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MA: What were some of your hobbies as a child when you were growing up?

MM: Well, I, I was not, I didn't have too many hobbies. My sisters are the ones that had hobbies, 'cause you could never get me to crochet or anything like that. And everything I did was wrong, or was it, everybody in our family was neat. And along came me, and I wasn't -- but see, now is when I really wish that my mom was her, and my sisters even, because they taught me at a later age about crocheting and things like that. But see, if I was a little bit more serious about that when I was young, 'cause they all did everything, and I started it at a real late age. So you can't do anything, but I do what I can. I think it started because I had got arthritis so bad, and then doing something like that really helped my... and that's why I did mostly embroidery and all that kind of stuff right now. But I wasn't one for... and as far as, I'm not very domesticated. Like cooking... [laughs]

MA: You don't cook?

MM: I'm the world's worst cook. My sisters and my mother did all the cooking.

MA: Did you eat mainly Japanese food at home?

MM: But see, like filling the inarizushi, well, I used to like lots of gohan in, in the age. So I'd get my fingers and I'd press into the corners, you know, to get all the gohan in there. And my mother would get so mad because she said, "Don't do that." "Yeah," but I said, "Mama, I like inarizushi that's all filled up." See, I guess that's not very ladylike. You're supposed to put it in there, but not squeeze it, and I like it heaping like this. [Laughs] I think I was impossible, but I think I had more fun than anybody else, so a lot of the things... they were very, very ladylike, which is fine, but I never was quite that way. But the cooking, they, they did cooking, they did a lot of cooking.

MA: What are some other things you did for fun? I mean, you talked about playing in the alley, and what are some other things?

MM: Well, once in a while we'd have to walk way out to the swimming, and the park was Liberty Park, which was, oh gosh, two, about two miles away. But in those days, see, nobody had cars, so we'd have to walk from home way up to those, to the swimming pool. Oh, I'll tell you, that was a long ways, but we didn't go too often because, boy, you'd get so tired. But nobody had a car, so we didn't go too often. And in those days, it used to be hot, walking. But, but you look at the things like that, and I am, anyway, I'm just so thankful that -- I was telling my son this the other day -- that I'm thankful that I had... at the time, I probably wasn't too happy, but you appreciate so much what they did for you and a lot of the things, see, we never had a car until we moved up to the house. And little things like that that really make you appreciate what your folks have done for you. 'Cause like clothes, I would start to make something and oh, gosh, it wouldn't fit. My mother would take the whole thing apart and do it all over again. And my sisters were both real good seamstress, and they look at it and they think, "Oh, gosh." But I appreciate, and I always have appreciated the things that they've done for me.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.