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MN: We'll get there, let's stay in Tule Lake still.

MU: Okay.

MN: Now what month did you start attending Tule Lake school?

MU: What month? I would presume it would be September if we entered in July. When school began I was in the eighth grade.

MN: Was the eighth grade part of the Tri State High School?

MU: Junior high.

MN: Were you involved in any extracurricular activities?

MU: Junior Glee Club.

MN: And then you mentioned also the Girls Reserve. What is a Girls Reserve?

MU: It's like the Girl Scouts. I don't know what the mission statement was. I've never looked into it not knowing what mission statement each organization has. And as to what we did, I really don't recall exactly what we did. I think we had to wear a red tie and a white blouse and some kind of a dark, a navy skirt. And I remember attending meetings with my friends, the Girl Reserves.

MN: Did you go camping with the Girls Reserve?

MU: No, no camping. Whatever we did was in camp. I don't think we were allowed. I don't think that groups were allowed to leave. I don't know about Boy Scouts, I don't know.

MN: How about music lessons. Did you take any music classes?

MU: I wanted to take piano class. I like to do things with my fingers and so I entered a piano class but there was just one piano in that room and what the rest of us or what we had to use was just a keyboard, a paper keyboard, no noise, no tone, piano toning at all. And we were to place our fingers on the particular keyboard. I don't remember attending it very long, maybe I lost interest in it. And I don't even remember being able to play the piano. But when the family moved from San Francisco to our house she brought her piano and I thought oh, I want to play the piano, I want to learn how to play the piano. She may have taught me a few simple songs but I don't remember.

MN: Now you're talking about the family that moved into your house before the war?

MU: Yes.

MN: They brought a piano to the house?

MU: Yes, she was I guess an accomplished pianist, their only child, their only daughter, and so she had a piano. I don't remember how they transported that piano into our crowded home but I was so happy to see a piano in the house.

MN: Is that one of the reasons why you took the music class at Tule Lake?

MU: It could be and musical instrument being the piano, something I would do with my fingers rather than a clarinet which my sister took. Or a violin, my mother used to play the violin she said but for some... I think because like I said I liked to do things with my fingers.

MN: How about like craft classes? Did you take craft classes at Tule Lake?

MU: The shell flower making class. My girlfriend and I went looking for shells, Tule Lake being an old river bed there were a lot of shells. So we would go looking, searching for shells, digging them up, bringing them back and washing them. And then we were in a shell flower shell making class and we enjoyed that but I don't know where they went. I don't have them.

MN: Did you play any sports at Tule Lake?

MU: There was a factory foundation in the outskirts of the barrack area and my girlfriend and I found out that there was a younger girl in our block who had roller skates. And there must have been another child who had a roller skate because we did not, my girlfriend and I did not have roller skates. you don't roller skate in the country. But anyway, she and I would hesitantly and say, "You go ask." "I did last time, you go ask." So we would hesitantly go ask and the girl always let us use her roller skates and I don't know if she got a chance to use the roller skates. So we'd happily go and go out to the outskirts of the camp and we would try to roller skate. And when I remember now there were people playing tennis on the factory foundation, and of course I still play tennis and when I think of it now, what a nuisance we must have been roller skating when they're trying to play tennis. But that was something I did when you asked me about sports. I wanted to be a majorette and so my mother bought me a baton. I don't remember ever taking lessons but I got a book and I was twirling the baton, and again because I think I like to do things with my fingers, but I never participated in any program but I do remember having a baton and I think she bought me those majorette boots.

MN: What else did you do in your free time at Tule Lake?

MU: We used to go visit our friends. She was from Centerville, California, so she had friends that had moved to another block, 41 or 42 that would be in the area where the Placer County people were because this family also had moved to Placer County hoping they would not have to go into camp. And so my girlfriend and I would go look for her friends that she knew from Centerville. And so we'd go and chit chat and whatever and then another thing that we did in our block, my girlfriend and I, one of our friends had, the family had two rooms, I guess they had an extended family so the parents were in one room and so we didn't have to play the wonderful game of Monopoly in that room so we used the other room. There was a doorway, they had opened the wall, so my girlfriend and I and this girl from that family and others we'd play Monopoly all day, all day, take time out to go eat lunch, come back, we owed each other thousands of dollars. We spent a lot of time playing Monopoly and cards, Old Maid and that family had a relative who had an accordion and so I would sort of again the keyboard, I would sort of play a few songs on that accordion when we're not playing Monopoly. And I still remember enjoying the accordion. Otherwise when it's evening time we would go to the talent shows. They had talents shows in the main firebreak area and sometime they would have like a concert and my sister played the clarinet and her girlfriend played the, I think the clarinet also, from back home. And so we would go see that, my girlfriend and I. As to playing sports, like a team sport out on the firebreak, I don't remember playing team sport, volleyball, baseball. I know they were going on but I don't remember playing those sports. Oh, ping pong, a rec hall, the recreation hall, each block had a recreation hall, ping pong, she and I would play ping pong.

MN: Now I think you also like to read.

MU: Oh, yes, Nancy Drew mysteries, I checked all of them out at the library. They were so good, so good.

MN: So Tule Lake had a library.

MU: Had a library.

MN: And would you say it was well stocked?

MU: I don't remember how it was well stocked or not. It was stocked with Nancy Drew mystery stories I know. [Laughs] And I enjoyed checking those out and reading them.

MN: Did you folks watch movies at Tule Lake?

MU: Yes, I think out in the firebreak they had movies. And in the recreation hall, the block, they had movies. Now as to what I saw, what I enjoyed, I don't remember, but I know we may have seen some of the current movies because my girlfriend's favorite actor was Alan Ladd and mine was Robert Mitchum. And we would sort of, not fight, but say, "Oh, no, he's better," "No, he played that part better." So before the war we really didn't go to movies except the Japanese movies held at that Japanese school fundraiser, my mother would take us. But of course there were these movie magazines that teenagers always looked through, and so maybe it's through those magazines, but we must have seen movies, I'm sure they had movies available for us for entertainment for the young people to keep young people out of trouble.

MN: What about your mother? What did she do in Tule Lake?

MU: She did not go to any flower making classes. I don't remember if she went to sewing class. I know she would get together with her friends who were from back home in the next unit, in the next unit. I don't remember her doing that maybe because I'm out of that room most of the time with my girlfriend playing Monopoly at our friends' who had the extra room or were looking up girlfriends in the other blocks. She did not go to any English class, flower arrangement, she did not... I know she loved to read, she loved to read and write.

MN: So were there Japanese language books in Tule Lake library available?

MU: That I don't know.

MN: How about church? Did your family go to church on Sundays? Did you go to church at Tule Lake?

MU: No, I went to the Buddhist, my girlfriend was Buddhist and in our block, in the recreation hall they would have Buddhist service so I would just accompany her and we just would play with the beads and giggle and we were not very good Sunday school or church attendees. I felt guilty about that.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.