The Cheun Kee Lims decided to retire. World War II was over and their homeland was free from Japanese rule, and they? contributed to the fight. They? also educated six children, seen them married and settled with children of their own. Now they were free from all that bustle. The Lims were sitting in the kitchen with daughter Hazel, who returned from Hawaii with the husband she acquired there, discussing the future. Hazel and her husband spoke of investing in a business, making a home and having children. The older couple remarked the young people were picking up where they were leaving off. Mrs. Lim rose from the table and went into the pantry, and came back with two large coffee tins in her arms that were the old-fashioned kind with metal lids rats could not gnaw. "Coffee?" Hazel said, bewildered. Mrs. Lim smiled, "No. Open." Hazel pulled on one lid, then on the other. Greenbacks rose slowly of their own volition. "Money!" Mr. Lim cried. Mrs. Lim was pleased to explain. Every day, over the years, she slipped a few dollars from the cash register into the coffee tins. She did not trust the banks. Like a good Korean housewife who hid her precious cash in the ground, Mrs. Lim found the perfect hiding place in the pantry behind shelves where the plaster separated to store her cache. The four counted: it added up to $l6,000, enough to buy their retirement home.

They purchased a house near the USC campus, on West 36th Street. It was a large house. Upstairs were four bedrooms, a hallway large enough that, later, USC football players occupying rooms practiced signals there. Also a small porch was off one corner. Downstairs were two bedrooms and the Lims had the luxury of a bedroom each, like rich people. There was a large living room with a swinging door leading into the dining area and kitchen, and there was a basement that served for the laundry room. The house was built when American families were large, housing a family plus grandparents or pensioners. It was a period when families mattered and took care of their own, a lifestyle much referred to today by politicians and moralists. What would the Lims do with so much space? The answer was right before them: Hazel and her husband. While they studied investments in Los Angeles, they needed temporary housing. Why not rent one of the upstairs rooms? So the Lims were back in business, they were landlords.

Mr. Lim? youngest son was an architect who was a Frank Lloyd Wright disciple. However, Mr. Lim had no such fancy ideas in his mind. Just rooms to let. He set about redesigning the floor plan for maximum usage as well as income, and being a good landlord.

The house not only provided income, it became Mr. Lim? hobby and playhouse. Finishing with the additions to the upstairs, he looked around for more to do. He found it in the four garages in the rear of the house. Too small to fit the modern automobile, having been measured for the Model-T Fords, he renovated the spaces for three of his haraboji friends. And charged no rent, because they were retired too, and living the lonely life of old bachelors. Marjorie once said her father was a generous person with his friends but when she asked for $l5 to buy new dresses when she was in high school, he gave her $l0 and told her to buy thriftily and with care. But the harabojis and Mr. Lim were rewarded with Mr. Lim? remodeling. For one long spring and summer the men and Mr. Lim played cards and visited in the backyard. Their companionship was a delight to see. Hazel asked me to come over, there was something for me to behold. When I arrived she led me to the back porch and pointed to the yard, "Look there." ?here was a spot on the grass where a card table was set up and four men playing cards. A shout went up and then laughter, directed at Mr. Lim who looked sheepishly back at the others. This idyllic moment lasted a year and then disbanded. It was over a code violation; garages were meant for automobiles.

No sooner had Hazel and Yobo (her husband? name was Young Hee Kim, and he earned the nickname when he played football at the University of Hawaii. After graduating, he joined the fire department in Honolulu. Koreans were proud of his prowess as a football hero and fire fighter. He served in the Army, in the Pacific theater of war,) moved into the upstairs room when their threefold plan began to unroll. First, a business was found to invest their money. It was a plastic toy factory, its bestseller a plastic peashooter. Her brother Peter Lim, who was an investment broker, said they could not lose: by Christmas a million peashooters at a dollar a piece would be sold. They sold well indeed?or not very long afterward the government banned the sales. Too many children swallowed the plastic pea instead of aiming at intended victims. The news of the government ban was mitigated when doctors announced Hazel was pregnant and of course to Hazel it was banner headline news. What was a plastic toy compared to the baby she carried? Yobo decided they must have an apartment to bring the baby home from the hospital. Buying a home could wait. They moved so Hazel would not have the stairs to climb. During the move, Yobo caught a cold that persisted and he became easily tired and not himself. He saw a doctor who referred him to the VA facilities in Brentwood when he could not get at the source of the cold, and told Yobo that veterans who showed tropical disease symptoms (fever, listlessness, inability to function normally) were to be sent to the VA. The government did not want strange South Pacific diseases taking hold in the country. What VA discovered after testings was Yobo had cancer of the liver. Two months later he died. He did not live to see his child. Hazel got through the trauma of this period, it was wonderful to see her cope.

