<Begin Segment 17>

TI: Now, in the summer, what kind of work did you do to raise money?

KT: Well, the first summer I worked in the railroad gang with Harry Nambu, it was an acquaintance of my dad. And for the first year I was with the gang of laborers repairing the tracks around. And my job was I'll be part of the crew that was working on the actual physical labor of moving the tracks and whatnot, but when we started toward the end, he would ask me to count the number of ties, rails that were used, the number deal, and I'll make an inventory for him to turn in that this is what we accomplished doing that. So I used to do that, and it was real good. I remember Harry Nambu because he had an eye that could lay a track straight. And at that time, this was, I was, when I finished my surveying course in college, and a transit happened to be close by. So I set up this transit over the rail, set it up, and I started to spot his line down the mile length of line down. And every time I would put the transit down there to spike it, right dead center on the rail. I said, "Boy, he has a good eye." And later on, one of the foremen came in a railcar, and I was telling, he saw me working the transit and he said, "Oh, you know how to operate a transit?" "Yeah, I'm just checking out Harry's eye, and boy is he good." "Oh, yeah, he's one of the best." He could just look at a rail and, you know, he'd have a crew of four people on either side with the spikes on it. And then he'll say, "Ho, ho," or, "Hey," and we would move literally the whole track like this over the belts, and he could lay that line real straight. He had uncanny... I said, "Boy, he sure did." And he's just standing over the rail, looking down, sighting that.

TI: Hmm. Because, I mean, so normally people would use the machines or the apparatus...

KT: Machines, yeah.

TI: ...to make sure it was straight.

KT: Well, the new ones all, it was done in one, one big rail car. I see 'em by the Boeing field, and I happened to drive by there, I saw this machine that was doing this, so I stopped and was talking to all... "Boy, that's some rig you got there and that was laid and shifting." I says, "I used to do that."

TI: But by hand.

KT: By hand.

TI: Interesting.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.