<Begin Segment 9>

SF: When was the busiest time for the, for the store?

YM: Oh, well, before the war, the Bon Odori used to be in front of the --

TS: Oh, that's right.

YM: On Main Street. Remember?

CK: Yeah.

TS: That's right.

YM: And that was, I think, in conjunction with Potlatch, instead of Seafair, it used to be called Potlatch. And so Potlatch parades, we used to have -- my dad used to be involved in getting the girls together in Japanese kimonos, and they'd have a, a parade with some kind of -- what do you call it? --

CK: Float?

YM: Float.

TS: Yeah.

YM: And --

TS: That's when we used to go up on the Panama Hotel, and throw those torpedoes down. [Laughs]

YM: These guys were itazura, Main Street boys.

SF: What, you mentioned these floats. Who put on the floats? Were they businesses --

YM: Japanese community. And then I have, well, there's, there was one, I think it was from the Fishing Tackle Association. There was one there. And another one was, they used to have a queen contest. And there's girls on the float that won the queen contest. You remember those?

TS: Yeah. How 'bout the salmon you had in front the store?

YM: Oh. Dad had the fishing tackle store, so we always used to have salmon displayed in front of the store in a display with ice on the bottom. And in 30-, 40-pounders were...

TS: Yeah. Big fish.

YM: Nothing -- you can't find them, or my, even my boys go there and, 20-, 25-pound is big, considering the catches nowadays. But they used to display the salmon there. And another place that used to have a fishing tackle is Tashiro Hardware. And --

TS: That's down on Prefontaine?

YM: Yeah. It's a little bit further.

CK: Yeah. Prefontaine Place.

YM: There was a few other Japanese fishing tackle stores, too.

CK: Yeah.

TS: She's still around, what's-her-name. Billie.

YM: Billie? Uh-huh. I was, I was telling somebody at the Densho Project to interview Billie (Yoshioka) Tashiro, Yoshio Kakimura. She would be one of the older Niseis. And while she's still able to, she would be nice one to interview.

TS: That was before nylon leaders. Made that a cut.

YM: And they used silk to wrap around the, the...

TS: Rod.

YM: Pole. The rod.

TS: Yeah.

YM: And the, put the eyes in. There was a man that used to be upstairs of my dad's store making the reels, rods by hand. And he did a beautiful job.

SF: Is it like split bamboo?

YM: There's bamboo. We used to have, oh, a bunch of bamboo in the store. And he used to make the rods. And I had to chuckle at my dad when we all came back from camp. And they asked for those articles that were missing from -- they had the -- oh, what do they call it? They were reimbursed for what they lost.

CK: Oh, yeah.

YM: The Issei.

CK: Right after the war.

YM: Right after the war. And my dad, the first thing he put on the list was his fishing tackle and reel that was missing from the store. And during -- I think the time during the store, after we paid for the rent of the store for two or three years, my cousin didn't want to pay any more, so the War Relocation Authority would relocate what was in the store to the warehouse down in Pioneer Square. And I think during that time that they brought everything from the store to the warehouse, a (lot of) things were missing. I don't think the store was broken into, like many of the farmhouses and other stores, like in other cities. But we couldn't afford to pay the rent during the term that we were evacuated, interned, so it was brought to the one warehouse in Pioneer Square. I went to see the warehouse because I got permission to come into Seattle from camp and to get something from the warehouse, so I knew it was in a warehouse somewhere in Pioneer Square.

SF: But did you -- when did you leave camp to check this out?

YM: During the time we were in camp. It was already, some people already came back to Seattle.

SF: Oh. So this was after you could come back to the --

YM: (Yes), I think so.

TS: Who, who owned that property, that building?

YM: I think Osawas.

TS: Osawas, oh. Japanese, huh?

YM: Oh, (yes).

TS: Oh.

YM: It's torn down now, but that's one of the stories that happened.

SF: And the Isseis were really into fishing in those days?

YM: Oh, yes.

TS: Oh, yeah. I don't think there were too many whites fishing, huh? It was mostly Japanese.

YM: Oh, there must've been, but --

TS: Not too many.

SF: But that was really a big thing among the --

TS: Oh, yeah. Because they like fish, for one thing. (And there were no license fees then.) And they would eat 'em, so.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.