Densho Digital Archive - Tak Yamashita Interview

<Begin Segment 1>

MN: Okay. Today is Wednesday, September 14, 2011. We are at the Oxnard home of Takashi and Molly Yamashita. We have Tani Ikeda on video tape and Molly Moriuchi Yamashita, I guess, here in the room, and we will be interviewing Takashi Yamashita, and I will be interviewing. My name is Martha Nakagawa. So Tak, I want to start with your father. When did your father come to the United States?

TY: Well, I can't give you the exact date, but I think around the year 1887 is what he told me.

MN: Do you know where he first landed?

TY: He first landed in Honolulu, Hawaii.

MN: What did he do there?

TY: He worked in a, he got a job in a sugar cane, sugar cane plantation.

MN: Where did he work?

TY: In the sugar cane plantation.

MN: Do you know he got signed up to work in Hawaii, the story?

TY: He got... I have to start prior to that.

MN: Okay.

TY: He was in the Russo-Japanese War when he was fourteen years old, and then he was there for a couple years, I think, he told me, and then he got a furlough to come home to see his parents, so-and-so. And then he told himself that he's never gonna go back to the Russian territory to fight for Japan, so then he decided he wanted to go someplace so he was wandering around in the town in Kagoshima, and at the employment agency he saw a sign saying "recruiting sugar cane cutters for the Hawaii, Hawaii sugar factory." So then he decided, "Oh, I think I want to get out of here and then go to Hawaii to cut sugar cane," so he went to cut sugar cane. I don't know exactly what year that was, but he cut sugar cane there for one or two years. I don't really, I don't exactly know how many years, but I think one or two years. And then he decided that's too hard of a work, so he says, "I'm gonna go to USA," so he told me that he went to the employment office and he saw a sign saying they're recruiting railroad spike, spike pounders in the United States. So he told me it said to report in Seattle, Washington, so he took a boat to Seattle, Washington, I don't know how long it took him to get there, and then he got there, then he went right directly to the employment office and they put him on the spike pounding crew from Seattle, Washington, to meet the south, no, meet the east and the west, the railroad track would come from the east to the west, they pound the golden spikes for them. That's what completed the spike pounding job. So I don't know, he didn't tell me how long it took, but anyway, he was on that crew, and then after the golden spike was pounded they had a big celebration there, and I forgot what the name of that celebration was, golden spike something, just don't remember. And then he came back on the crew train and then he worked in Washington for a while in the restaurant, because there's a lot of openings for restaurant dishwasher, and then he made enough money to come to, he always wanted to come to California, so he made enough money to come to San Francisco. And then there he worked in a restaurant because they were recruiting dishwashers, so he worked over there for I don't know how long, a couple years, I guess. Then he decided, he met one of his friends, I guess, and they told him to come to California, to Los Angeles. Then he went from Washington to Los Angeles, I guess, and then him and his buddies started a little strawberry farm in Torrance, California. I think his first ranch was on Avalon and I believe it was Carson. Yeah, Avalon and Carson.

MN: And at that time was that considered Moneta, not Torrance?

TY: Well, it was either Moneta, I never did hear the, hear the name Torrance. I always thought it was Moneta, in the Gardena area, okay. That's how much I know about that area.

MN: So your father is farming now and he settles down, is this when he called your mother over?

TY: After he settled down. After he settled down, yes, I guess.

MN: And what was the name, what are the names of your parents, your mother and your father?

TY: My father's parents' names?

MN: Your father's name.

TY: Oh, my father's name? His name is Seiikichi. Right? You got that.

MN: And what about your mother's name?

TY: Samo.

MN: And what is her maiden name?

TY: Hanada. Samo Hanada.

MN: And was this an arranged marriage?

TY: No, I believe they were married already in Japan, because they were telling me that he, she was promised to him when she was born or something like that. I don't know exactly, but they were talking about it and I overheard the conversation.

MN: Now, your father, could we, did he go AWOL from the Japanese army?

TY: More or less. That's why he never did want to go back to Japan, so I don't know whether I should say that or not, but, you know... I could never figure out why he never wanted to go back to Japan. He always sent his wife, my mother, to Japan, take a vacation or tour, whatever, to meet the parents or uncles or cousins or whatever. And I said, "Dad, why don't you go to Japan with Mama?" And he said, "No, I'm never to go back to Japan." So I got inquisitive and, "Why, Pop? Why, Pop? Why don't you want to go back to Japan?" "No, son, never going back." So he told me the story earlier saying that he was never gonna go back to the war ground, the Russo-Japanese war ground, so that's the reason why I figured that my dad was AWOL to the U.S., I mean Japan army, Japan government, rather. So then I was kind of scared to go myself, even to tour or whatever, but I figured, well, time has elapsed, my dad's gone, so they can't do nothing to me, so that's why we started taking trips to Japan. [Laughs]

<Begin Segment 2>

MN: So your father didn't go back to get your mother. She had to come to the United States. Can you share with us about how your mother arrived in the United States?

