The funeral director summed up his life in one sentence:
”
He was a self-employed farmer for 50 years.
”
One sentence to tell the life story of a simple man.
The funeral director summed up his life in one sentence: “He was a self-employed farmer for 50 years.” One sentence to tell the life story of a simple man.
His funeral brought people together from all around South County and members of the Japanese community from Salinas, Hollister, Castroville, and Gilroy last Saturday.
Bill never talked about his days serving as a Japanese-American in the Marine Corps during WWII, but the album he left behind pictures him in uniform with his buddies, sitting at a table with checkered cloth, glasses raised. Bill’s blonde friends are smiling, while his mouth is hidden by his glass. What is he thinking as the only Japanese-American in the group?
After the war, Bill farmed a piece of land left to him by his father, who farmed it before him.
Bill’s friends say they remember him always smiling, always making them laugh. His four nephews each worked for him at one time or another as they were growing up. They recall how he taught each of them to ride a motorcycle as a child, and to drive a tractor as a teenager. He taught them to irrigate fields, lay out sprinkler pipes, plow the soil, paint his barn, and spray the weeds.
When he talked, they used to laugh as kids because of how much his voice sounded like Tony the Tiger from the Sugar Frosted Flakes cereal commercials. “They’re grrreat!”
He was a creature of habit. After each hard day’s work on the ranch, he went for what seemed like years taking his nephews to Der Wienerschnitzel and ordering chili dogs. Well, maybe once in awhile they’d get a Polish dog. Eventually, he finally moved on to a nearby Chinese restaurant, and that’s when his nephews recall entering the era of ginger beef.
Another of his rituals with his employees was “break time.” He’d come out and say, “Have a beer; it’ll make a man out of you.”
“I remember when my brother Roland was trying to cut down on beer,” his nephew Steve recalled. “Sounding exasperated, Bill would say to Roland with a friendly grin, ‘How am I going to make a man out of you?!’ To me, this was just his humorous side coming out.”
When reminded of this, Roland laughs, then gets tears in his eyes. Bill’s wife of 43 years covers her face and laughs behind her hands.
Bill was known for his somewhat echo-ey conversations with his brother Henry, also a farmer. “The price of lettuce is going up again,” Henry would say. “The price of lettuce is going up again,” Bill would agree.
“They say it’s supposed to rain tomorrow,” Henry would say. “They say it’s supposed to rain tomorrow,” Bill would answer, resting his hands in his pockets.
“There’s been a lot of rain this year.” “Yep, uh huh, there’s been a lot of rain this year,” Bill said, tipping his baseball cap up and then settling it back down again on his forehead.
He had many friends in the farming community and friends he enjoyed going hunting with.
He maintained lasting friendships with people like Lefty Miyanaga, who went back to the days when he rode motorcycles with the Ramblers. Another friend from his motorcycling days, Richard Fabela, was someone who meant a lot to him for more than 40 years.
Brother, Marine bridging two cultures, husband, uncle who helped shape four nephews, friend, and a man everybody enjoyed being around. This column marks the passing of my husband’s Uncle Bill, “a self-employed farmer for 50 years.”
