Steve Hayashi and Jason Dare: Stories from school to volunteering

00:02 Got it. Okay.

00:04 Right. Hi, Steve. So this is Jason Dare on this is our, I guess, our San Francisco Village story core project, talking to two different board members of San Francisco Village. Today's August 3, 2022. Wow, the year has gone by so fast. There's myself, Jason Dare, who's been a village board member for less than, I would even say, a year, less than probably six months. Brand new to the group, which has been a really great group. And I got passionate working with older individuals as I started my technology class teaching seniors at a organization in San Francisco probably now, about 17 years ago. And 17 years ago, I wasn't married. I didn't have any kids. I was young. I only thought about myself. But working with older individuals for that long of a period and with consistent students, I saw changes in age and the individual. And that really, as an. My background is, I'm an educator. So as an educator, we're always looking for development, how to improve things. You know, how to teach people new things and make sure that they're learning. And, you know, seeing the cognitive changes over time in older adults really made me aware and thoughtful about how to change things or how to maybe create programs to improve memory, cognitive thinking, and the quality of what happens when we age. So, of course, since then, which was what I say, 17 years ago, I've gotten married. I've had two kids. The individuals at this senior residence home that I worked with have become surrogate grandparents to my children. And now that I'm in my. I'm approaching 50, I understand even more the concept of age. And now it relates to me and my two aging parents as well, time and age. So it's. Being part of the village is something that has become very personal to me in many different ways, and I hope to learn a lot more and contribute a lot more.

02:38 Okay. My name is Steve Hayashi. I'm 78 years old. My wife actually found out about the village about, say, ten years ago and got us to join up as volunteers. And our first volunteer job was taking another couple about our age, actually. No, I'm sorry, wrong. It wasn't. They were older than us by about ten years, out to help shop for some groceries. And it turned out, as we talked to them, they were way into the hawaiian music scene in the city. And at that time, Judy and I were taking ukulele at the japanese community center. So that was an instant connection. So it was a great. They became basically long time friends. And so that was our initial connection with the village. And then after a while, a few years I. I joined as on the board. I got on the board, and one of the first things I did was help them through their process. It was just when the village was going to move into their headquarters that they have now. They were renting a place before, and the new place needed somebody to help basically honcho the construction and the build out. And there were a lot of questions going on, like, should we put a gate in, like that iron gate in front, and how should we do the inside? And I worked with the construction company to work through all of those details with Kate. So that's how I got really involved and doing on the board. So it's been a great progression, I think, as we've gone through. And we still are doing lots of things with basically things that people do with the village. A lot of their programs we're still involved with. So we think it's a fantastic place. And we've been there, as I said, probably like eight or so years now. And I've been on the board for about. Probably almost that.

05:23 That's great. That's great. That's wonderful. Yeah, I know. It's definitely a great organization. And it was a smart idea to put up the gate, right?

05:33 Yeah, with the bus stop, you know, there's lots of people hanging out there, and we used to have a guy who used to wander in, and he's.

05:45 Gone now, but I grew up around the office of where the village is located. I grew up actually on 8th Avenue between Fulton and Cabrillo. I'm midway down the block right there. So I know that area very well. And every time I visit my parents, who still live in the area, I park over there. And, yes, there are some individuals that try to shelter in the bus stop. So it's good that you have a game.

06:13 Yes.

06:16 But yeah, I mean, so it's interesting because you started as a volunteer.

06:20 Yes.

06:22 So, and now, I mean, do you. Where besides being a board member, do you feel like you're still part of the volunteer part of it, or are you part of the group that would be benefiting from services from the village? Where are you?

06:37 And so far, we haven't. We haven't benefited in terms of being something done for us. We've gone to the activities. I've started something there. I did it a while ago, and then Covid stopped it. And we're starting again something called movies with Steve during the week, set up and book the conference room, and we'll put on movies. And I've got a bunch of very strange movies that nobody's ever seen before.

07:13 So what are a few of the titles? The odd ones.

