<Begin Segment 13>

BH: So you had also talked about some dances that you had in Minidoka. Can you tell me a little bit about the dances?

KH: They had dances every weekend, and it was kind of fun. It was piped-in music, but sometimes we would have the vocalists among our group, even from the camp in Puyallup, we had Barney Yasuda, and he used to get up and sing. He had a nice voice.

BH: So that was a fun sort of memory.

KH: Yes.

[Interruption]

BH: So this is the second tape with Mary Jane Kinoshita, Brian Hashisaki is interviewer, and Tom Ikeda on camera. Right now in the interview we're talking about Minidoka and recreation in the camps. So we talked a little bit about dances, but if you would go into a little bit more detail maybe. Any specific --

KH: The dances were held in certain areas, I don't remember any dance held in Area 16 where I was. I remember going over to Area 26 and somebody would borrow a truck with seats along the side, and we would all...

BH: Camp Minidoka housed about ten thousand or so people, if I'm correct.

KH: Yeah, it was stretched out.

BH: So these dances, would they just be for certain areas?

KH: And then we would all, the fellows would find out and ask us, and we would say, "Okay," and we would go, either walk to the area, or we would catch a bus like in Area 26, it was quite far from where we were, so they would get an army truck and take us. I remember one time, Bill Yanagimachi was driving, and he must have hit a big pothole, but I went way up in the air and came down hard on the wooden seat. Even after dancing all night, the next day, I could not walk at all. I had hit something sensitive, and I thought, "Gee, I lost all sense in my legs," and I was in bed, but it went away. But the dances were fun. It was dancing to "Tuxedo Junction," all those popular songs at that time.

BH: Did you have any --

KH: "String of Pearls."

BH: -- camp crush or anything like that?

KH: Not as such. In, in Minidoka, I used to go quite a bit with Yoshi Kato. Yosh is one of the fellows who was working with Uncle Bako in the coal, delivering coals to each area, and Bako was, I think, heading that group. But when the time came to volunteer for the army, the coal group all volunteered to go into combat, and I think Uncle Bako for that reason wanted to go with that group rather than, than military intelligence. Bako was pretty fluent in Japanese, and he would have done very well in military intelligence, but he wanted to stay with his friends.

BH: Let's go back to the camp, and can you tell me, you mentioned there were sports as well.

KH: Oh, we played baseball, and I wasn't good in baseball, I could play volleyball. But there wasn't that much sports, not -- because it was over the winter months that I was there in camp.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.