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AI: Well, let me ask you a little bit about your trip out to Idaho, and as you were arriving in Idaho, what you saw, what your impression was --

HM: [Laughs]

AI: -- and, and your impression of Minidoka.

HM: Well, my trip was a fair introduction. I, first of all, set out to buy a ticket for Twin Falls, and I thought since I was going out to visit my parents before going, that I would go into Grand Central Station in New York and buy a ticket. They didn't know where it was or how to ticket me. So I was sent back to California to buy my ticket. And I was told to take a transcontinental train to Wells, Nevada, and then transfer to either a bus or a train going up to Twin Falls. Well, I figured that if the train were late, a same train would wait rather than a bus, so I opted for the train. We got in about six-thirty in the morning, and my train was supposed to go out, oh, about eight or eight-thirty, something like that. I walked up and down the station platform -- there was no waiting room. The train didn't come. Finally, the station agent said, "Well, the train has been delayed, so you might as well go across the street to the cafe and get some breakfast." Came back, walked up and down. "Well, the train didn't get in 'til well after midnight, and we have to wait eight hours between trips to give the crew a rest, so it'll be afternoon." About three o'clock that afternoon, "Well, your train is out there in the yard, and you can go sit in it." And I went out to find about a half a car, which had been converted from, I guess, a freight car or something, had a few seats in the rear end. The windows had been open all day and the dust blowing in, and it was hot. And soon after that, a couple of railroad men got on. They'd had a day in town and had had plenty to drink, and a nice old grandfatherly conductor and a couple of young assistants.

Well, we set off on a one-track road up to Twin Falls. It was out into the wilderness. And one of the train men got friendly and I was young and green and didn't quite know how to handle it. He wanted to know where I was going in Twin Falls so he could come and show me what a gentleman he could be when he was sober. [Laughs] Well, by that time, the conductor decided that was enough, and so he took me out to show me the view. And he said, "Now, they're harmless. They've had their day in town, they work in a railroad camp along and they'll be getting off pretty soon." So then it was Helen and the conductor and his helpers. Beautiful evening. The sky was amethyst, the grass was silver, and there was a moon. We chugged along, we had to stop for hours, it seemed, waiting for a troop train to go through. And the young fellows asked if I would mind if they didn't turn on the lights, 'cause it was easier to see the signals. I began to wonder if we were ever going to get to Twin Falls.

Arrived sometime after 1 a.m., and the conductor took me through the station. Well, we had to step high because it was bodies wall-to-wall, and he explained, these were West Indians brought in to help with the harvest. And he told me what hotel I should go to and put me in a taxi, and I wound up in a hotel in Twin Falls. Got up early the next morning, because they, I was sure they'd been expecting me the previous day. Called Minidoka, the girl that answered didn't even know who I was, or hadn't been expecting me. "Well," she said, "there'll be somebody in town to pick you up later this morning." So I wasn't missed at all. And we set out over the desert. And whoever it was, I don't know where he worked, but he wasn't very communicative, so I don't know who he was or anything. And he deposited me in front of my barracks dormitory, and there I was.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.