Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: George Morihiro Interview
Narrator: George Morihiro
Interviewer: Megan Asaka
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: December 15 & 16, 2005
Densho ID: denshovh-mgeorge_2-01-0009

<Begin Segment 9>

MA: So then your, your own school experience, you said that you didn't like school and that, you know, you never wanted to go.

GM: Well, like any other kid, I had so many activities that was more important than learning. And so certain classes I just couldn't retain it as I studied it, but in math, I was quite good in math. And I was only good in those things that I was interested in. In my physics class, I was pretty good in physics, which is one of the harder classes. But just like when the war started, I went to my principal and asked him if I had enough credits to get out of high school with a diploma and he says, "Yeah, you got two extra credits." So I said, "Well, I'm going to drop out of typing." And I graduated, but I felt that I knew how to type, and there was no use going to typing class and be a better typist when I could use my time on something else. So, you know, it wasn't an important thing with me. With my sisters and brother, it was.

MA: You mean education?

GM: Education was very important to them, yeah. But as far as I was concerned, I lived a life that was a lot easier than them. Well, they had to go to work after, or during the time they went to school. I didn't have to.

MA: Because you were the youngest?

GM: Because I was the youngest, yeah.

MA: Were they ever resentful that you didn't have to work or they, they had to work so much?

GM: No. No, they looked at me as the youngest, and...

MA: As the baby. [Laughs]

GM: And they couldn't make me work. I, in the summertime, I'd go bean picking, peas picking, and all kinds of work that... strawberry picking at somebody's farm, and I'd be gone, the first couple hours I'd be gone with my fishing pole and fishing someplace, and they'd be looking for me. They got to a point where they don't even look for me, they knew that after a couple hours, I'm not going to stick around working on a farm. But that's the way it was. I think... well, I just grew up like a young kid, having fun.

MA: By the time you got --

GM: I don't know if it's good or bad, but that was my life. [Laughs]

MA: By the time you got to high school, what, what types of activities did you get into? I know that you're really interested in photography, and that started for you.

GM: Well, my neighbor, my Eskimo neighbor friend, we used to like to hunt a lot. And a few of the kids always, we always liked to fish a lot. And it took time to go hunting and took time to go fishing, to the lakes and cricks and places, you know. There was a, the whole pile of things that we liked to do, some were good and some were bad.

MA: What were some of the bad things?

GM: Well, we liked to go over there when we got time, there was a big tree that over, hung over the crick over there across the field there, and we made some swings out there that required some pretty heavy ropes. And we used to steal the ropes and stuff to make the swings and stuff, a little clubhouse down there. But those were some of the things, and, well... we didn't do anything really bad, but...

MA: More mischievous than anything.

GM: Yeah. It was a good life.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2005 Densho. All Rights Reserved.