<Begin Segment 15>

TI: Other memories of Amache?

KK: Oh, the snowstorms and the dust storms and the mud storms, 'cause it would be dusty and then this rain would come down and it would be mud, and we'd have to take our sheets back in and rinse them off and wring 'em out again. Oh, and there was this thing about this light in the sky, a ghost story. They says, "Oh, yeah, you can see this light, and it goes from barrack to barrack like that." So we'd all wait at night to see, and darn it if there wasn't one.

TI: Oh, so you did see a light?

KK: Yeah, and we went, [gasps].

TI: So describe it. It actually went inside camp from barrack to barrack, you saw something?

KK: Well, no, it just went over this one barrack. We saw this light, and we, nobody knew why or what for, and then it went across and then it went off. But see, somebody had told us that this happened and we didn't believe them, so one night we stayed up to watch, and it happened.

TI: So what do you think that was?

KK: I have no idea. I have no idea.

TI: But when you stayed up late at night, what did you discuss or what did you talk about in terms of what that was?

KK: Oh, a ghost, of course. [Laughs] We all... [gasps], "Look, look, look." But I went back to Amache in 1994, no, it was before, it was when I was, I went back there in 19-... trying to think, was it in the '50s or '60s? I had a trip, the Cancer Society sent me to Denver to a meeting, and while I was there I met with, I think the Rotarians, and it was all Japanese group and I had taken my sister's slideshow and showed it to them. And then I asked if anybody had a tape recorder that I could borrow, and I had my camera and a tape recorder, and I wanted to know where I could rent a car, 'cause I wanted to find out how to get to Amache and drive there. And this lady says, "Oh, I'll take you." So I, "Oh, good," because she had a car and she drove me. And so we went to Amache and, of course, it had, nobody'd been there and it, it was just all wild and everything, but I walked in and I looked around, and I went and I said, "I think this is where our mess hall was." And I stood there and I said, "And then the bathroom was over here, and our barrack was over here." We were the first the barrack, and then there were barracks on this side. But there was, and then there was the mess hall here. And so I was standing there, and it was just like magic. All of a sudden I could see these kids running around and this lady going to the bathroom and knocking into her and she dropped her soap and towel and they pick it up and give it to her, and she goes and they go this way. And I said, "I remember doing that." And there was another thing that happened --

TI: But this, when you were there, so this is decades after, you would see this. By just standing there you could just see it.

KK: I just, standing there, I could see it. Just like it was, you know, like, I don't know what you'd call it, but it's just, I just...

TI: And when that was happening what were you feeling?

KK: I was feeling very odd. Then more odd was that for years I'd had this sound in my ears, and I had the doctors at Kaiser, they tested my ears, they tested, they did all kinds of things and they never could get rid of this sound. Well, we were there, and after we, well, we walked around and everything and I had the tape recorder on and I was talking about things that I saw and everything. And I wish I could find that tape recorder, tape, but I can't. But anyway, when we were in the car, I rewound the tape and I said I want to listen to it, see what it was like, and when I turned it on, here was this sound. And what it was was the wind going through the sagebrush that was around us.

TI: The same sound that you've heard --

KK: And it was in my head. And when I turned it off, it went off. It was so odd. It was so odd. And I told her, "I've had this sound in my head all these years, and now it's gone."

TI: So it's almost like you had to return --

KK: To Amache.

TI: -- to hear, for that sound to, to cancel it out or something.

KK: Yeah.

TI: And this woman witnessed all this. She came and she drove you there. What an amazing story. What does that make you think, when you hear, when you experience this?

KK: I've had so many different experiences with my mother and myself that sometimes I think, "Lord, what are you trying to do to us?" I was sleeping with my mother in Amache, and of course my brothers had gone off to the MIS, went overseas to...

TI: So that's Stanley went to the MIS, and Howard's there, and then Ernie is in the 442.

KK: 442, yeah. But it was Howard and Stanley that she was talking about. One morning she woke up and she said to me, "The boys will meet." And I said, "Who will meet?" "Howard and Buddy will meet, but there'll be no guns." And years later we found out that when Buddy was captured by the (U.S. Army) and he was in the hospital, in the Philippines, Howard was in the Philippines and went to meet him, no guns.

TI: Did you look at the dates, was it about the same time your mother had that, that feeling, that they met?

KK: It was much earlier. My mother was much earlier. And then she had another one. She said, oh, she said to me, one morning she woke up and she said, "Oh, Buddy has a son now." Months later we get telegram. Buddy had a son. So, see, I have this thing through my mother, in me. Sometimes I wonder, "Oh, Mom, what did you do to me?"

TI: I'm wondering, too, you, when you talked about your grandmother, too, so I wonder if it... but that was on your dad's side.

KK: That's my dad's side, yeah.

TI: Interesting.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.