<Begin Segment 18>

LH: Now, can you describe a little bit about what you remember of, of Minidoka?

FK: Minidoka. Again I was really young, so I remember things maybe kids remember. I, if I remember, I think because we were in the last block, I think we had irrigation ditch one side. And I don't really think we had a fence on our end. I'm not sure. I remember seeing baseball fields. And I remember once seeing the older men playing the younger men in baseball. And the younger men were wanting to play fast pitch and the older men wanted to play slow pitch. And I remember, distinctly, one of the older men going out to the mound and trying to show the young guy how to pitch it slow. [Laughs] And I remember, I remember one night we went out in the sagebrush because there was some cowboys out there with sheep.

LH: How did, how did you know they were cowboys?

FK: Some of the older kids must have found out or something and, and I remember going out there at night once and seeing these cowboys. First time I've seen real cowboys, and wagons and stuff. And I remember we sat around the campfire for a while. I remember that the older kids had a real extensive network of tunnels, going under buildings and going out in the sagebrush, where they dug these ditches and covered them over with boards. And there was like secret passages everywhere.

LH: Is that right?

FK: And it was real exciting to see this. 'Cause they had candles in there... I don't know where they got all this stuff, but, and so that was kind of exciting.

LH: You, you actually went down in these tunnels?

FK: Yeah, they actually let me go down there. I don't know why they let me go down there, but they let me go down and I remember seeing that. I remember being pulled (on a sled) on the pond when it froze over. People would skate on the pond, and I was on a sled and they would pull me behind on the sled, and I remember that. What else...? I remember, I remember almost hanging myself one day.

LH: How in the world did that happen?

FK: It was a rope that was hanging like this, with no, no board on this rope and I was swinging on the rope.

LH: Where was that? Where was it?

FK: It was, it was in front of my cousin's barrack, actually my aunt's barrack. And there was another rope that was hanging on the side, down, and I slipped off this rope, and the rope on the side wrapped around my neck. And, and my cousin who was only a year older than I am -- I must have been about, I don't know, four or five, so maybe he was about six or so -- ran in the house and got a knife and cut me down. And I'm glad, I'm glad he was smart, [Laughs] because I don't know if I was very smart.

LH: And you, how old were you at the time?

FK: I had to be somewhere around four or five, somewhere around in there.

LH: So your cousin was how old?

FK: A year older, yeah.

LH: Gee, and he...?

FK: So, he had the presence of mind to do that. And, but I remember that, that rope burn being around my neck for really a long time.

LH: Boy.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.