<Begin Segment 18>

TI: A few years ago there was an incident where someone shot the windows of the buses?

JY: Yeah.

TI: How did the committee handle that? What did you guys talk about?

JY: Well, we didn't make a big deal of it, we just said, well, one of the, I think three buses or four buses got shot, and they only said two buses got shot. And nobody was in it, this and that. And then said, from the following year, says, "The police department will put a patrolman out there, and don't worry about it." The Klamath Falls people was very, very good about, right away, they says, "We'll have guards out there." So the drivers said they'll be more careful where they parked the bus. The precaution there has been taken, so, and nobody even asked about it after that. There's, one window was shattered all the way through, actually, because it was shattered all the way through, the bus cannot be, travel. They got to change the glass because that safety glass, they came home.

TI: So there was an actual hole in the...

JY: That's right, hole, yeah.

TI: I've talked to you a little bit about this before, and one of the things that you really worked hard at was really getting the locals involved with the pilgrimage and reaching out to the local population there? Can you talk a little bit about that?

JY: Well, reaching out, I don't know. I think the experience of Tule Lake pilgrimage has been so well received. I think to reach out to people is no problem. I mean, we have more that we have to, we have to even shut our quota off. We'd like to shut it off at three hundred --

TI: Well, not reaching out to the community, I mean reaching out to the Klamath Falls community.

JY: Oh, up there at Klamath Falls there? Well, yes, what we've done, we've changed... we're always at the community level, says, we got to be, we've got to leave more money behind at Tule Lake. It's a town that's suffering. And so let's have, before, we used to bring a box lunch from the... last time you went, we had box lunch, we ate box lunch. Said, "Let's buy our lunch in Tule Lake." So we had the restaurant come in a couple times. Then one year, the fire department was having a deal there, and they have a barbeque for the, whatever it was that was happening there. Says, "Can we join you guys and have our lunch? We'll buy the lunch from you guys." "Okay, that'd be all right." And then for the last three or four years now, they cook our lunch for us now. They have a barbeque, the fire department has a barbeque for us, so that much money, we'd leave behind. You know, you figure it's ten dollars, twelve dollars apiece for three hundred. That's a pretty chunk of change, you know. It's guaranteed money. So we are trying to get them warmed up, and then logistically, the people are changing. The older guys are dying away, and they're selling off the property and new people are coming in, the new blood into the system. And the other thing, too, what made it real nice for us was Cindy Wright, who's in charge of the fairgrounds, she'll open the place up for us, the bus would make a pit stop and so forth and use the facilities. And then she opened the eyes to many of the local people: we're just as good, we'll pay our share, if we use the facility we leave money behind, we don't use it freely. So, and then I spent the first ten years, I went up there I don't know how many times. One year I went up there ten times to Tule Lake. I catch hell every time, but just keep going back and back. It's like going to the union hall. I know you'll catch hell, but I still go back. And they just shoot me down, but it's okay. "Okay, so that's what you feel, but I can't change your mind." That's all you can say. What else can you say, but this is what happened. They give you all kind of song and dance, but still, they just keep going back and talk to them. So I think that's the only way. Then, too, I talked to you earlier, was eight years, the time we started working on the NPS project, right? Eight years...

TI: This is the National Park Service.

JY: National Park Service.

TI: To get them to recognize the...

JY: Like Stephanie Toothman from your area, Seattle, I mean, she was real good. And John Jarvis, I think they're the ones that once we got the National Historic Site nailed down, then they, I think they went to work after that, said, "See, it's worth saving it." And then I think we used to have meetings about once a month or so up there, Oakland, and talked to different people. And many, many hours up there. But it was just consistently, not to be demanding, "What can we do next? What can we do next?" constantly.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.