By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
Of the editorial page staff
Published by the StarTribune
October 26, 1969
THERE'S a filling station at 50th St. And Washburn Av. S., which contains within its modest walls the story of what's right about America--an America of opportunity, an America which rewards hard work and dependability, responds to friendliness and is unmindful of skin color.
It is the story of Ben and Yuri Esaki, two Japanese-Americans who were caught up in the savage backlash of Pearl Harbor, taken from their West Coast homes and put behind barbed wire and who, by whim of circumstance, came to Minneapolis.
NOW after 21 years of pumping gas, changing tires, tuning motors and driving tow trucks in all kinds of weather, Ben and Yuri will go out of business at the end of the month and make a lot of customers unhappy.
They might have remained a couple more years had Ben felt up to it. But his legs were badly mangled and one of them broken last March when he was pinned to the wall by a car. He didn't return to work until July and numbness persists in his legs.
AND YURI is relieved to escape another winter at the gas pumps. She is a native of Los Angeles. Ben was born and raised in Santa Barbara. They were married on March 12, 1942, a couple of days before their forced departure from the coast.
But the Ezakis recall the ordeal without bitterness and are grateful for the help Minneapolitans provided. At 50 Ben is happy and affable, a fellow of ready laugh and fast quip. Yuri is a smiling, efficient and shapely charmer whose femininity shines through the occupational smudges.
BEN TRIED to enlist after Pearl Harbor but was rejected, he laughs, as an "enemy alien" even though a U.S. Citizen. He and Yuri and his parents were quartered for a while in a horse barn at the Tulare County fairgrounds, where accommodations were decidedly primitive.
Life was better later, but still far from plush, at the Gila River center in Arizona 50 miles from Phoenix. There Ben was put in charge of the mess hall at Camp No. 2 and supervised the feeding of 500 people three times a day.
Then he was picked as one of 25 Nisei for a training course in Minnesota, sponsored by
The National Youth Administration, and in May 1943 found himself at Shakopee. Two weeks later, however, orders came from Washington to "get rid of the Japs" and Ben was cast adrift--a stranger in a strange state.
But fate was kind. He got a couple of weeks' work at Mission Farms near Medicine Lake and thereby made contact with William Stowe of the Minneapolis Iron Store. Stowe and his wife invited Ben to live with them in their North Side home. "He helped me get a driver's license, turned over a set of keys to his car and told me to use it whenever I wished." Such trust of an "enemy alien" was quite a change, and Ben was touched.
THERE followed a job as caretaker of a residence on Lake Harriet Blvd. Yuri, who had remained at the Arizona camp, where their son was born, joined Ben in August and they lived in a room on Bryant Av.
Then the Army had a change of heart and summoned Ben for service. This surprise proved a godsend. Ben flunked his physical and was told to see his doctor immediately. He knew he hadn't been feeling well--he had occasional blackouts--and found out why. A goiter was pushing against his trachea and robbing him of oxygen.
THIS MEANT an operation. So the Ezakis moved into a duplex, Ben's parents were summoned to care for Ben Jr., Yuri got a job and Ben went to the hospital. He was told that recovery from the surgery would take a year but he was pronounced fit in a month.
He found a job in a filling station and four years later, by virtue of strict economy ("we didn't go anywhere") he and Yuri got the gas station they wanted--with a substantial assist from a loan company.
THEY opened the station Nov. 8, 1948 and have operated on the theory that the road to success lies through a crowd of satisfied customers.
The Ezakis have a bond of deep devotion and Ben is quick to credit Yuri. She not only pumps most of the gas and does occasional grease and muffler jobs, but answers the phone, tickets the jobs, keeps the accounts and knows more about costs than Ben does.
They have a beautiful home at the edge of Bloomington, a home built into a wooded hill with a picture window that looks out on the trees.
When complimented on the place Ben grinned and declared, "Well, it does beat living in a horse barn."
Copyright 2016 StarTribune. Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune. No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.
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