<Begin Segment 17>

TI: So you said three months in Puyallup, and then you went to...

ET: Then went to Minidoka. That's another time I really got frustrated, and I got mad. What happened is it was so hot, people got sick. We needed some help, and my dad, for instance, he had a real problem in the train ride from Puyallup to southern Idaho. Seemed like, gosh, that lasted maybe several days, but it's all done in one day. We got there very late in the afternoon, maybe it's evening, because I don't remember the sight outside. And so many people believed that we're gonna be all shot in the desert. And I said, "No, no, no, don't worry about it, it's not gonna be that way at all. We have some advanced people that came to Minidoka, and they communicated with us, and you are going to love this camp," and so forth. But we already knew the conditions.

TI: But there, but there were some people who thought that you were going to be, just go out to the desert and...

ET: Especially their state of mind and the condition that they were held wasn't very good at the time. So we, actually, before we got to the Twin Falls, and just outside of Twin Falls, and kind of like a spur, that's it. Camp, nowhere you could find the camp yet, several miles away. But when we went through Boise, the train stopped for about a half an hour, and there were all kind of Red Cross out there and helping, I guess they were ordered not to look at us, because no one looked at us. And the minute we got near the door, always there's a bayonet there and to stop you. And the train condition was the worst. I, I got thirsty and I took out the thing and there's a dead spider, two of 'em came out. Said, "How you gonna drink this thing?" "Well, drink the water, don't drink the spiders." [Laughs]

TI: "Don't drink the spider."

[Interruption]

TI: Okay, so Ed, we switched tapes, we're on the third tape, and you were just talking about that stopover in Boise, and the Red Cross was there, and you were mentioning how people wouldn't look at you. So you were right about then when we took a break, so why don't you go ahead and pick it up there.

ET: Occasionally someone would turn toward us and look at it, but you could tell by the way they acted that they were told not to look at us. The escorting army personnel, they were not good people at all. They didn't understand what I was trying to say, but then from the standpoint of their orders to watch out for all these people, particularly in the, the train is stopped, what I could understand that, but then I don't use, none of us used the right, logical answer to any of those things. So we were quite frustrated and mad. And then this is actually some time later, after I came back, came to Spokane, and one of the meetings, Red Cross people talked about, and how badly they were treated in Japan, for instance, and things like that. And I didn't care who said what, I stood up and told them, "I'll tell you what the Red Cross did to us," and everyone couldn't believe it. Right next to me were the publishers -- well, he was a Spokesman Review publisher, he was quite old at the time, always stayed with me, and we were pretty good friends. And he looked at me and he said, "Good for you, Ed." And so it's really funny that the Red Cross, I shouldn't be anything mad, I think we just treat that as kind of an individual bad judgment in part, but yet, several days later I heard that they're criticizing Japanese in Japan, that kind of made me mad. So the situation is I'm not pro-Japanese or anything like that, I certainly am pro- any decency that urged people to do that kind of talk in public, and not knowing your own group is doing. [Laughs]

TI: Yeah, good for you.

ET: So this is the kind of thing that made me so mad at the time. And of course, after so many years, I don't get mad like used to.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.