<Begin Segment 8>

TI: I'm curious, growing up in that neighborhood, they have sort of "underground Seattle." Did you as a boy ever kind of explore down below?

KT: Yeah. In our hotel, we had a basement access to down there, and I would go down there. And the walls between hotel and property had holes in 'em, so we would crawl out from one, and you were actually in someone else's property. But I used to kid these people that went on the underground tours, I said, "Hey, we used to do that with our BB guns and flashlights, and we would go, we played down there. And I remember one time we saw this great big rat. Had our BB guns out and I think it was two BB guns, and we fired away at it. And our BB shot just bounced off those rats, you know. [Laughs] And then I remember telling that to some of the older boys, and one of the older boys said, "Hey, I got a pump gun." And he's gonna, "This will blast through it," so he'd bring his pump gun and we'd go down there and try to find the rats and shoot at the rats and whatnot. So we, this so-called underground tour, the places they were showing them, we used to do ourselves, just jump one to the other.

TI: And so you would, it would be like an adventure. Go down there, rat hunting...

KT: Rat hunting, or just go down there and go from one building to another. [Laughs]

TI: And how large a network was there? I mean, how far would you actually travel down below? Was it just a block or so, or was it even multiple blocks?

KT: More like First and Washington, and I think we were able to jump around there to First and Yesler, Occidental, about one, two, three, four... three blocks or so, we were able to go from one -- it wasn't a direct path, we had to go around, because we had to find holes in the walls that allow us to make access from one side to the other. And it was all... it was a lot of fun. [Laughs]

TI: And do you recall some of your, your playmates back then? Who were some of your friends that you would do some of these things with?

KT: I think my friends that I made in camp, none of them were really living down in that area, close by. So they weren't with me, and I guess there was about one... you know, all their names starting to become a blur, but there was about two, two or three families that would get together. And I was among the younger one of that group, and then the older boys. I know, did you want the names of them?

TI: No, that's okay. I'm just curious, you're really the first one who is describing playing down in those areas underneath the underground Seattle area. Any other stories or anything else that you can share in terms of explaining what it was like? I mean, you're right, today in Seattle they have the underground tours, and most of it's blocked off, and they kind of go certain places. But you had kind of like this open access as a kid. What else was down there? Did people live down there?

KT: No, there was nobody living in the underground deal, because they would have, they wouldn't have access to that place until... because we had access because from our hotel, we had access to our basement. And from there, we [inaudible] out to all these other places.

TI: Well, did you ever run into anyone else down there?

KT: No, no. Usually when we were running around, I don't ever remember bumping into someone else unless they were part of our own group, you know, that went in there.

TI: And how about were there, kind of, was it dangerous? I mean, were there, like, empty holes or things that you could have hurt yourself or anything like that?

KT: There was, as I recall, there wasn't any deep hole that we might accidently stumble into it, I mean, the floor, it wasn't paved, it was brick in there, but it was smooth. And we didn't have to worry about that. And we didn't have to, we never worried about something fall, crushing down upon us, I mean, it was pretty stable.

TI: Now, was it a place that you weren't supposed to be? Was it kind of like there was a...

KT: Well, we weren't supposed to be in any of the places other than our own footprint of the hotel. But we didn't care about that. [Laughs]

TI: That's a good story. Yeah, I didn't, you're actually the first... I've talked to other people who've talked a little bit about the underground, but not, as a kid, playing around down there. So this is, that's interesting. We talked a little bit earlier about going to Bailey Gatzert, and we talked about Japanese language school. And then you said after Bailey Gatzert you went to Washington junior high school?

KT: Yeah, well, Eighth Grade Center at that time.

TI: And so about what year was that when you went to Washington? You were... I'm trying to establish with the war started. I think you were in, at Washington when the war started?

KT: Yeah, right.

TI: So what grade were you when the war started?

KT: Oh, I was in the eighth grade, yeah.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.