<Begin Segment 6>

MN: You were a part of this Boy Scout Troop 197, the drum and bugle corps?

BK: Right.

MN: Is this when you started to have a love of music?

BK: Well, we had to select something to be a part of the troop drum and bugle corps, so I was too small to carry a drum, so they said, "Maybe you ought to be a bugler. All you have to do is carry a bugle." So I started blowing the bugle and kept that up, and (...) I became a member of the junior orchestra. My parents bought me a cornet, (...) and that's what I had when I went to Manzanar. So that's the drum and bugle corps (beginners).

MN: So you just mentioned at Hollenbeck you joined the band there?

BK: (Yes), they had a orchestra at Hollenbeck, so I joined the junior orchestra. Mr. Abbot was the musical director, and we had to practice... others were learning the violin and I was learning the trumpet part. We played Christmas tunes and we played some classicals. I forget the names of the classical songs, but they were not complicated ones because everybody was learning. The girls playing the violin and the trumpet and the drummer and everybody, it was a very mixed up orchestra. [Laughs]

MN: Now, you told me that the Hollenbeck Junior High didn't have a, a cornet, so you had to buy your own. Was your family able to, how were you able to afford buying something like this?

BK: Acquire a what?

MN: The coronet, the trumpet.

BK: Oh, (yes). Well, my folks bought it... I think as time went on and the economy became better my father had a full time job, so he was able to afford to buy all the things like the kendo equipment and, and the coronet. Times became better for us.

MN: Was he still at the Santa Fe, with the Santa Fe Railroad?

BK: (Yes). The Santa Fe Railroad, if you worked there as a repairman you got union wages, so, you know, it was not just peon wages. It was regular wages that you got, so it really helped out.

MN: One of the things you also mentioned, was very interesting and special, is that you were able to go to San Diego.

BK: Yeah, the railroad company gave its employees special passes. It didn't cost them anything except the tickets to issue them and they would get on the train to go down San Diego, and so we got an annual pass to go down to San Diego. That was our vacation for the year. The whole family got to get on board. It didn't cost the railroad much except the tickets they printed because they rode, boarded the train and just sat on the train and went all the way to San Diego, got off, then we had to pay for going into the zoo and all. And after that was through we'd get back on the train and come home. So that was one of the, I guess, one of the benefits of working for the railroad, get free rides to San Diego. Did I tell you about my favorite chimpanzee?

MN: No. Tell me about your favorite chimpanzee.

BK: [Laughs] Every year when we go down there we make sure we went by this one, one cage where they had the chimpanzees, and this one chimpanzee learned how to spit. And so as the customers came by he would suck up the water and go "hoo," and we knew that. Every year we'd go back there and say be, be careful because the chimpanzee... [Laughs] And they were not dumb, the chimpanzees.

MN: And I bet you looked forward to these annual vacations?

BK: I guess it was the only thing my father could afford at the time, and so all of us took part in it. Yeah.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.