07:18 Okay. The one we just showed Monday was something called the vast of night.

07:25 No idea.

07:26 I'm sure you've never heard of it.

07:28 No idea.

07:28 Independent movie. It was made, it's about two kids, one who's just graduated from high school and another who's still in high school. And what they did over one night. And it has to do with, at the end of the movie, they get captured and abducted by aliens in a spaceship. And during the movie they're going and interviewing people who claim they have had interactions with, with aliens. It's like I say, it's a very unusual movie, but I'm looking it up.

08:12 Right now and I'm actually going to try to watch it.

08:15 I'm very curious if you, if you're on, let's see, Amazon prime has it.

08:21 Yeah. Okay. I'll take a look. I've never heard of that one, but it sounds very entertaining. Okay, well, I definitely want to hear more of your suggestions later because I'm always looking for actually something to watch that's not in a foreign language, which tends to be the only choices we get now.

08:40 Yes. Right. So my other background, I came to the states after high school because I went to school in the Boston area. I came up and I went to Mitzvah. And then I worked there for a few years. And I got back to California in 1975 and worked for a startup company called Tandem Computers.

09:10 Oh, wow. Yes. I love tandem.

09:12 Oh, okay. I went there for 21 years.

09:16 Wow.

09:17 And then after 21 years, I went to Cisco and worked for them for like ten years. And I finally retired. We both, Judy and I retired the same summer in 2007.

09:31 What did you focus on or what was your focus at MIT?

09:36 MIT, it was electrical engineering.

09:39 Okay. I've actually gone to the MIT. Was it the learning, what's it called? The MIT learning center or whatever. I mean, they're big kind of think tank for technology.

09:51 Right.

09:51 And this is back in like 90.

09:54 Uh huh.

09:55 Maybe in 2000 or so. So, you know, kind of in the earlier days. Yeah. I was part of, they had a collaborative program with Boston Museum of Science for something called the Computer Clubhouse, which was a program that was sponsored by intel. And the goal was to create technology clubhouses or centers in different community based organizations all throughout the United States. And I was instrumental in helping write the application for one in San Francisco that got accepted. So as part of that, they flew us out to Boston, went to MIT, went to Boston Museum of Science, and talked to them about technology. And, you know, these are the days where, you know, macro media was still actually a company, you know, some of these other names that you don't even hear of anymore. But it's basically having a center full of computers, all the software the kids can use, Internet, everything with some individual there that's kind of creative and expressive, that can kind of motivate inner city youth to discover technology.

11:02 That's terrific. When I was there at MIT, it was from, let's see, 66 through 70.

11:12 Wow.

11:13 And my junior project was writing some code to simulate how cardiac waves move through the heart, because that's all electrical. I was on a digital equipment computer called the PDP one. That's how old it was. But the only time I could, I'd have to use the whole machine. It couldn't be timeshared. So the only time I could get computer time was from midnight till eight in the morning. So my, I guess that was my junior year, that was my schedule. I'd sleep during the day, get up just before midnight, go to the computer lab, do my work there, and then go to my classes, which I scheduled all for the morning. It was a weeding distance for about six months.

12:10 Incredible. Incredible. I mean, were you there for that duration of period because the processing was just so slow?

12:17 Well, I was there because the computer was used as a timeshare computer during the day. Lots of people could get on it, but I had to, my program, I had to take over the whole computer. I couldn't timeshare with anybody doing like a real time simulation, so the computer couldn't be interrupted. Yeah.

12:37 Amazing.

12:40 That was interesting time of life.

12:43 And you kept with electrical engineering as your computer?

12:47 Yeah, yeah. And that's how I got, you know, in tandem and, and all of that stuff I worked.

