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TI: Okay, so you go to Pomona. So what are some first impressions of Pomona when you got there?

TH: Well, again, we had visited the fairground before and suddenly, we're now at the Pomona fairgrounds. But (...) thinking back on it, (...) I don't really remember too much, except I think it was a little chaotic. And then we finally had, I think we finally found our (assigned) apartment or the barrack that we were (to stay), and then guess we settled in (...). I guess as a sixteen year old, you begin to go out and start exploring around. And ran into a guy that I did judo with, and I really don't know exactly how it all turned out, but they were looking apparently for volunteers to work in the mess hall, so I says okay, fine, so then I signed up, went to work in the mess hall, I think virtually from the very first day that I arrived. And that in turn was really something because people were then being, coming into the camp, either bus, many busloads or by train, and I was working in the very first mess hall that opened. There were about, if I remember, something like thirty-three, thirty-five of us (working) in this mess hall. And so that became a job now of feeding the people as they came in, and it became getting the mess hall all full of people. (...) They would eat their food, and (...) would eat the food fairly fast because there'd be a long line waiting to come into the mess hall. So as soon as those people finished then (...) working (as) the dishwasher (...), we had to (...) wash dishes like crazy so that they'd have clean dishes for the new set of people coming in. And so this was sort of the routine that went on in breakfast and lunch and dinner, and it was hot. But one, one day (as the) people came in... I guess we had a maximum load. The chef, or the cook said, the head cook said, "Well folks, we fed something like 2100 people."

TI: This is one meal, not a whole day? This is one meal?

TH: Yeah, this is one meal, and I forgot how many people the mess hall held, probably at least three hundred people, and so it was just this continual turnover of just getting in or feeding the people. And one of the guys that I met later on, after we got out, said that he remembers the very first meal he had in Pomona. Well, the people were coming in so much I guess the government was trying to deliver enough food, but it's one of these problems that all we had in the mess hall, I remember one day, was a big, huge wheel of cheese and rice. And so the fellow sat down and he said he had just this rice gruel. We had to put more water into the rice to stretch it, and a thin sliver of this cheese, which was not really meant to eat. It was more of a cooking cheese. And he sat there and he looked at it, and he says, "Well, I guess this is the way it's gonna be." [Laughs] But things improved much after that, but that was his first meal and he says, "Boy, this is gonna really be something."

TI: So the cooks just had to do with whatever they had.

TH: Yeah, whatever they had, and oh, it was really, was something to, at least be part of, to watch what was happening.

TI: I'm, I'm kind of this process guy and I'm trying to think, 2100 people, you seat about three hundred, so that's, like, a turnaround seven times. What, what would be the bottlenecks? I mean, how do you feed so many people in such a small space and a concentrated time? How do you, I'm trying to think, what would, what would kind of slow, be the one thing that you would have to, the bottleneck for all that? Would it be like the dishwashers or the serving the food or, what would it be?

TH: That's, that's kind of interesting, 'cause we, I never, never really remember where the bottleneck was. It was, it was a more of a continuous flow. We'd, I don't particularly remember that day except when, when the cook came out and announced it, but people said... no, we worked like crazy to get the dishes washed, and I guess the gang of cooks there were just turning, turning out the food as fast as they can. And I don't remember where some of these things came to a halt, but it was just a continual flow.

TI: Yeah, it's pretty impressive when you think about serving that many.

TH: Yeah.

TI: And then just for one meal. Then you have to get ready for the next meal.

TH: Next one. And it was just amazing, 'cause we went from one, basically one to the next with maybe about an hour break in between.

TI: And then you, was this a paid volunteer position, or did you get paid for this?

TH: Well, at the beginning you just more (or less) volunteer and then later on they says oh yeah, we're gonna get paid. Oh, great. Six dollars a week or something like that, or six dollars a month, or I forgot. Yeah, I think about six dollars a month.

TI: So hardly anything.

TH: Yeah, and the guys that I worked with in, in the mess hall says, oh, I think that's nine cents an hour, "Hey, the slaves in Egypt got paid more than this." [Laughs] (Narr. note: Recalculating, $6 per month working about 10 hours a day, seven days a week would be 300 hours or 2 cents per hour.)

TI: So why did, why did you do this? I mean, I would imagine you, the options are you can be playing baseball, you can be doing cards with friends, or you can be working?

TH: I don't know. I says well, we're here, work needs to be done, the people need to be fed, so okay. So here's a little core of people that we just work, work, work. 'Cause I remember we'd be getting up early to go work in the mess hall and then some days it was so hot that I would then say, "Okay, I'm gonna take a break and go shower and change my clothes," because we were just dripping with perspiration. I remember doing that, wasn't every day, but I remember some days that we had to do that. And then it would be until we finally got the dinner finished and then all the things like dishes washed and the cooking pots and so forth all cleaned up, and it would be, oh, maybe nine o'clock at night. So everybody at the very beginning really pitched in, and then other, as other mess halls opened up, then the load lightened up, but being the first and we just took the brunt of the incoming people.

TI: So was there a sense of camaraderie of the, the group?

TH: I think so, yeah, because then when we went to Heart Mountain, that particular mess hall people stayed together. In fact, it was up in the same block that we were assigned to at Heart Mountain, found out they're up in the upper mess hall, 'cause the blocks were divided up into two sections, two mess halls to each block. So then I went to work in the upper mess hall, same group.

TI: So they all, you wanted to stay together. They wanted to work together.

TH: Yeah. Yeah, knew each other.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.