<Begin Segment 10>

TI: Okay, so when you think about that play area, who would be playing there? Would it all be Japanese American kids?

RY: Well, there's just nothing but Japanese playing around. [Laughs]

TI: No, no, no Caucasians. Well, because of the fact that the only families were Japanese families around that area. There was no Caucasian family around there as far as kids went, and I don't know where the Chinese were living, but they didn't seem to be around there.

TI: Well, so when you played games with the other Japanese, what kind of games would you, would you play?

RY: Oh, what is that? We had a, we had marble shooting, you know, make holes, I think it was like a baseball diamond and make holes, and then that one, and then the one that you have a big circle and shoot each other's out. And then, then we had a real good game, it's like a war game. We had, we had rubber bands made out, made from inner tubes, and then we'd have a stick that resembled a rifle. And each notch, we'd string a, string a, the inner tube that we split up, split it down. And we used to go shoot each other that way. And that was one of the games that was, that was quite a, quite a thing.

TI: So these were just like homemade little wooden rifles with notches that you would get inner tubes and cut them up, and then use them to, to pull them back and shoot at each other.

RY: Yeah, we'd flip it up and then shoot it, and then some guys would get, they'd get pretty smart and put a, put a string or rope down that, and leave it in each notch where the rubber bands are stuck. The, the rope would be laid in there, and then pull it and you get a, just like a machine gun. [Laughs]

TI: Oh, so it's a fast-fire.

RY: Yeah. [Laughs] Yeah, we, we had all kinds of guns. All kinds of rubber band... and yeah, things like that is what we played there. And as we got older and some of 'em started smoking, I don't know. That was a bad habit; I didn't like to do that.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.