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TI: How did things change for your father when he decided he was not going to Japan? Did his relationship change with others at Crystal City?

KK: I think so. I think so, but I wasn't aware of it. He kept busy. He didn't, in fact, he spent more time with the Germans than with the Japanese, and he learned how to do taxidermy from one of the Germans. And then he did a lot of taxidermy, and I had to cook all the meat. And he taught us all how to blow this pipe with -- he'd make these paper darts -- and how to blow it and where to hit the bird or whatever it is that you're blowing at, so knock 'em out without killing 'em. And then he'd pick 'em up and then he'd hold it and kill it, but he wanted to do that to keep the skin and everything nice. And then he would take the meat out and give to me whatever he's... I had, I've cooked, let me tell you, I've cooked birds, I've cooked armadillos, I've cooked roadrunners, I've cooked lizards. He cooked the snakes. I didn't have to do that.

TI: And when he did the taxidermy, where, did he display them in your apartment, or where would they go?

KK: He'd, we'd have it in the house or he'd give them away, to schools and to people. A lot of the people who worked for the camps would bring in the heads, the deer heads, and my father did a lot of deer heads for people. Then they would bring in the cats, you know the pumas? What do call them? They're spotted and they're big cats.

TI: So not cougars, but leopards or...

KK: Something like that, that were wild in Texas, and he did several of those. I've always wondered where those ended up, and if they're still around. I would like to find out. I was going to write to the newspaper in San Antonio and ask in anybody remembers this.

TI: Yeah, that's fascinating. So, yeah, it sounds like he was busy, doing lots of things.

KK: Yeah, he was busy. And then he did turtles, and he, oh, the one that he did the skunk, that was awful. [Laughs]

TI: What happened when he did the skunk? Did the sac break or something?

KK: He was told the first thing you do is take those sacs and bury 'em, so he took these sacs out and buried 'em, but he took the wrong sacs out. [Laughs] And when his thing slipped he, [screams], it got all over him and he was stinking like mad. And he didn't know what to do, he was supposed to go down and decorate the gym for the dance that they were gonna have, and so he told me, "Tell everybody to go home, but just you and I are gonna decorate." So just me and my dad decorated this whole gym, but I learned a lot about how to decorate. He would take, he would take crepe paper and stretch it 'til you could stretch it no more and then use it like cloth, and drape it, make big bows and stuff. It was really fascinating to, to... he was so creative, and he had us make flowers out of Kleenex, flowers out of toilet paper, flowers out of just almost anything you could think of, that you could get enough of to make different colors of flowers and all. And he would arrange those for the funerals or for the dance or whatever anybody needed flowers. 'Cause he was, at one time he was a floral decorator in Salt Lake City, and he decorated all the homes of the leaders of the Mormons. Like, if they were having a banquet at home or something, he would decorate, make a decoration, take it there, put it on their tables.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.