the people interviewing me says this is the worst middle school in San Jose. Everybody sends their incorrigible kids to this school. It's so bad that we have our own police substation to try to keep track of things. And a teacher who is teaching science has left. So we need something right away and right away meant this is the day before Halloween. So I said, okay, well, I need a job. I'll take it on. So I take that job. And like I said, middle school is particularly middle school science is sort of my, you know, my strong suit. So I stayed there a few years and I taught there and had a very good experience. The only reason I left, I believe I went to another school or closer by. I changed schools and went to a school in Redwood City. And the reason for that is this school was pretty far away. It was way down off of Blossom Hill Road. It was from here. You had to go, you know, down 85 all the way almost to where it intersected with 101. And it was just a long drive. So I found this other job and I. I changed changed schools. And then I taught at this other school for a couple of years, taught in Hayward for a couple of years. And then retired.

Okay. Well, I think I would say in terms of activism, I wouldn't say that you needed to have an actual sentence type definition. I think activism is a matter of being there and being there and using whatever skills and knowledge that you have, you know, to recognize a need and then doing what you can. One of the regrets I have is I never talked to my mom about, you know, things. So the other thing I would suggest young people do is, you know, talk to talk to some elders, talk to them. You know, it may not seem that important. Maybe if you query them now, you will learn things that will surprise you. So and how that how that relates to activism is no matter what a young person thinks is going on now, you know, as much consternation is going on now, there are a couple of famous phrases. One is that the past is prologue. You know, if you don't know about the past, you know, you're not going to know what to do. And then there's George Santayana, who said, you know, those who fail to remember the past are doomed to repeat it. So I suggest that our kids you don't need a program for activism, but you should build some knowledge about what's going on. And then if you do that, you will see things that go on around you today, which happened, you know, 200 years ago. And it's still going on.