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TI: Okay. So now you have your car at Minidoka and you're going to leave. I'm curious, was it, what was it like telling your wife that you were going to leave? I mean, what kind of farewell did you have with your wife and your wife's family?

HH: She knew I was going to be leaving, but I can't remember if I got a letter or whatever indicating for me to come to Washington, D.C., from the OSS. But anyway, I left, I think it was about September of '43, '44. That's the year that I was drafted again.

TI: Okay. So describe, so you're leaving, so who did you go with? Did you go by yourself or were there other people in the car?

HH: No, I had another passenger that worked as a secretary in our community analysis department. And then the other one was this Tacoma fellow, Tsuyoshi...

TI: Nakamura?

HH: Nakamura, that's right. And he was already relocated to Chicago, and he was just visiting Minidoka. And he says, well, he would like to go home, go back to Chicago, and then also he could help me drive, so that was fine. And the other person was Pat Nakamoto, who wanted to visit her sister who was working near Ogden. So I had another passenger.

TI: Now, I'm curious, when you started off on this trip, did you have any apprehension about driving around the United States as a Japanese American? After being sort of in these camps for a while now, you were now kind of driving throughout the country. What were you thinking?

HH: I can't recall really what feelings, only thing was what happened during the trip, the first leg of it, I had two blowouts on my tire. And this was not too far from Ogden that I was stuck out there. Because I had two spares, but both tires, and I didn't have any means to repair it or anything like that, because it was just out in the sticks, really.

TI: So you were stranded on the highway, essentially...

HH: On the way to Ogden.

TI: And so what happened?

HH: Well, what I had to do was see if I could find somebody nearby, but I just didn't see any houses. It was just fields and these desert kind of area. And so I thought about somebody that was working on the Irrigator, that there was kind of a restaurant that was advertised in the Irrigator that was run by a Japanese firm. And so I finally... and also I knew that my cousin, Akira, he was already working in Ogden, but I didn't know where he lived or I didn't have his telephone number. So I thought that maybe if I can contact that restaurant, I was able to get probably a telephone number or whatever so I can contact him. But from there, I'm not too sure how I was able to get a call through, but I was able to contact him. And I told him what the problem I had and everything else. But they were -- well, "they" meaning he and his wife, my cousin -- and Ralph Kono, who had the Kono Garage in Seattle, whom I knew, anyway, they were both living in a motel just outside of the Ogden city area, and he was working in an auto repair shop. So my cousin asked me what kind of car I had and everything else, and when he comes back, he'll be able to come out and help me with getting another tire or whatever. So I had to wait until he came out. But when he came out, he had a rim, a tire already mounted, and so all you need to do is just remove that. And then so we drove the car into a motel, and that's where we stayed until then we can proceed again.

TI: So that's interesting, so you're pretty lucky then. You had your blowout and stranded right outside of Ogden...

HH: Yes, it's wartime, you see. [Laughs]

TI: And you were able to remember that there was a Japanese restaurant that used to advertise in the Irrigator, and so you were able to contact them over the phone to then get the phone number to your cousin Akira, and then he worked with this Ralph Kono at this car place.

HH: And they were both at this motel.

TI: At this motel, and they were able to, when they heard, when you explained to them the problem, they brought out a tire for you, a mounted tire.

HH: Yes, to fit my car.

TI: Because if you had been stranded someplace else, then it might have been harder to get everything fixed.

HH: Well, I thought maybe he could bring a patch and everything else and he could do this, but I was surprised that he had already had a mounted tire in the rim that will fit my car.

TI: Okay, and so finally you made it to Ogden.

HH: Yes.

TI: And then what happened?

HH: Well, then after that, we tried to find a spare tire, but we weren't able to right then. But by that time he was able to patch up the other tire, so we stayed there. I don't know if we stayed there a day, I think maybe only a day, and then we proceeded down to Salt Lake.

TI: Now, during this time period, there were probably shortages of things like tires and gasoline.

HH: Oh yes, because this is wartime and everything else, and so it was hard to find a new tire, it was a recap that we were going to try. So when we got to Salt Lake City, which was on the route that we were going east, after we got there, we at least tried to get the tire in Salt Lake City, we were able to get something that will keep us going.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.