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AI: Well, then, let's see, we're, as far as what's happening during this time in Manzanar, we're talking about, kind of, now at the very end of 1942. You were working at the hospital. And then going into 1943, sometime in the early months of 1943, I believe, is when the so-called "loyalty questionnaire" came out. It was sometimes also called "registration" in camp.

AO: Yes.

AI: And I'm wondering, I think -- oh, before we go there, I think you also said that you also went out again to do beet thinning in Idaho.

AO: Yes, that was in the spring.

AI: And that would be spring of 1943. So maybe, before we get into the loyalty questionnaire, tell me a little bit about Idaho and where you went in Idaho and what you did there.

AO: I was assigned to a farmer in Blackfoot, Idaho, and he wasn't actually ready to thin beets so he had some work to do and so he taught me how to hook up the horse to a wagon. And then we would go into a corral and we had to shovel horse manure. So we, several, Shig Kusuyanagi was my partner. So he and I were assigned to this farmer. So Shig and I would go out and hitch up the horse to the wagon and then both of us would scoop up the manure onto the wagon. And the wagon is a spreader. So Shig wasn't very comfortable doing manual labor and driving horses, so I would drive the horse. And then there was a lever to start the manure spreader. So I pull the lever and that would spread the manure in the back and then we still come back and get another load. That was our first job to do at that particular farm. And, but we didn't like it. So Shig and I left the farm. We didn't even tell them. So we hitchhiked to Rexburg and I knew a fellow I used to work with at the fruit stand in Whittier named Ted Kaisaki. And he lived with his wife, and his wife's parents lived in Rexburg. So we hitchhiked to Rexburg and I joined him for a while. And then I went to the labor office in Rexburg and then I got a job at the grain mill. So I worked there for a while cleaning grain and sacking it.

AI: How are you, excuse me, but how were you treated in Idaho? Did you come up against prejudice?

AO: No. No, not at all. And Idaho especially was all Mormons and they needed help on the farm. And so we joined a farmer, name of Hershey and then, I believe he was the younger brother, the older brother had his farm. And then his older brother also ran the labor office, employment office in town. And so we stayed on at the younger brother's farm and did the work. And then when time to eat, we all go to the older brother's house and they fed us. They fed us good. There's no, no problem of eating. And the younger brother had his farm across the road and there was a little house but it didn't have a toilet. And so he took some boards and over one of the branches of the Snake River, and there was a tree that went, leaned over the river, and there was a fork in it, a "Y." So we cut a hole in a board and laid it in the fork and that was our restroom. [Laughs] And so he put toilet paper, we had to carry part of toilet paper so we just... then we just sat on there and self-flushing because the river would wash it down. I remember that, definitely.

AI: So you were in Idaho for a couple months?

AO: Several months until, until the time to top beets. But I think I left early to go back to the camp.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.