12:54 Well, it's exciting to me because, you know, I have a background. I'm kind of self taught in technology. My formal background is actually in psychology. I went to school and I focused on psychology, and at a moment I was going to actually try to focus on organizational psychology, working with organizations and companies to better the environment that they work in. But for some weird reason, I got kind of strayed into going into education. And my first business that I started back in 2000 was actually teaching people technology and computers and teaching them how to do software, which was why in the center I created everything I put together. We put all our PCs together by hand, we set up our own network together by hand. So in that process, you learn which is the best way to learn and you start to think. You kind of have to think like a computer to understand a computer, right? So you start to understand the computer. And, yeah, it was great because we're teaching classes to kids and adults, and now that's kind of flourished into what I have now, which is education focused, working with languages and tutoring, but bringing in technology to improve that learning process. You know, like, what can we add to make it more effective to make learning how to gauge or monitor or keep the data and the improvements of the students and how to keep benchmarks and metrics, which is really important. So it's been fun. It's been a real ride.

14:35 How many people do you have working for you now? Or is this all a solo thing that you're doing so over?

14:42 I mean, you know, when these questions first came out, I said, oh, my goodness, how am I going to answer all these questions? Starting a business in 2000, the business has obviously changed a lot and gone through a lot of different transitions for numerous reasons. The.com bubble bust, so nobody wanted to learn computers anymore. We couldn't charge the same amount for our classes. Then we had to focus on something else. But obviously now the.com bubble, well, it's kind of busting now, but it really flourished after that. But it's, I think for me, it's, I don't know, it's figuring out what is the trend, what's going on, turning into tutoring, then turning into Mandarin language programs, then moving into education and doing afterschool programs. So now the most recent thing, because of COVID or actually pre Covid, was trying to create a program where we can give credentialed teachers that work in the public sector the opportunity to, number one, get more income because the cost of living in San Francisco outweighs the wages that they actually get paid, and to give them a platform for them to market their own selves and their services to students. So we created a platform where the teachers can actually connect with students and students can connect with credentialed teachers, which then validate those individuals. So instead of parents or kids going on Craigslist and trying to type in the word tutor and get who knows who, you know, now you go to our platform, you type in the word tutor, and you're sure to get a credentialed teacher that's qualified vetted because we only used teachers that are currently active in the classroom, you know, because, you know, bless teachers that are older. But we wanted somebody that is current and up to date with the current educational system. And what is being taught in the schools. So we wanted to make sure our teachers were currently working in the classroom, which means that they're also credentialed and they work with the students. So for that we have about 200 teachers there. For my after school programs, there's about 25 teachers that we have Mandarin teachers. So yeah, it changes a lot.

17:08 Wow, terrific though.

17:10 Yeah, yeah, it's tiring.

17:15 Okay.

17:16 At one point I actually started a program that would go into schools to help my, the group that was really dear to my heart for a while was the middle school students, you know, grades six through eight, the kids that are going through puberty that aren't the little kids anymore, but they're also not the big kids that are, you know, completely mature and focused. And to me I always thought they're kind of like the middle child. They're just kind of like, okay, they're here, I, they'll grow up one day, you know, they're going through an awkward period of time. Let's just leave them there. But I wanted to create after school programs to teach them technology. So I brought kind of like that computer clubhouse idea to the schools, use the technology they had and hired individuals to come and teach them programming to, you know, teach them how to use different multimedia tools to convey news within their school, which was know, exciting.

18:14 What do you do for recreation or do you have any time for recreation these days?

18:20 I have too much time because I have so much time. I have all these ideas and I have the ability to use technology to implement these ideas pretty quickly. But I have two kids. I have an eight year old and a twelve year old and they obviously take up a lot of time driving them around and keeping them busy. One's really into soccer, so it's taking them out to the pitch and you know, kicking the ball around. And then my other daughter just loves to play. So, you know, trying to spend as much time as possible with them is important. But for myself, I guess a big hobby of mine would be I volunteer at the California Academy of Sciences and I'm actually a scuba diver there. Oh yeah. So since the academy reopened, I think it's probably about twelve years now. I, as my daughter says, I clean the windows inside the fish tank. I like that they get a little more glamorous than that. But yeah, I go diving and they have three different tanks that we can dive in and I, which is, you know, 85 degree coral reef tank which has beautiful fish. There's an Amazon tank which has huge fish that are larger than me and then there's the California coast tank, which is chilly and cold with the rockfish, and, you know, the wolf yields and all that. So we feed the anemones in that tank. We feed the wolf yields, and then, of course, we do maintenance and do a lot of waving to kids that go, bye.

