<Begin Segment 14>

[Translated from Japanese]

TY: That's right. Those from Seattle, many of them went into Minidoka, didn't they?

AT: Mostly in Minidoka.

TY: Then, you went to see your brother-in-law and stayed in his room, and you also saw your other friends, right?

AT: Yeah, that's right. I stayed at my friends' and at my brother-in-law's.

TY: Yes. Was it nostalgic?

AT: I stayed where it was somewhat larger than others. I didn't stay where it was rather small. And, I stayed where it was close to the dining hall. It was because I wanted to sleep in. [Laughs]

TY: You said that you took some souvenir.

AT: Yeah, I took souvenir. I took candies. They were lacking candies. They were just so happy. They were fighting over them.

TY: Especially, children must have been very happy.

AT: Yeah. Even adults were happy. They were hungry for sweets. So, I, there, at Salt Lake, there is a store called the Saikaen. They had country style candies, and they were all the same and weren't good. They were nothing like the good bean-jam cakes at the stores like the Sagami-ya. I bought candies from there and took them to the camp, then they were just so happy. They couldn't eat sweets there. They were happy.

TY: When you say candies, you mean bean-jam cakes besides rice cakes?

AT: They must have been bean-jam cakes. Because I was taking them into the camp there. They were like bean-jam buns. There are many kinds, right? They were something like those. I asked them to pack them into the boxes. The first time, I took ten boxes. I asked them not to make them too big. I said that I wanted to give them to the neighbors on both sides and to friends. And, the brother loved them. He didn't drink sake, but he loved sweets. To the brother, I gave him one, a big one, like this. He said, "Wow, you brought a big one," so I said, "Oniisan, eat this. You must be having a hard time without sweets." He said that he had been licking sugar. [Laughs] He was happy. Even so, he was running an apartment, the Tacoma Hotel until the very end, he worked hard and left it under someone's care and came in later. He lost his wife in the middle. It was hard. So, what he said was...

TY: Um, his wife had passed away.

AT: They didn't have children.

TY: Was it... Had his wife already passed away before the war started?

AT: Yeah, she had passed away. But, sho ga nai, right? He was running it with Mr. Kawakami as his partner. Mr. Kawakami evacuated a step ahead of him, and he found a good hakujin. Every month, he, the hakujin came to the camp every month to tell him how much income and expense there were. So, he was paying for his salary, and before he left, it seemed like he gave him a lot for appreciation. Assist, assist, he received great assistance, and their hotel was alive, so he said that he appreciated it. The Tacoma Hotel is no longer there today since the bridge was constructed. It is gone now.

TY: Also, you said that you took kamaboko besides candies.

AT: Yeah, anybody would be happy with kamaboko.

TY: Did you take them at the first visit, too?

AT: Uh-huh. At the first visit, they made quite a few kamaboko. But, you can't find good candies there because it's country. So, here, I went to a place like Sagami-ya and ordered them. For such and such occasion. There, Sagami-ya, and over here, it is called something. The one still there today.

DG: That was Salt Lake, and here...

AT: From here.

DG: From here.

AT: If I didn't take from here, it wasn't good. There wasn't any. The ones in Salt Laki were, there were country, the country style bean-jam buns. Those were the only things you could get.

TY: The ones with plain flavor, right?

AT: If we took from here, I had heard they tasted differently. So, I didn't know if Sagami-ya was still there, so I said how about that store. Well, this time, over here, today, there was another one, wasn't there? I ordered from there, and five, put five boxes over here, and I took about ten boxes. Then, when I went, they were happy, everybody was. Then, they asked me to have meals together, so I took them there and opened one box. And, I gave one box to those who were close friends. They were happy. They were hungry for sweets back then. So, they were just so happy, so happy at that time.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.