<Begin Segment 12>

TI: Well, there's another story that I'm going to ask you to share. I mean, earlier you mentioned how before the war on Sundays you would like to go out and shoot a .22. Earlier you mentioned how you were able to get access to a gun inside camp. Can you tell me that story?

RH: Well, one of the guys, he was a little off his rocks, crazy. But he was okay, he was a nice guy, and he went out with one of the guys that he worked with in camp had a farm or something way out someplace, and he asked the guy to come out and work for him. So he says okay so he did, he went out and when he came back, he came back with a .22 rifle that he stole off of the other guy, of the owner. And he just liked guns but he didn't know what to do with it when he got back so he says, "You know anybody that wants a gun, a .22 rifle?" And they asked me and I said, "Yeah, I'll take it," so I took it and had it in my room for a long time. As a matter of fact, after I bought three other rifles and brought them into camp which didn't shoot well, and my dad caught me with them so I had to give 'em up. But the other rifle I kept, I held onto it and I killed a pheasant with it and some rabbits and stuff like that.

TI: So where would you get the ammunition for a .22?

RH: Well, I went to town to buy ammunition and I says, you know, if I buy 'em here they'll know that I got a rifle, right? Or a gun, so I says, well, you shouldn't let them know that we have this so we would steal it, a box here and a box there. And then I felt kind of bad but I says, well, we better buy... I got to buy something so I'd buy it and then I had to sign my name to it, who I was and where I lived and so forth. Well, I did work in the farm nearby in the same town and so I used the farm address and it never said anything so I would buy 'em.

TI: So you would buy ammunition or other things?

RH: Just ammunition.

TI: And so they sold it to you?

RH: Yeah. It was like fifty cents a box but you know, yeah, it was hard to buy it. I was afraid to buy it so sometimes I'd use a fictitious name and use the address out there. It didn't matter.

TI: So you, I guess then would take the rifle ammunition and go out and go shoot.

RH: Yeah, just shooting.

TI: Now would other boys follow you and go with you?

RH: Yeah, take turns.

TI: Any other stories like this? These are good.

RH: Well, just buying that three rifles in town and the guy says, well, one of the barrels, guy got mud caught in the barrel and he fired it and the barrel ballooned out a little bit. I said, oh, so what. And then another rifle, the mechanism didn't work well and then the third rifle was a combination of both. But gee, the next day my dad caught me with them, I had to take 'em back.

TI: And so when he caught you with it did he get angry at you?

RH: Yeah, but he didn't do anything. He just, "Go get the guns," and I hesitated for the longest time and he says, "Go get 'em," and finally he shoved me that way and I had to come out with 'em. And all the kids are around the car, everybody saw me with the guns. Yeah, so I took them back and then I did steal a muzzle loading rifle out in one of the farms, we found it in a shed way out in the field and I brought that into camp, and there again, it was so big, the barrel had to be about an inch in diameter and a little bore in there, long barrel, fifty inch barrel, you couldn't hold it up. So I just threw it away. I wish I had it today.

TI: When you mentioned earlier how when they picked up your dad after Pearl Harbor and then you didn't see him for two, two and a half years, during that time period did your relationship with your father change?

RH: Yeah, because he couldn't do anything with us, we were too big at that time.

TI: Because I was thinking when he left you were about thirteen and now you're... when he sees you next you're more like sixteen years old, much bigger, stronger. So I'm just curious how that relationship changed.

RH: He didn't speak to us very much.

TI: In thinking back, do you think he just had a hard time figuring out what to do with you? I'm trying to think what was going through his mind when he's... before he's kind of like the man in charge, everything kind of goes through him, and then he's sent away to an internment camp and then he returns and then all of sudden his oldest son is probably as big as he is. And what's he thinking?

RH: I don't know what he's thinking, I really don't. But the first thing when he came to the camp the police department went to him and told him all about us so he knew everything that happened.

TI: So the internal police said, "So we need you to get your sons back in line," kind of?

RH: I guess, something like that. Yeah, because he was chief of police in one of the internment camps that he was in. I'm thinking Crystal City, but anyway he says of the police, of the Japanese section, he was the chief.

TI: But he never talked to you about your behavior or any of that?

RH: No, I think he might have told me that the police department talked to him about us, me and George and what we were doing.

TI: Now with your father there, did you change your behavior because he was now back?

RH: I think so to some degree, but some of the things still went on. Yeah, I think when we got into that wreck with the truck he was there.

TI: Now in your eyes how had your father changed from before he left and then now when he comes to Amache? What differences did you see in him?

RH: Well, he was much quieter, like he didn't talk to us a lot and he wasn't as stern as he was before, 'cause I think he was a little too busy in Modesto to watch us. But in camp he worked for the fire department and then I didn't see him a heck of a lot, really didn't. He kept out of the way so to speak, let us be. As Jean Mishima said, in camp, the father family head sort of changed because when we ate, we didn't eat together anymore. I ate over there and he ate over there so I didn't see him, really didn't see him much.

TI: So that nuclear family, that family structure really broke down in the case of your family.

RH: Exactly.

TI: Because you no longer ate together and probably from the time you woke up, you're off on your own with your friends and doing things.

RH: That's right.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.