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AI: Well, tell me about, I know you had mentioned earlier that at some point you got a job and you were working in Manzanar.

AO: My first job was working in the freight department. And the freight department was, responsibility was any personal items that were shipped in from the outside to the camp, and they were addressed to the evacuees. So we get on this truck, load up with personal belongings and deliver to all the recipients. And the freight office, one of the chief clerk in the freight office was Yoshiko Mikami from Bainbridge Island. Maybe you might know her, or knew of her. And she would boss us around, but we had time, we had fun kidding back and forth. And, but, that was one reason why I come to Bainbridge Island because I knew them and I was hoping that I could reunite with 'em. And some of 'em I did. And liked the... I liked the island so much that we looked around, looking at houses for sale. And we purchased one. And we still have it on, to this day.

AI: Well, I wanted to ask you, since you were doing this delivery work, did that mean that you got to know the camp fairly well and going out to the different barracks and delivering the items around the camp, because that was a very large camp.

AO: Yes. It did help to meet other people and where they came from and what they were doing before the evacuation. I did other work, too. I did work at the hospital as an orderly. And that was my longest period of time and I worked as an orderly after going on the work furlough in Montana.

AI: Oh, well, tell me about the work furlough. How did that come up and what did you have to do in order to go out?

AO: Evidently the farmers needed help topping the beets. and so most of the young boys were inducted in the military service, so the sugar company had come to the camp to recruit help from the young boys. And so I volunteered. And the group that I volunteered with were six boys from Bainbridge Island. And there was another boy from Sacramento, and I was from Glendale. And we were the only two non-Bainbridge boys. There was Tosh Sakai, was one, there was one other one name of Sakuma, Ray Kitayama, and I don't remember the others offhand, but there were six from Bainbridge Island, a group of eight. And we went to Fairfield, Montana, to top beets. And that farm didn't have the best quality of beets. They were mixed from medium size to smaller size. And we would top the beets and throw 'em in the trough because this farmer had a beet loader. And their beet loader was, didn't work too well because of the beets were small and when they're loaded up it was pretty difficult, and beside, even though they could throw the beets, the farmer's truck broke down, the drive shaft broke so they had to go into Helena to get it... pull it back but that type of weld would not hold so it constantly broke down. So eventually we had to load it by hand. And that was my first experience on the farm. The Bainbridge boys were all farmers so they were used to laboring as a farmer.

AI: That must've been tough for you getting used to that.

AO: Oh, my back was really bad. And the beet knife has a hook on it and then at the handle it has a strap so you strap it to your wrist so that it won't fall off. And by the end of the day I was, I was pretty tired.

AI: So was that, probably the end of the summer or early fall, that you went out to Montana?

AO: No, it was fall, close to winter.

AI: Fall or later fall in 1942?

AO: Yes.

AI: About how long were you out there?

AO: We were out there at least a month, maybe a little longer. But it did snow and we were not too far from the Canadian border. And it's probably one of the first times I ever been working in the snow and it was cold.

AI: Well, why had... why did you decide to go out in the first place? Not everyone went out to work from camp.

AO: No. That's true. I went because I wanted to make a little bit more money. In the camp, a skilled worker was sixteen dollars a month, a professional was nineteen dollars a month, and a non-skilled worker was twelve dollars a month. So it was a time, a chance to get out. But I had fun.

AI: Was, you know, when you had, you had first come to Manzanar and you were describing the routine, the mess hall and the lines and the so forth... and I was just wondering, what, what was your feeling or reaction to being in the camp like that, before you had the chance to go out? What was your feeling?

AO: My feeling was that we were confined. And there was no way of going out of the camp at any time unless you were being relocated to go to a different, even go to school or some occupation. So I felt that while I'm in the camp I will do something, just to be doing something. And that's why I chose to work as an orderly in the hospital. I'm helping some people out. I met a boy that wanted to work in the hospital so, so I joined him and worked in the hospital.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.