19:55 We've been there. That's great.

19:57 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's definitely enjoyable. It's fun. You know, it's great to just drive, you know, ten minutes and go diving in a beautiful tank with visibility that is, you know, as far as the eye can see.

20:12 Yep, yep.

20:13 What are some of your hobbies?

20:15 Well, let's see. What are we doing these days? We. In terms of hobbies, I don't know if you could really classify hobbies, but we like to go to live stage productions. So there is an outfit in Palo alto called theatreworks that puts on live plays that we go to, and we also are season ticket holders to the symphony and to the opera. So that's starting again. So we're doing those things, and we both like to see movies. So we go out to movies a lot.

21:01 Wonderful. Have you. Okay, you're into movies. Are you a traditionalist? Do you like the old movie theaters? Or have you been able to adopt these big megaplexes that have, you know, come out and with these reclining seats and.

21:20 Yeah, right. I guess our favorite one is that one, the century, right, in daily City. That's one of our favorites because it's got free parking right next door, and there's a restaurant right there, too. So we can, you know, make a whole afternoon or evening of it. So that's that. We also have, I guess another hobby would be we own a houseboat.

21:41 Oh, cool.

21:42 And it's docked up. Let me ignore this one.

21:50 Hang on.

21:54 Sorry, I didn't turn this off. It's on Trinity Lake, which is up northwest of Reading, I guess.

22:06 Yeah.

22:08 So we use. We, you know, we go up there a bunch late lately. We're having some work done on it, and coordinating that from here is sort of interesting because this work involves having to get it pulled out of the water.

22:24 Oh, wow.

22:25 We got the mechanic who works on the boat and another guy who has got the truck with the trailer to pull it out of the water. We got coordinated. So that's the last thing. Hopefully, in the next two weeks, they're going to be done with what needs to be done, and we'll be able to use it again.

22:43 How often do you stay on that boat? Generally in the year. Generally.

22:47 Maybe I'd say five or eight times a year and up. And since it's such a long drive, we always go up for at least four days. So it's nice.

23:01 And when you stay on the houseboat, do you just anchor or do you usually bore it to the shore?

23:09 Usually we drive around, we find a good place to. What you usually do with those is you put the nose on the shore and have tie off ropes from the stern and sit against the shore. And because it's in a lake, you don't have big waves. And we also take our little 13 foot fishing boat up with us and go, you know, if we want to go putt around that, we use that because it's easier than trying to maneuver the big house boat.

23:34 That's great.

23:35 Great. You know, so you go there and you've got a full kitchen and bathrooms and all of that that you take, that you live aboard, so.

23:44 Oh, that's. What a treat. What a treat. And what kind of fish bath?

23:48 Or they've got a bass and smallmouth and largemouth bass. And then they've got planted rainbow trout up there.

23:57 Oh, nice.

23:58 Yeah, yeah.

23:59 How's the level of the lake now?

24:04 It's down about 150ft.

24:06 Wow.

24:07 Yeah, it's. The drought has really hit it, so. And being that it's a damned lake and it's a bunch of ravines, it's just getting narrower. Narrower and narrower because it's being down so far, but it's still. You can still motor around in it. It's 23 miles long, you know, and maybe a few hundred yards wide at some spots.

24:33 Nice.

24:35 A big lake.

24:36 What a great getaway. I mean, actually, I've rented a few house built with friends before and that's some of my best experiences because, yeah, you can just go anywhere and it's comfortable.

24:47 Yeah.

24:50 Very, very comfortable.

24:51 It's like a hotel room.

