<Begin Segment 9>

TI: So anything else before we go to the war years? Anything, other memories, other, yeah, anything that you can remember before the war?

MO: All I know is we had, we lived in that Fremont house for a long time. And the first time, I remember when our house shook so much and my father says, "Jishin." That was in the 1930-something or maybe end of '30s, and I didn't know what that, jishin, he says, "Oh, jishin." And then he says earthquake, and I could remember my father, 'cause he remembered the ones in Japan, but this was the first strong one he felt when we were living in Fremont.

TI: So, I forgot to ask, but can you describe your house in Fremont? You mentioned that the business was, was...

MO: On the street.

TI: Street floor.

MO: Fremont, on Thirty-fourth, Thirty-fifth Street, and then we had a downstairs basement, and then we had another level that went another flight of stairs down, and my father made a nice garden in the back. It was all just open yard, and I can remember my father planting vegetables and raspberries. He made the best raspberry bushes down there. Yeah, he, it was amazing. I don't know how he did all that hard work.

TI: And the living quarters, what, describe that in terms of...

MO: Right behind the store. The front was the mise, the store where we, where he did the dry cleaning business, and then we had a small room behind that, my oldest brother had one of those couches that you have a pull down bed. And I think my, I had a, I often asked to have my bed next to my biggest brother. He took care of me all the time. He was my main babysitter. We had a kitchen with one of those wood stoves, and a big oak round table, I think. I think that was in that house. And my folks had a bedroom, a small bedroom, and we had the downstairs basement. We did mochitsuki in the basement, my dad did every year. He had that great big wood hammer. [to RO] Do we still have that somewhere, that wood, big wood hammer?

TI: So a big usu?

MO: Usu and a, the wood hammer was, it was about this around and a handle was that long. Yeah, my dad used to make mochitsuki every year. We had Akimotos and two other families every year.

TI: So it was like a, a big, was it more like a party or just a work thing?

MO: It was kind of a work thing, and yeah, we always pounded the mochi and then I guess they must've done, made, I think my mom always made nishime and gohan, whatever. They all, everybody sat and ate, probably, after working hard and making those mochi.

TI: And was this kind of like right before New Year's or something, to get the mochi?

MO; I'm sure it was always.

TI: That's a good, that's a good memory. Good.

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