<Begin Segment 20>

TI: I'm thinking about kind of like the nights when he's painting, did you ever play your violin?

BH: I did a little bit, not too much.

TI: And how about just singing? Did the two of you ever sing?

BH: He used to sing. [Laughs] Japanese kind of songs.

TI: And describe...

BH: Oh, he was an actor, too, in Wyoming. And so he and his brothers put together a show, 'cause they had a Japanese school there. There were quite a few Japanese, but they were all Nisei kids being born, and they don't know anything about Japan or Japanese things. So we had to teach them how, so they don't lose that. They had us, a "tip school," I guess you'd call it. [Laughs] So they'd do quite a bit, and then we'd raise money and they built a little place where they can teach. They said they had some good teachers coming from Japan to teach them. Then they said to keep running that school they needed some money, so they said, "Let's up a show of some kind." So Paul was the instigator, I guess, he and his brother. So they asked everybody to donate some money to buy the costumes -- not buy the costumes, they had to make everything. So they got all the women to make all the costumes, and he wrote the scenario, he was the main star in it, of course. [Laughs] They did real good, and he was real good. Sometime at night when he's feeling good, he'd blast out singing all these Japanese songs. And I used to sit there and laugh because to me, it was comical. Especially those... what do you call that? Men, when they sing by themselves, I don't know what they call it. And he'd blast out singing something, and I wouldn't understand, and he'd make all these faces when he's singing. And I'd be... [covers face with hands] so he says, "Oh, she understands all this." Here I was, he thought I was crying, and instead I was laughing to myself. [Laughs]

TI: And where would he get the training to write a play and perform?

BH: He was very talented that way. He used to read a lot. He used to read everything.

TI: But from books he could read this and then figure out how to do this?

BH: I guess when he was younger, before he came, he was fifteen... he was fifteen when he came, so up 'til that, he used to read a lot. His grandfather used to be very strict. And he learned it all from his grandfather.

TI: So I'm curious, the plays that he did, was the style kabuki or kyougen?

BH: Oh, yeah, more like kabuki, I guess. So he wrote the story and he picked everybody to be so-and-so, and some women, we had a couple that ran a fish store, Japanese grocery store, they had a little, about two or three cans of everything. And they used to get together and make, she was a heavy-set woman. And he did the makeup, so he made this woman into an old, ugly man or something. [Laughs] And she was nursing the baby, and so when she tried to nurse him, she wouldn't go to him because... he had a lot of humorous stories about things like that. But he directed the shibai.

TI: And then so as a play, how popular was the play?

BH: It was quite popular. I guess at one time, Salt Lake, they asked them to come to Salt Lake to do a performance. And, of course, they can't go, they're all working, they can't take the time out to do it. And people from Denver wanted something, but they never did go out of Rock Springs, but it was quite famous, I guess. That was before I met him, so I don't know what went on.

TI: So all this, I'm sorry, you said before you met him?

BH: This was, yeah, before I met him.

TI: Oh, so this was before he had children.

BH: Oh, yeah, uh-huh. He was still a bachelor.

TI: Okay, so he had a lot more time and energy.

BH: Of course, his parents were living at the time, too, and the father died of cancer. So he knew his father only one year when he came, 'cause he was a baby when he left. For one year's old, he knew his father, then he got sick. So I never met him either.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.