24:53 Yeah, yeah, exactly. But writing is really hot right now, I heard.

24:58 Yeah. It's been getting up like 108.

25:03 That's too hot even on the water.

25:05 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

25:07 Because you don't have air conditioning in there, do you?

25:09 I beg pardon?

25:10 Do you have air conditioning in the boat?

25:12 Yes. Yes.

25:13 Wow. Very nice. Smart.

25:17 That's one of the things the guys got to do is fix the generator. There was a leak in the carburetor, so. Oh, no, that was not good last time we ran. There's an indication on the helm that says there's gasoline vapors in the engine compartment. You know, I found out it was a leak in the carburetor on the generator. So.

25:37 So how often you go to Hawaii?

25:39 We don't go back that often. My sister still lives there and she likes to come here. I think the last time we were there was maybe five years ago, so it's been a while.

25:51 Yeah.

25:54 Yeah, we, you know, the family sold the family home and my sister lives in an adult residence, so, you know, it's, it's. We don't have a place to stay, actually. We could stay. There's a, there's a apartment you can get at the, at that residence she lives in, but, yeah, so we haven't.

26:13 Been back for a while with a family home. Which city or which island was it on?

26:18 It was on Oahu and it was, you know, just in the outskirts of Honolulu. So back in. They call it Manoa Valley. It's one of the valleys that, of course. So, yeah, yeah.

26:30 My wife has some family in Manoa Valley still.

26:33 Oh, really? Really? Yeah, yeah, that's where I grew up.

26:37 Ah, what a small world. Yeah, yeah.

26:40 When did.

26:40 So you went to school first time? Was it MIT or were you.

26:44 Yeah, here I was at a school, you know, this private school in, called Punahou in Hawaii. So that was, that was like, first through 12th and then after MIT.

26:58 So you were born in Hawaii?

27:01 Yeah, yeah. Born in Honolulu.

27:03 In Honolulu. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. It's a special place for us, too. My wife and I got married there.

27:09 Ah, okay.

27:10 Yeah, we got married at Lanikai.

27:13 Uh huh. Yeah.

27:15 Yeah. So, yeah, I. My wife, I kind of did a surprise for my wife. I gave her a surprise engagement and three days later was a wedding. I didn't want to give her any time to change her mind, nor did I want to give myself any time to change my mind either.

27:38 Right.

27:39 So I secretly told her parents, my parents, her siblings and my siblings, and we. I asked them to fly out there, hoping, of course, that she would say yes, because if not, then it would just be a big family vacation. But they all secretly gathered in, you know, Waikiki beach without her knowing. And again, the wedding was in Lanikai, and it was a small wedding of, you know, eight family members, ten family members, and, you know, two photographers, one ukulele player, and pastor Andy, who is our pastor as well. Yeah. So it was really interesting because I actually called, I guess, the city or the state or whatever, and asked them, you know, do I need any permits for this wedding? You know, I'm going to want to do a wedding on the beach, which you're supposedly not supposed to do. Right. You're supposed to be close to the beach, but you can't be on the actual beach, right? Right. So I said, I want to be on the wedding. And, you know, I started talking about it. She told me all the details. Then finally she asked, how many people are going to be there? And I said, ten. She goes, by the time anybody reports you, we would already be long gone. You know, she goes, I thought it was going to be a big thing with chairs and all that. I said, no, we're just going to go out there, throw some flowers, and keep it, you know, our bare feet in the sand kind of thing. She goes to worry about it. Don't even tell me you. Don't even tell me you did it.

29:09 Great. That's great.

29:11 Yeah.

29:14 How did you get on the. How did you get attracted to the board of the village?

