<Begin Segment 22>

MN: Now your brother Jack, he was, I guess, a musician of the family?

RW: Yeah.

MN: What did he, what instruments did he play?

RW: He played the guitar and he's pretty much a self-educated musician and he used to play the guitar at home all the time. And his friend from San Bernardino, guy named Frank Oshima, who was also a guitar player, he used to come to Redlands and they would sit in his room and play the guitar all the time. And when they went to camp, then I guess they formed a band called the Music Makers, and George Yoshida was, I think, in charge, and anyway, they would practice at the fire station where we hung out. And my brother played either the guitar or the piano for the band, and then they would, they would play at the dances and stuff like that, but they always practiced there at the fire station.

MN: Did you play any musical instruments?

RW: Well, yeah, I played the drums in Poston High School band, in my third year, and played the bugle and drums in the Boy Scouts.

MN: Did you get involved in sports teams at Poston?

RW: Well, I would play a little bit, most of the guys were a couple years older, so I was kind of like a beginner, just didn't really get to play that much with them, although I did play. Then I played some with my own age kids too, but the camp organized sports were more for older guys. And then we would go watch the much older guys, in their twenties, at least I think they were around there, eighteen to twenty, those ages.

MN: And this is mainly baseball, or was it football?

RW: Baseball, softball and basketball. They had quite a basketball program there because, and then every time a real good player would come into camp he always seemed to play for the team called Bakersfield Oilers. Danny Fukushima came into Poston, and he was related to someone on our block, and right away he's on that team. And so it was always the best players are on that one team, so it was, it was very competitive.

MN: I know you were really young, but what kind of jobs did you have at Poston?

RW: Well, when I think about it, in the short time I was there I worked at a lot of different things. I worked at what they call the personnel mess hall where the administration people had their meals. I worked there, and then I worked at the camp newspaper called the Poston Chronicle. I worked there in the printing and mimeographing the newsletters. And then I got a job working what they call a swamper for a while, delivering foods to the mess hall, and then I worked as a carpenter, helping build the school and help build the auditorium for the schools. I couldn't believe that they had us work on the roof of that auditorium 'cause it's so big and so high and we're young, very young. In fact, this older man slipping grabbed a wire and he got electrocuted up there on that roof. They still didn't take us off the job because I guess they needed to get it done. So there was a variety of things, there was always different kinds of jobs if you really wanted to work at it, and then I didn't mind.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.