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JY: So, meantime we were still in camp here yet. My father and my brother -- the one in the army -- went back home. My mother, my younger brothers and sisters that hadn't, didn't need to answer 'no-no' or 'yes-yes', they all went back. And my sisters, older sister was married, next second sister got married in camp, so they were in our home, but they were in camp too. And then my older brother was still in camp, and my sister -- no, older brother and myself was left. And then my two married sisters that were living in the different part of the camp there. And we stayed, I stayed here until mid-February, then finally got released. And then, before I got released, they asked me whether I want to work for WRA for the final clean up and inventory of all the construction buildings, this and that. So I says, "Well, okay." My father says, "Don't come home," because we had the (small) bunk house. They're staying in that temporarily until the big house got evacuated, and they were nine of 'em in the little house. "There's just, there's no more room, so don't, stay away for as long as you can." So I stayed around Tule Lake until May, 'til Memorial Day, then I went back on Memorial Day.

So while I was up here my dad called and says, "We need a tractor," because they won't sell us no tractor, to them. So meantime we sold our equipment before that. So I asked the fellow workers -- Caucasian people -- I says, "My dad is looking for a tractor." I says, "Can we find a tractor around here?" "Well, we'll look around, let's look around." So this fellow named Christenson -- we call him Chris -- Chris' son was doing logging work at Medford. He called his son up and says I was looking for a tractor. He says, "Okay, we'll look for a tractor," and finally we found a tractor in Medford. It was pretty well beat, it was a logging, and it was a prewar tractor. We got it for a pretty good price because this was about its last end.

Now I had a tractor -- it was a fairly good size tractor -- and I had to haul it down to San Jose. And I was contemplating, "How in the heck am I gonna' bring the thing down there?" Couldn't get no trucks. I asked around and asked around and one of the Caucasian workers said, "Oh, yeah. My neighbor's son just returned from the army, and they have, they're gonna' start a hauling business. They had an old army truck and a trailer, they'll probably haul it for you." I says, "Oh, this'll be fine." So we talked to them. For $300, they said they'll haul it down to San Jose. Said, "Okay, $150 now, $150 when you get there." So three of us got in this surplus army truck and bumped around and went all the way to San Jose with this tractor. Got it down there, gave them the $150, then I stayed home for a couple days and then took the bus and came back to Tule Lake again. So...

AI: So...

JY: Meantime, my dad had, we had only one car, but they're using that to pull the trailer around. To pull, you need a truck, you just can't do it with a car all the time, so he calls up and said, "We need a truck." So I ask Chris again. I say, "Chris," I says, "I need a truck." "Well," he says, "my son is pulling lottery for surplus trucks in Portland," because a lot of trucks were there, because that was an embarkation point. So I says, "Okay. See what your son can do." And by luck he pulled a lucky number so we got a huge truck. He brought it down from Portland to Medford there and this trucks were, cab were locked this way upside down. They were all strapped together to ship oversea, right. And the radiator was off of it, and no wiring, and battery and everything else, tire, wheels are off, and they were big ones. And the guy says, "Well, there's some tools and there's a wooden pulley," I mean, "block and tackle." I looked at that, and I was all by myself and I thought, unpack truck, turn it over, right? To get the other truck off to get it going... and I struggled, and three days I worked day and night. Finally, took the truck upside down, put the radiator on, wire up the wires, get the wheels on, get the axles on -- huge axles -- block and tackle, just a few wrenches, army wrenches we had. So finally got it put together, and I drove it home. So that's kinda' a little funny experience that I had as far as that part is concerned.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.