29:20 So I actually, it's a look at the, where I was working previously with or not previously, but where I work with seniors is at the San Francisco Towers, and that's where Kate previously worked, and that's where I met Kate. And through the years, I actually taught a few classes with the village, technology classes. So I ran a few technology classes down at the senior center at Aquatic park with them. I actually ran a few programs out of their office at Goldman prior to this. And there were actually some individuals. It's weird, but kind of my clique, I guess, in my group tend to be older individuals. You know, when you're a volunteer at the Academy of Sciences and you're a docent there, I would say probably 90% of the docents are retired and older. Right. And I would say probably 80% of them are village members or so. So a lot of them actually referred me to the village, not knowing that I had any relation to Kate, and said, you know, hey, come teach a technology class there. You know, we want to do something, and that it, we've always crossed paths because we worked with the similar communities. Right, right. So it's, it's been a long time since I've known of Kate in the village. And I'm actually Bill, who actually, you know, talked to me about joining the board, was a client of mine. So I help him with technology, and I helped his partner, Bob with technology. So again, same thing. It just, it all starts to come back around. And for me, that's kind of been how things have been in my life, where things just kind of fall into place. And when they fall into place perfectly like this, then you know that something's just going right, and you just have to kind of go there and just do the right thing.

31:16 Good.

31:17 Yeah. Yeah, it's been good. There's a lot of questions here.

31:25 Yeah. I think we're, we're out of, we're over the time limit too, I think.

31:30 Well, we're at 35.

31:31 Yeah. Okay.

31:33 Do you want, do you want to go to 45 or are you good?

31:36 No, we can keep going. I'm fine.

31:38 All right. All right. I mean, there's some questions here. I don't know if I mean, most proud of. When in life have you filmed? Are there any questions that look like you want to maybe talk about them? I mean, what I wanted to be when I grew. Do you remember what you wanted to be when you were growing up?

32:00 I think since my father ran an electronics fix it shop.

32:07 Oh, wow.

32:08 And I was sort of there, so it was, I've always been interested in that stuff. Right. Electronics and fixing it. So that, that got me steered to where I am now, you know.

32:21 So you were a tinkerer at an early age.

32:23 Yep.

32:26 And that's so cool. I have a floor sitting next to me of all these computers that are sitting out and all these pieces and parts in the hope that my kids will want to touch it. They haven't touched it.

32:38 Okay.

32:39 Too many distractions nowadays.

32:42 Yep.

32:43 That's really neat. So he worked on radios and televisions.

32:46 And not, not really anymore. Sort of like, you know, I'll let somebody else do that with their time, so.

32:52 Okay. Yeah. I don't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. That was a long time ago, seems like.

33:03 I think there's one of the biggest influences. Something happened in 7th grade at Punahou. In 7th grade, all the boys, we always had PE, right? There was always a PE class all along, and it changed from season to season. But in 7th grade at Punahou, all the boys had to play tackle football. And so right now I'm like five four and 135 pounds. So in 7th grade, you know, a lot smaller. Right. So. But Mister Martinson, who was the coach, he was one of the biggest influencer. Influencers in my life. He said, okay, you're playing fullback.

33:57 Wow.

33:58 You can think about that. This is crazy, right?

34:01 Yeah.

34:02 He had a plan. One of the guards, the, let's see, tackle. Which one is the closest to the center? Tackle or guard? I forget. I think it's the guard, right? The guard was this guy named Hardy Spore. And he was Hardy. He was a big guy. He played. When we got to high school, he was on the high school football team as a guard. So he said, we're going to run this play. You get the ball, and you just follow Hardy, get on his butt. And every time we ran that, we got, like, five, six yards out of it. You have to come behind and catch up to Hardy. And I'm hanging on to Hardy just going, and I thought that was incredible. He figured out what to do with the tiniest kid on his team, paired it with the biggest kid on his team, and he said, that's a winning combination. And that always, that stuck in my mind my whole life.

35:02 That's interesting.

35:03 This guy really was a great PE teacher.

35:08 So the takeaway from that for you.

35:10 Was, you know, that as a, you know, you can combine your attributes with somebody and be much bigger than you are. Right. That was.

35:23 I like that. Yeah, I like that. And then, you know, every little piece of a puzzle. Yeah. Really comes together. Yeah.

35:30 For some big.

