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TI: You mentioned, in terms of some of the activities, you mentioned camping. I was curious, what kind of camping were you able to do?

KT: Did I say camping?

TI: Yeah, you mentioned camping. Maybe... you went swimming and camping.

KT: With swimming, yeah. We used to go swimming. I remember that swimming part because the time that we went down there, I was part of that group where this, I think his name was Yosh Tamura from our block drowned in the canal. And it's in the Minidoka Irrigator. I had a reprint of that article, and I looked at the date and I said, "Oh, September of '43, I think." So I went to your Densho archive, Minidoka Irrigator, and was able to bring up that whole Irrigator and printed it. Oh, now I can get a copy of that. [Laughs] Because the copy I have is getting kind of frail. [Laughs]

TI: Yeah, you can make a new copy. So, for instance, did you know Yosh, the one, the boy who drowned? Did you know him?

KT: He was in the older group, and it happened that we were gonna go swimming, and we happened to walk by him and he said, "Oh, yeah, okay. You guys are going swimming? Okay, I'll join you." And so he joined us, and then four or five of us decided that we were gonna go up the canal and swim, float down the canal and then come back into the cove. And we started to go off there, and the person that's mentioned in the article, Shobo Tanaka, he stayed behind because he wasn't a strong swimmer. And he stayed behind with Yosh, and then according to the article, which I didn't know, Yosh was following us, going up that way. But we didn't know it, we just jumped into the lake and swam down in there. When we came back, he was missing. And I remember the effort we went through to try to find him, you know. And one incident I remember quite clearly is the people there made a raft, and they were gonna string this raft with ropes on either side of the canal and have a group over there, and deal. And when they, after they built the raft, one of the older guy was a fairly good swimmer, so he said he would swim across with a tow rope and we'll help pull him. And he took off and started swimming, and then Tak Chikamura and myself, we said, "Hey, we could help pull that." So we swam with him and went across to the other side, and the three of us pulled, had the rope that he trailed with him, and pulled that over. And then they ferried a crew over on both sides of the canal there and with this raft in the center and people, three people, I think, was on the raft, and then a crew on either side. And we floated that raft down the canal, looking at different coves and trying to find him, but we didn't find him. And a couple days later, a fisherman spotted him and the body was recovered.

TI: So that must have been a little traumatic for you, then, because you were right then and there when it happened.

KT: Yeah. And, you know, it happened to a guy that went down to the pool with us. And I remember we were in the water most of that day trying to find the, looking at the spot or, "Oh, where could he have floated to?" And if there was a little cove, "Oh, he could get trapped there," so we would go over there and stomp on the ground and swim around and try to find him.

TI: But he ended up actually floating right past you, is that what happened? He was farther down the canal?

KT: We're following the current, and then saying, "Okay, where could he have gone?" and then trying to go to the spot where the current would be going and look around those areas. And that's what we were doing with a raft and a group that went down the river, yeah.

TI: And how many people were looking for him during this time?

KT: Oh, whoever was in the block when we went back and reported him gone, they came down to help look for him. And there must have been a, I think there was a group of six men on the other side of the river, and another group of six holding the raft and floating it down, three guys on the raft, and all of us kids that were swimmers, we were looking around the shore line.

TI: And so after this happened, did they start coming up with different rules in terms of swimming, or did anything change because of the drowning?

KT: No, that that I recall.

TI: Did they, did the adults tell you guys to be more careful?

KT: Yeah, we all said it's gotta be a buddy system, have someone with you all the time. So don't go swimming by yourself, you know, the main thing.

TI: So swimming was an activity, you mentioned some of the work, digging ditches. What were some of the other, you mentioned your group of seven, what are some other fun things that you did?

KT: Oh, during the summer, we would, we went to Idaho Falls as a group and helped the farmers harvest the crop. I remember one time, in them days, earning ten dollars was really quite a task. And we were, a guy Shobo and I were picking the spuds off, and the farmer would have the ranch plowed up, so much of it plowed up, and then he would leave while we were still picking up the spuds. We were up at nine dollars and fifty cents, and we ran out of spuds. And we wanted to top the people running the plow a little bit more so we could hit the ten dollar mark, you know. [Laughs] And they wouldn't move it, and so we didn't make our ten dollar goal.

TI: It sounded like it was pretty good fun. It was hard work, but you were with buddies.

KT: Yeah, right.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.