Well, you know, I had, I did have the idea when, you know, even in high school and college that I, I, you know, I had an idea to be a writer. Um, but it was, wasn't really my career plan. Um, and when I was working, there just was no time for anything like that. I was, you know, the kind of work I was doing was a 24/7 grind. So, um, when I retired, I, you know, took a little time just to kind of figure out what I wanted to do. I didn't really want to load up with a lot of, you know, more responsibilities. I really just wanted to take a breather. And then, um, but I did have this idea, uh, in the back of my mind about, um, about potentially doing a book that was based on, um, my Grandfather Ed, about his oral history interview that he did in the 1970s. He did. He did an interview. Uh, actually, my grandmother joined for the last part of the interview. Um, but that was 1974. And I remember, um, getting a cassette tape of the interview after they did it. And I had a little cassette recorder, if you remember those things. And, uh, same cassette recorder I used to, to learn my bar mitzvah, but the, uh, at 12 years old in 74 when that cassette tape came out, I listened to it a lot. And I used to spend a lot of time with my grandparents. I would sleep overnight there and see them quite often. And I was really fascinated with my grandfather's story of growing up in Siberia and, uh, and their, and their escape to Yokohama and then, uh, the early days of Seattle. Um, and I would ask him a lot of questions about those things, In fact, I mentioned earlier that I, I, I even took this class in Russian when I was in, in, uh, in seventh grade. And, uh, I was hoping that it, that was going to be a good connection with him, but it turned out he didn't really want to speak Russian with me, for whatever reason. He would, he would talk about his memories growing up with, um, you know, good memories. He, he, you know, he was a kid, so they were kid's memories and, uh, but he didn't want to, he didn't want to speak Russian with me. So that wasn't, that wasn't a great connection. [Laughing] Um, but anyway, so that the oral history interview was, was, you know, I was, I'd listened to it many, many times and I had a lot of questions that I wished I'd asked him when he was still alive. Um, and even more now, but, uh, what, what ended up happening was my, uh, I have a cousin, Joyce Bloch, who, um, has, um, has kind of collected my great-grandfather's, um, um, records, photos. He, he kept a lot of records, um, a lot of interesting things. Hebrew, uh, Russian, um, um, documents that were very interesting. And I saw those documents. Um, probably she had a reunion party about-a family reunion-about, uh, maybe 15 years ago now. And she made a package of, of the documents, she photocopied a bunch of these documents that she had. And, uh, and so I saw those, and I didn't-they were mysterious. They weren't in, you know, they weren't most of them weren't in English. And I couldn't understand what they were, but they were fascinating looking. And I kind of made a mental note that I wanted to figure out what those what those documents were. Um, so after I retired, of course the technology has, has improved and I, so I went back, um, to the reunion package that I had, and I started scanning those and seeing what the, you know, modern tools can do with those. And I got some very interesting results. And it really just piqued my imagination. And I sort of put the oral history together with these documents that I had. And I said, I wonder if I could piece together, um, their story, their immigration story, uh, what it was like to grow up in Siberia at that time, what it was like when he was at war. What, what the, what was going on with the family when he was off at war, what it was like to, to leave and, uh, and immigrate to Harbin and to Yokohama. And then ultimately what Seattle was like in the early years. So, my novel only goes through 1928. So, it basically covers the, you know, turn of the century until about 1928. So, it's not, it's not really a biography per se, of my great-grandfather. It's, it's just a story of their, of this immigration period of theirs. And, uh, anyway, so that was, that was the, that was the concept. And I, I just started doing it. Um, I started writing, and I started researching the documents. And, you know, if I had it to do over again, I probably would do all the research first before I started writing [Laughing] because I had to rewrite a lot of things as I found out new things because I tried to keep it, you know, it's a, it's historical fiction, but I tried to keep it as close to the, to reality as, as I could. Um, just imagining the, the gaps of from, of, you know, in the framework. And, uh, anyway, so that was, that's how I got, got going on the project. And I found I really, I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed all the aspects of doing it.
