<Begin Segment 18>

MN: When did you come out of Leavenworth?

TN: 1945. '44? '45.

PM: Probably 1946.

TN: '46, January. No, June. Someplace there. I knew they give, issue us heavy winter clothes.

MN: But it was hot. It was probably June 1946.

TN: '46, June.

MN: What kind of discharge did you have?

TN: Dishonorable discharge.

MN: When you left Leavenworth, how much money did you save?

TN: I had about two hundred dollar, somewhat, I think.

MN: And you took a train to Colorado?

TN: Yeah, Colorado.

MN: And...

TN: I lost them all, I thought.

MN: Tell me the story.

TN: In the train station, I lost them all.

MN: No money?

TN: All money.

MN: How did you lose two hundred --

TN: I had a... soon as I got out of Leavenworth, Kataoka's place, he was living in Kansas. Then I'd throw away all the clothes and I bought the nice silk shirts and suitcase, then a billfold, and took a train to Colorado. In the station, I got off the place, windy. Then one person get off with me, and hat flew away. Then I tried to catch for that hat, and I lost it. Next day, oh, no. It slipped out. Just for somebody else's hat. So I went broke. [Laughs]

PM: You've been broke ever since. No money.

TN: Yeah.

MN: So at Denver, you went to see your cousin. So what did you do for your cousin at Denver?

TN: That's the tomato season. I think short season anyway. I helped harvest it, then we all moved on to, back to Denair, my cousins coming back, so came back.

MN: And what did you do there?

TN: Then cousin offered me to run the dairy. The hakujin was running. So I said, I talked to my brother. He was saying he will like to do gardening in Oakland with me. But I thought, "I like farm," so I stick with the cousin that came back. And even I made a contract. My brother says, I think, make a contract. So I made a contract in there. But his own way, and I took over.

MN: The dairy. But you quit after one year. Why?

TN: Because I couldn't take it. Because single hand, about fifty cow. Get up four o'clock in the morning, feed the cow, cook myself, irrigate the field, almost twenty-four hours, twenty hours a day I have to work. I can't take it. [Laughs] Then all the tool was just half broke down. This hakujin used it all, much as he can, they never fix it. I don't know how to fix it. Wagon broke. It was hard time. But somehow, I survived one year.

MN: And you saved a lot of money after one year.

TN: I think I made about, I don't know how much, hundred, half my cousin take, half I take. Then I had to make a payment for hay, all that, cow, I have to take share. So I had to pay back some costs.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.