TY: Yes. She came on the passenger ship to Hawaii -- no, no, excuse me, to San Francisco. I don't know whether it was direct or not, but she came to San Francisco in 1906. I don't know what month or year, I mean, what month or day it was, but anyway, 1906 when the earthquake, 1906 earthquake happened, and that's when she came back. And then they wouldn't let her off the boat because of the rumbles and the wreckage and everything on the street and all that. Then my dad had to wait, I don't know how many, about a week before she could get off of the ship.

MN: Now, your father also had a broken leg at this time, right?

TY: He had a broken leg.

MN: How did he manage to go to San Francisco?

TY: I really don't know that part. He might've went with a train, with a broken leg. He got kicked from a horse, poor guy, got kicked from the horse and then he had to go on crutches to meet his wife. [Laughs]

MN: Now your father and your mother, which prefecture were they from?

TY: They were from Kagoshima.

MN: And how many children in total did your parents have?

TY: My parents, my parents had seven.

MN: And where are you in the sibling hierarchy?

TY: I'm the second, second member of the family.

<Begin Segment 3>

MN: And what year were you born?

TY: December of 1917.

MN: And where were you born?

TY: I was born in Carson and Avalon.

MN: And who delivered you?

TY: Pardon?

MN: Who delivered you?

TY: I guess my father.

MN: And that's what it says on your birth certificate?

TY: I really didn't, because he, I know that he delivered my brother because I was a little kid, inquisitive little kid, watching what my folks are doing, and he delivered two of the, let's see, I think he delivered three of us, or four of us. Three of us, as I can remember. No, four of us. Yeah. 'Cause I can remember when, when he said, oh, I got to go to the bedroom 'cause Mama's this, that, so I was an inquisitive kid, followed my dad. "There comes the baby. I got a baby boy." [Laughs] I kind of remember that.

MN: So your older sister, was she delivered by a sambasan? Or did your father deliver her also?

TY: I think so. I'm not sure, but I think so. In those days they delivered their own babies.

MN: And what is your birth name?

TY: My birth name? My birth name is Takashi.

MN: Now you know, a lot of Niseis, they picked up, like, American names afterwards. Did you ever pick up an American name, or were you always Takashi?

TY: I had an American name, yes.

MN: What did you go by?

TY: I went by Bill.

MN: Bill. And when did you pick up Bill?

TY: I picked up Bill in high school because people couldn't say my name, so I, they embarrassed me all the time they way they'd say my name, so I said, well, one day I decided, I think I'll call myself Bill. Just, that's how I was Bill.

MN: How did you pick the name Bill?

TY: How did I what?

MN: How did you pick the name Bill?

TY: Just out of the blue sky.

MN: Was it a name after a comic book character or a neighbor?

TY: No, I just say, I think I'll call myself Bill, William. I kind of liked the name Bill at that time, so that's why I called...

MN: How long were you Bill?

TY: I was Bill for a long time. Let's see, high school, Colorado, I was Bill about ten years, I guess.

MN: And then you went back to Tak.

TY: Yeah.

<Begin Segment 4>

MN: Now, going back to your childhood time, what memories do you have of Moneta and the Avalon area that you were born?

TY: The memory I have around there is I know there was a big brick factory over there, and a row of eucalyptus trees, and big pastureland, and well, let's see, there was no electricity as I could remember, and then no gas. And you want to, do you want to know how we lived utility-wise and all that too? Okay, before the waterline came in we used to pump water by hand with a water pump. And then we never had a real bathroom to wash our hands and all that, so we, my dad had a little pan, they call a pan, that's what we used to wash our face and body and everything. And then we had a bathtub, wooden bathtub -- ofuro, they call it the ofuro -- build fire under that and boil the water and took a bath, naturally.

MN: Did your father build the ofuro?

TY: I really don't know. I didn't pay that much attention to it, but I know he changed the bottom many a time because as you burn it you wear out the metal, and then he changed that a few times. And then, I don't know when, but after so many years of that there came a metal, metal furo. Have you seen those? They made, they'd, sheet metal shop figured it out, I guess, sheet metal shop figured out and they came out in the field, not our field, but other people's place and my place and all that, they built a metal ofuro. It was about five foot, maybe four foot by three foot, something like that. And then we would, we couldn't get in on the ofuro bottom, so they made a little, what do you call it, wood platform so we won't burn our body or foot or whatever. So then we took a bath in, bath in that. And then my father, I don't know whether he was funny or not, but he always said the boys take a bath first and the women last, so then we had the privilege of taking our bath first and the women last, so my sisters really didn't like that. "Why can't we take our bath first?" And they used to have a little hassle with that, but my father was so, so hardheaded or strict or whatever. Men first, women later. I couldn't figure out why, so I used to ask him, "How come, how come, Dad? How come we can take a bath any time we want?" And he told us this story, but I won't tell you that story. [Laughs]

MN: Why not?

TY: You want to know?

MN: Yeah, tell us the story.