The parent Lims invited her home and Mr. Lim gave up his room. Mrs. Lim willingly gave up the privacy she had cherished. Now she had Mr. Lim? company and also his snoring, which she complained bothered her sleep. So Mr. Lim willingly moved his bed under the stairwell in the hallway. Hazel came home with baby Kathy, the name she gave the baby, saying the sound of it made her think of writers and maybe the girl would grow up to be one. The child? talent turned to music instead. At three years old, she listened to her mother playing the piano; it was the same piano the Lim children practiced on years before. Kathy came over to her mother and said, "Show me," and pointed to the keyboard. Hazel gave her a quick lesson of the notes and the girl said she wanted to try. She picked at the keys and surprised her mother, playing the music she heard. Hazel could not believe what she was hearing and told her to do the exercise again. Kathy complied. She played by ear until she was about seven when she discovered friends. The little Mozart abandoned the piano to play with the next-door neighbor who was a black girl. Sharyn was a year or two older and in school. Kathy emulated her and soon the two girls lived in each other? home. Sharyn tasted kimchee and fell addicted to kimchee. She and Kathy gorged on it one day and were stricken, they? eaten too much. Mrs. Lim returned to the kitchen in time to save them from bloating?er remedy: table sugar and the two became inseparable kimchee companions.



Mr. Lim died of stomach cancer. He lived to enjoy his retirement house for more than a decade. When he died and the funeral was over, Mrs. Lim said she

regretted complaining about his snoring. remembered when loved ones no longer are with us. It was after his death Mrs. Lim asked me to have cooksoo (noodle) with Hazel. I was in her house often but casually, "just dropping in" to see Hazel. This however, Hazel told me, was a social invitation and warned me her mother never permitted smoking, and would I remember not to light a cigarette. For a good bowl of her noodles I would forgo anything, as I had heard from my brother Sam that no cook prepared cooksoo like Mrs. Lim?. The lunch was delicious. For dessert, she brought in fruit and coffee, and when that was consumed I prepared to get up. But no, Mrs. Lim came in with an ashtray and matches and said, "You smoke, please." Hazel? face fell, she didn? know what to say after what she had warned me not to do. She spoke to her mother in Korean and Hazel translated, "You are a special guest and you must smoke." I didn?, though. I thanked her anyway and I thought her kindness accepting me and my eccentricities without question was rewarding me as her daughter? friends. Hazel and I were friends until she died in l996, far off in Honolulu.

The story of Hazel and her daughter have been included in the Lims retirement house. Outside of the parent Lims, the two were the longest residents in the roominghouse enterprise. There is son Peter? story too. He had forgone college in order to help the Lims run their neighborhood grocery store, which was near Polytechnic High School and no other food store was nearby. The hours were 6 am to about 7 pm., long hours for two persons to handle. And there was the marketing in the early morning hours. So Peter was a partner. Mrs. Lim arranged a marriage for him and thought the couple would be happy. There was the big wedding, dear to all the other girls hearts. After the store was sold, Peter who was an inventive person worked in his workshop with ideas that sold. He also was an investment broker, bringing together Koreans who wanted to earn interest on their savings with those needing a loan. Everybody in the community knew him and kept him busy. After World War II, he bought a home in Baldwin Hills. Hazel took me to see the house which was large and modern. Soon after the visit, Peter and his wife separated. Their son and daughter were adults and not living at home. It was odd how the children held parents together and when they left the nest, the parents flew apart too, to go their way. Peter bought a small travel lodge in China Lake and came in to see his mother and Marjorie, after Hazel moved to Honolulu in l963. Driving by I passed it after Mrs. Lim died and it was sold. It was sad to watch it deteriorate, in fact the entire area was going to seed until the l984 Olympic Games, when the city refurbished the streets around the Coliseum so the visitors would see Los Angeles as the coming center of the Pacific world. The houses on West 36th Street benefited with a paint job, but it would not look like the retirement home the Lims had lived their last years. They were happy years and there was a shine about it. All old people should have so good a life.