35:31 That's. That's a wonderful story. I really. Yeah. Did you play football at all? What was your sport? I mean, did you pursue football as a fullback after that, or you just go to another sport?

35:44 Not at all. Not at all. What I got on into high school was, uh, being on the light crew for the school productions, so, you know, running the lights, and we had a big light board, controlled all the lighting on the stage, and then also I ran spotlight for the community theater. So, yeah, theater and lighting has always been another one of my passions, so that's why we still go to live theater a lot.

36:19 So I could see now. Yeah. Why you like live theater and why you like media and.

36:23 Yeah, yeah.

36:24 Watching stories and. Have you ever performed?

36:29 Not really. No? No. Mostly all behind the stage. Yeah, yeah.

36:40 But that's great. Yeah. I did some theater, I think, as a child, and it was. I wouldn't say memorable, but it was definitely something that was good to get me out of my shell, that my parents forced me to do. And then, you know, as I grew older, I was actually a swimmer, so I'm on the swim team. Nowhere near being professional, but it's just passion of mine to kind of get in the water, and I like to consider myself a fish out of water, because any other land sport that you give to me, I I can honestly say that I'm not good at it, but you put me in the water and, yeah, I'll just go. So, yeah, I swam Alcatraz a couple of times.

37:27 Wow.

37:28 And it's when I say swim Alcatraz, it's not like you swim there and come back home. They, you know, these are organized races where they drop you off at Alcatraz and then you swim back from Alcatraz, which, you know, I don't want to say it's, like, impossible to do. You know, it's definitely a mental thing, you know, getting dumped in 50 something degree water at six in the morning with hundreds of thousands of other people. Right. That literally they swim right over you because, you know, if you're one of the slow ones, they're not going to go around you or say, excuse me. I mean, they're all just going and they just swim right over you. And the bay is not a beautiful place. It's not like swimming in Hawaii, where you can see whatever's on the bottom and you can see anything. There's no. Zero visibility. Zero visibility. So it's really nasty, which is actually kind of better because I know when I was young, one of my scary experiences was swimming in Maui. One of the early times, I went snorkeling and I saw sharks.

38:35 Oh, really?

38:36 Yeah. And that was the first time I saw sharks. And I was, I think, maybe only eight years old, ten years old or something like that. And, you know, at that age, you're small and you see a shark, you don't know much about it, but, you know, uh oh, this is scary. But it was far enough that I was looking at them and they were, I don't know, looking at me, but I wasn't sure if I should stay in the water or I should leave. And they were just kind of circling on the bottom. But, yeah, that was a scary experience. So swimming and doing Alcatraz, not being able to see anything sometimes is a blessing, because sometimes it's better not to know what's around you because, you know, there's things in the water.

39:15 Right, right. Good.

39:16 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then after that, I played, actually Taiko for a long time. Yeah, I did taiko drumming for about. About eight years in San Francisco Taiko. And now that was a fun activity that I did, too, you know, up.

39:32 In Japan town at the japanese community center.

39:36 No, I did it with San Francisco taiko, which was in Japan, they had a. Yeah, off the bridge, you know. Tanaka sensei was definitely an experience and a great way to learn and a really good group of people.

39:52 Yeah.

39:53 But, yeah, it was fun. Do you still play ukulele?

39:58 Yeah, yeah. Our group is all by zoom now, and I think eventually they'll try to get back into the Japan center really good. Yeah.

40:09 Are you going to try to meet in person?

40:11 Yeah, yeah. As soon as they you know, this Covid thing goes away enough so we can do that.

40:15 So are you doing any performances?

40:19 We had done so. And again, it's been a couple of years since COVID but, yeah, see?

40:25 So you are a performer.

40:26 Oh, could be. You know, we went to. There's a bunch of residential homes up close to the center there, and we go play there. And they. We did have a trip to Hawaii as a group, and we played in Honolulu. Ukulele festival there.

40:45 Wow. Yeah, that's excellent.

40:48 That was cool.

