Densho Digital Archive - Art Ishida Interview (denshovh-iart

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MN: And then after this you became a lumberjack?

AI: After that... well, the one incident happened that later on the people from Fresno group came in and they want a job. And one young teenage group, they want to work with the truck, so one day this group came up to us and they start trying to fight, trying to get the job, but the leader trying to fight with one of our guys, he's six foot tall, big guy and so is the other side's leader, six foot. He threw a punch, missed so our guy gave him one punch and knocked him out. So those two got friends after that and said there's no worth fighting for driving a truck so he says, we quit, the truck we gave to whoever wanted it then we started working as lumberjack from then on. And that was okay. We're out there in the field and the woods.

MN: How far did you drive out to cut the woods?

AI: It's just behind the camp, just outside of fence because that's all nothing but wood and rattlesnake and copperhead.

MN: It sounds like a very difficult job to be a lumberjack?

AI: It's not an easy job, yes.

MN: Did you ever get injured?

AI: No, none that we know of. We're not really working for the wage, we're out there and we got all the time we want, nobody pressure us, there's no quota to cut so many trees. We were lazy cutting and having fun and cutting so it was okay.

MN: Now I know a lot of people when they got into camp they would make their own furniture. Did you do that?

AI: Yeah, because only thing we had in a room, my room, two cots, mattress, one belly pot stove, that's it, nothing. So that part because we were first one to go there and they were still building so there's lot of scrap lumber. So we went out there and picked up all the scrap lumber and build a bench, chair, and I don't remember if I built a table or not but I know we built a bench and stools.

MN: Where did you get the tools to build these furniture?

AI: You could buy that through the PX they had a commissary store in the camp.

MN: Canteen.

AI: Canteen. And through the Sears Roebuck catalog you could buy anything you want long as you can pay, afford to pay for it. So nothing fancy, all you need is saw and hammer and get some nails and nails you could pick up over the construction site, there's a lot of nail scrapped out there, you can pick those up. So just the saw and the hammer, that's all you need.

MN: Now can you share with us how started to take mandolin classes at Jerome?

AI: Just nothing to do so to do something, so that's one of the thing is music. I like the music so I thought well, what can I play? And there's a lot of Kibei people that used to play mandolin so I start. I thought, well, I'll start from that so I pick up and learn, no teachers, self learning. And I start to learn how to read the music.

MN: Did you buy a mandolin? Did you borrow some?

AI: No, I bought it. You could buy from the Sears.

MN: Did this class hold recitals? Did you give performances?

AI: Not there, no.

MN: Did you learn any other musical instruments?

AI: Later on start learning guitar.

MN: Is it very different from the mandolin?

AI: A little different, yes. You know, mandolin are more play melody, guitar more of a chord so your finger is quite a bit different playing mandolin and the guitar.

MN: Did you also buy a guitar?

AI: Yes, cheapest one you can find. [Laughs]

MN: And how cheap was that back then?

AI: Gee, I don't remember how much one of those were. I bought one, cheapest one I could find in catalog, and then later on I changed to more well known brand, later on.