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TI: So now you have all this, a lot of property, nine acres, undeveloped. What happens next?

HM: Okay, now we have to clear that out so, because we have to build a house, and the first place we had to dig a well for water, but we didn't know that Puuloa is below sea level, so we hit water in no time, but brackish water. The tide comes up, the well overflows; tide goes down, no water. The gravity. So we built the, we dug, when Mr. Morita, very good friend of ours, he was the leading dynamite man, worked for Waipahu sugar mill, sugar plantation, so we, Mr. Morita came and he helped us dig the well. So water was the most important thing, but it was brackish, so what, we had to clear, so we cleared the land up just to build a house, that was the most important thing. So my mother's family came every weekend to help us, and then, oh, you won't believe it, you'd cut and I'd swear there was another tree coming up. There was that many kiawe trees. So we, and there were a lot of coral rocks, so we had to pick the coral, clear that in order to build, so we built a wall with the coral rocks. That was our help. But Mom made obento for us because her brothers came to help us, and so my mother made obento like we were gonna have party every Sunday. Mom was so good in that. She, she was never tired to do things for us. The obento she made for us, you won't believe it, osushi and then the nishime and everything else that, she always made something for her brothers, because I'd, we lost, I lost my grandmother when I was little, so she made something that her brothers wanted to eat. So you can imagine the obento that my mom made? So we had to commute from Waipahu because we didn't have a house yet, so then when we cut the kiawe tree, cut it to certain (length) stump because we had the people making charcoal down Ewa Beach, so they came, we sold the kiawe to the charcoal people. But that was work, believe me. We, then the house came up. The area wasn't that clear, just enough to build a house, but today I, it's a mystery to me, how did they build, where did they build the sewer? Because we had some water, so I'm gonna have, that's my next project. I'm gonna have to find out from other people how we, they built a cesspool.

TI: Because, yeah, 'cause the tide would come --

HM: So this is one question I haven't found.

TI: So go back and explain the water, though. What did they do about the water?

HM: Okay, the water. The Kimuras -- that's us -- we had war before the war began. You know why? Because we had to buy a gallon barrel, then we had to go to Ewa plantation to get fresh water, because we couldn't drink the brackish water. So that was, this is the war between my dad and myself. I was on the top and he, then I, "Don't waste the water. You're upsetting." That was the easy part now. Now, you get home and you have to empty that, so we had war before the war began. But I think that's where my dad and I got very close. We spent time going down to get water, and the little fight that we had, the little makeup that we had coming back, my father would say, "Sho ga nai," we had to do it. So I think that's why my dad and I got very close, we developed and everything else, because I was very close to my dad. You couldn't tear me apart from my dad. I guess that's where we got really close, the little war that we had.

TI: Well, and just working so closely together on a, on the same project together.

HM: Right. So we couldn't waste water, so Mom used water for cooking, we used the brackish water to do the dishes and so forth and so on, and the, when we had to wash our hair or take a bath, Mom was the boss man because we couldn't waste any water, not a drop of water. So when we washed our hair, since I'm the oneesan I start, so Mom would wash, no suds, but she would give us some fresh water and we would shampoo our head. Those days we didn't have shampoo, so we had to use soap. So she'll rinse my head and Amy's down here and Miyeko's down there. We couldn't waste water.

TI: [Laughs] So the same water had to rinse your hair and your sisters' hair?

HM: So we were really pioneers, but when, when I think about it now, it was fun. I don't know, I actually can't remember whether we were sad or, but I think we must've got into fights. "You get, you got the better water, clean water," and so forth. I'm sure that happened, but that was Mom.

TI: Did your mother ever complain about no water to your father? Did they ever get into arguments, like, "Why did you buy this land? There's no water here"?

HM: Well they, they, maybe, but they didn't fight in front of us. I'm sure they must've had a lot of, when we weren't around, because Mom was a quiet one.

TI: Well, then how about you? Did you ever complain to your father, like "why did we buy this land? There's no water," you always had to go and get the water by hand?

HM: Oh yes. Yeah, that's where the war was. Yeah, that was the war. But when I think about it, then you grow up and you have your own children, the word kodomo no tame ni, it really, it's such a beautiful word, kodomo no tame ni, you know? So, but --

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.