<Begin Segment 5>

MN: Charlie, tell us some of the games you played as a kid.

CH: Oh, we played cowboy. Cowboy, oh, cops and robbers, cops and robbers, yeah. Then we played Kick the Can, then we played Russian... we had to go to "Russian Pun." "Russian Pun," nobody knows no "Russian Pun." "Lost and Found."

MN: Lost and Found.

CH: Lost and Found, you know, I think something like that. Of course, we had samurai sword fighting. Sword fighting was lot of fun, 'cause we had, there's a hundred kids from different area fighting each other. "I got you," "You ain't got me." "What do you mean, 'I got you'?" They don't know. So we finally put that on the bamboo, you know, the chalk. Chalk, that mark. "See? I got you." We had that once a week, sword fighting. Kick the Can every night. And "Lost and Found" was Hatatori. That was one of the best games, Hatatori. I don't want to... it's hard to explain, that game, Hatatori.

MN: Get the flag or something?

CH: Yeah, yeah, get the flag, Hatatori. Get the flag. You got a little square like thing, and there's about five flag in there, this side and this side, and you come over there, somehow, if you get caught, you're out. So you're a fast runner, the best chance. So if you're caught, you, everybody line up, and you tag that guy, he's safe again. But to tag that guy is hard. He's in the line. It's hard to imagine what kind of game it is.

TI: Well, that game, and another game I heard is jintori.

CH: Huh?

TI: Jintori? Did you play? Two poles and two teams? It's like Capture the Base?

CH: Something similar to that, yeah, Hatatori. We got six of 'em.

TI: Okay, six --

CH: We got six in a box. In a box, you know you put six of 'em.

TI: So it's similar.

CH: Yeah, something similar about that, right.

MN: What was Dead Man's Island?

CH: Huh?

MN: Dead Man's Island?

CH: Oh. You ever heard of Al Capone? The gangster from Chicago? 1930, 1940, '39 or '40 he came to the federal penitentiary. See, that was built in Dead Man's Island. That was maybe one square mile? One square mile. Nothing, nothing on there. That's why they built that thing. Oh, that's where, used to be our camping grounds. See, we used to camp out over there, from 100-pound sack of rice, it come in, what do you call that material? Anyway, you put that rice in there. See, after the rice come, we cut it open, make a tent out of that. So that's why we used to go camping over there, and we afford the thing we ate. There was all kind of crab. You dive and eat the crab, and eat that pinch. You got that rock crab, you called it. They used to have that at Redondo Beach. See, he doesn't know about L.A.

MN: It's okay.

TI: Well, we had different things. We have, like, similar in Seattle, like Dungeness crab and all...

CH: Dungeness. The Dungeness crab ain't good. The red crab is better, got more meat. But you know lot of kids, they learn to eat that, the miso. You know, the head part. See, that's the best one. But when I look at that, they look like somebody puke in there. You know, it's so dirty-looking. That's why I never ate that thing. But lot of guys will eat -- today, all the people, Terminal Island people are still looking for the things. But you don't have that much crab. So I remember, that's why we got spearfish, too. You know, just cook 'em, and then no bread, no milk, so all the merchant, all the bread company and the milk company come and deliver and they had a box like that, grocery store, they stuck 'em in there. So I think we tell the guys, "Go get some over there." You know, maybe you give 'em penny, leave something over there, but they bring it. So we had something to eat. We used to sleep over there maybe two night. Two nights. Some of 'em, family, parents, they get worried, that's why they come and check up. But that's not camping. Yeah, no fun with the older people coming around, no fun. No fun at all. That's why we had that kind of fun over there. Then all the white people, all the white, the Caucasian people, they all come fishing on Saturday and Sunday. That was a nice fishing spot, 'cause they didn't have no breaker over there. It was wide-open sea. Until recently, they put that thing, too, they screwed up the whole place. No good no more. So then, when they come fishing, they get tangled up on the line, they'll wrap them kelp around there, they see us swimming, "Hey, Son, come over here." "What?" "Can you untangle that thing?" We go over there, "Five cents, please." "Hey, used to be one dollar a day with the guys diving." Well, how often you get caught, but they used to get caught lot of times. That's why we always had some kind of way to make money.

And we used to get, you don't know what a tomcod is. You know what a himono is? Fish, split open the back and dry out, dried fish. A himono. See, we used to get those little fish like the tomcod and kingfish. Two fish for one penny. So we get about two hundred, then one dollar. One dollar is a big money. Twenty-five cents, Coney Island hot dog, Five cents for Pepsi cola or Coca-cola. You get to eat four hot dogs and one Pepsi cola for twenty-five cents. Hey. That's why we used to make money out of catching the fish. Dumb people, L.A., downtown, or all that farmer, they don't know where we caught the fish. We caught the fish where the water was polluted. [Laughs] You know, it's in the big harbor. But it's not like today. Them days it was nice, but it was still polluted. So they don't know. They say, "Umai, umai," they eat it.

Then when I used to go skin diving for abalone and I go to the farmer and sell it for twenty-five cents apiece, they all bought it, every one. I tell 'em, when we came back, you had to sell about fifty of 'em, twenty-five cents apiece, look how much money it is. Man, that's why with that money, I was rich going to high school. That's why I used to take my hakujin girlfriend, Nihonjin girlfriend I don't have. You know why? Everybody pointing finger at you. They go to cannery, "Oh, that guy took that guy's... he was holding hands and walking down the street." That's the way it was. They were backward a little bit, you know, small-minded. So I had to go to Monterey, I used to come all the way to L.A. to go to all the movies, buy 'em candy and hot dog, hey, they like me. Spend the money. [Laughs] That's why it's fun.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.