40:49 Yeah, that's really, really neat. I mean, that's. You're going into the heart of it. And you're right.

40:55 And there were some. There's about 30 people in the. In the group, so it's.

41:00 Oh, it's big group.

41:01 Yeah. Yeah.

41:03 And you take beginners or a lot of people are.

41:06 They have a separate class for beginners.

41:08 Okay.

41:09 So this is like intermediate advanced, they call it.

41:15 Is it similar to learning the guitar or is it different?

41:19 Probably. Although it's a lot easier on the fingers.

41:23 Sure.

41:24 Yeah, the strings are easier to. They don't cut into your fingers like a guitar. And there's fewer of them too. So that's good. Four strings versus six. So it makes the fingering easier.

41:37 Beautiful sound. Yeah, very nice. Very nice. Ah, good. Yeah. Like, so a question that I think was kind of interesting on here. Is there any wisdom for generations listening on this conversation, is there any wisdom that you'd want to pass on to them? And what would you want them to know?

42:06 I think, for me is that person to person connections are important. I think that's one of the big thing. You know, sort of the more. The more you connect with people, the better. And it doesn't have to be in groups. It can be just one on one. But just lots of different connections is good because you always come out better.

42:40 So can I ask? I mean, keeping connections is a challenge. It takes work. You know, developing friendships and developing relationships. And maintaining relationships take work. How do you juggle your own life and the focuses and distractions that you have and making sure that you're sensitive to others and, you know, because I asked this because, you know, with two kids and things going on around me, it's so easy for me to kind of, unfortunately, neglect my friends sometimes. How do you make sure that you stay connected?

43:17 Well, I think at our stage, Judy and I, we don't have the kids distraction kind of thing, so. And also, we've had. She's had for sort of a. We've had a group where for Thanksgiving dinner. We make a big Thanksgiving dinner and invite all of these people, and then another couple does one for Christmas. So we have two big dinners a year, at least, with lots of. Lots of friends and some single friends and some couples as well. So, yeah, we have the bachelor uncles, bachelor aunts who come and so, yeah, I. We do that.

44:11 Yeah. I definitely say, you know, to a younger generation is, you know, be patient, be empathetic, be understanding of others, you know, because I think as I've grown older, I don't know if it's experiences, if you call that wisdom, if it's age and maturity, but definitely once I had children, I saw everything differently. You know, I would see my parents completely differently. Once I had children, then, you know, the whole understanding of why they were the way they were to me made sense. As I talked to other parents, I could see myself becoming my parents, which is, you know, those that are younger, that feel like they're detached from an older generation, you know, believe it or not, and it's actually true, you will become that older generation one day, and that will be you. So heed to their wisdoms, wisely, because they do know what they're saying.

45:10 Right, right.

45:12 So I think that's a big thing in seeing the changes in a lifetime. Definitely, yeah. Yeah. Well, good. Is there anything else that you wanted to share, or.

45:30 I think. I think that's. We covered a lot, so. Yeah, I don't. I think we're good. I'm good. How about you?

45:42 I think I'm good. And definitely, you know, I want to continue this conversation on the side and learn more about the houseboat and everything else, and, you know, how that's going, because that's a passion of mine as well. You know, just being on the water. It's nice, right?

45:56 It is. There's something about water just, you know, just breathing and.

46:01 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you're from Hawaii. Yeah. I mean, you're. You were. Did you go to the beach a lot?

46:10 Oh, as a child, always. Right, yeah.

46:12 Right, right.

46:14 Get on the bus, go to the beach, get out of the house. Right.

46:21 Yeah. So, yeah, it's definitely a special place to be near water. And I could see why you love to be on the lake.

46:27 Yeah. Yeah.

46:28 Well, thanks, Steve. Okay. Nice chatting with you.

46:31 Yeah, that's great. That's great. And this will be good to save for the. For the folks.

46:39 Yeah, definitely. You take care now.

46:41 Okay. All right.

46:42 All righty.