<Begin Segment 14>

MN: Before we get there, though -- you're jumping the gun here -- so let me go back to Fort Lupton. You were reunited with your mother?

HY: Yeah.

MN: And then what did you do at Fort Lupton?

HY: We worked on the farm. Japanese farms and hakujin farms. Lot of Japanese lived in Colorado now. I drove tractor for fifty cents an hour, I cleaned the ditches for fifty cents an hour, thinned the beets for fifty cents an hour, about a mile long, with a hoe about two feet long. Broke my back. Broke my mom's back, too. I said, "This is enough, so let's go into the town."

MN: So you went to Denver.

HY: Uh-huh.

MN: And what did you do in Denver?

HY: I looked for a job in the garage. You know, there's a lot of garage, mechanics were open. Each one I went in, they said, "Leave your name and your phone number, we'll get to you later." I didn't even, I didn't even write it down.

MN: They weren't hiring?

HY: No, no, no, they wouldn't hire you.

MN: So if you were a different race, they would have hired you.

HY: That's right. Like now, just like that.

MN: So what did you end up doing?

HY: Finally, I... I was still looking for a job. Then one independent place where you have the gas station and a car parking and a garage, looking for a mechanic. So I went down and applied for it. And he hired me right there, this guy. What was his name now? Oh, he was a hell of a nice guy. And I worked there, and, for about three months, you know. He calls me in the office, he says, "Harry, I got something to tell you." He says, "This happened years ago. Ten, maybe when I was about eighteen, nineteen." He said, "I stole a loaf of bread, and they put me in with a Georgia chain gang, and I escaped from there 'til now." I said, "Who recognized you or how did you get caught?" He said, "One of the attendants who parks the car in the garage was an FBI agent." He put a check on him and found out he was a fugitive. He says, "I may have to go back, you know, finish my sentence." So asked me if I would run the place for him. I told him, "Yeah, sure, I would. I'd run it for you." And so during the FBI, I guess told the parole board or whatever that, "I want him as, in my custody." So either way, we won't have to go back to finish the sentence. The FBI got him so he could be the... what is it?

MN: So he didn't have to go back to jail.

HY: So he didn't have to go back. The FBI fixed it for him.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.