TY: Well, he said, well, men have, what do you call, male, male thing, right? Penis and balls, you know? And then he was saying that women is inverted, right? So then I was inquisitive, so he told me why. He said, well, the women smell or probably the liquid or whatever, you know?

MN: The bleeding?

TY: Bleeding or whatever. And that's what he said, so okay, so we were honored to take a bath first. [Laughs] What else do you want to know about it? Oh, yeah, we never had, my mother used to cook, as I can remember, when I was a little bitty kid they used to have a wooden stove, wooden iron stove with a chimney through the roof, used to burn wood to cook our food. I can remember that as a little bitty kid. And then later on as time went by they got a kerosene stove, one, two, three, three burners. And then in order to use the kerosene stove we had a kerosene tank, and then the kerosene oil man would bring the kerosene to put in, put in the tank for one week's supply or one month's supply or whatever it was. And we used to help, we didn't help at that time, but as time went by, we grew up, three, four years old, we used to help Mother fill the, fill the stove, cooking stove bottle for the kerosene to supply for the cooking wick. Then she'd light it and then put the pan on to cook, right? And then, so then, well, then again, as I can remember now we used to have an icebox. They called it the icebox, so I guess it was about three foot by about four foot high, and then we used to have a guy called, named, we used to have a guy named Iceman come over. He used to come with a horse and buggy truck sometimes and he'd bring an old, old, old panel truck or something. He would deliver the ice, he'd know how long that ice'd last, so I think we used to have a fifty pound icebox, so he would bring the fifty pound icebox and just open the door and the service boards and put this ice in and away he goes, and I don't know how they paid him, but anyway, they paid him and then that's how we kept our food cold, cool, rather. And then some people, some farm that couldn't afford an icebox, they used to have a little... see, in those days the houses were on stilts. When they used to have a place where air would come through to cool, when the westerly blows everything cools, right, because it's cold, so then they used to store their food under the house because it was built on stilts. That's how they preserved their food. But we had an icebox for some reason, and that's how we cooled our food. And then my mother used to wash our clothes by washboard. I said, "Mom, what're you doing?" "I got to wash the clothes. Don't get your clothes too dirty now 'cause it's hard to wash so-and-so." She washed, as I can remember she washed our clothes for the longest time, about two, as I can remember about five years, five years old, six years old, about, maybe when I was about six or seven years old they finally bought a washing machine. First they, there was no electricity in the house, okay -- I'm going back -- and then lived out on the farm over there and the electricity came, and that was the greatest thing that came. And then we got our electric light and done away with the kerosene lamps, kerosene lantern. We didn't have to clean the kerosene stove light, every night we had to clean the, they called that glass thing, glass lens a chimney. I didn't know that, but that's what it was. Because as you burn the wick the black smoke comes out, and we were the folks assigned us to clean that every night, prior to the night. [Laughs]

MN: When you say your mother got a washing machine, though, you're not talking about a washing machine we have now. That's when she had to do the wringer?

TY: Wringer, yeah.

MN: That's what the, you're saying when she went from a washboard and then next step up was that agitator with the ringer, right?

TY: Yeah, right. Then it had a little motor on the bottom, a kick start motor. It was turning the washer, the, what do you call that? What do you call that thing that goes around and around?

MN: Is that the agitator?

TY: Agitator, yeah. To turn the agitator.

MN: And then you said your icebox had a fifty pound ice in it.

TY: Yes.

MN: Was that considered a big icebox?

TY: Big icebox, yeah. It was about, I don't know, four foot. Well, the ice, fifty pound ice not, not too big. Fifty pound ice only about that big. Ice is heavy. It's all water, see. Eight pound, what is it, eight pounds to the gallon. No, no, no. I forgot the measurement, but so many pounds of liquid, so many inches of liquid is so much gallon, okay, that's how they figured it out.

MN: So fifty pound ice, how long does that last, for about a week on average?

TY: I don't recall. I think they used to come once a week. About one week, yeah.

MN: And tell me, what years are we talking about when you said you got metal ofuro?

TY: Yeah.

MN: When did that come out?

TY: We had a wooden tub... 1929? Around 1929, let's see, 1929 I know we had it. Around 1925 or something like that the metal, metal tub came out.

MN: Doesn't all the metal get hot, though?

TY: Well, yes. The fireplace was built with brick, and the koya, the small house, so then say this is a house over here, the bathtub, bathroom, right here, then they had the fireplace outside and so they had, they had a brick wall to burn the fire on, then they had the ofuro on top of the brick. See, and the ofuro was inside the house and so the fireplace is inset in the house, then they had metal so they won't burn the house, and so it was pretty well organized. So that's how we took a bath, by eucalyptus wood, light the fire to burn the eucalyptus to heat the water so we can take a bath. [Laughs] Chores for every night.

MN: So who had to collect the wood, one of the kids? Or who collected the wood and who started the fire each night?

TY: My dad used to buy one or two cords of wood -- I don't know exactly how many, how much wood he used to buy -- once a year. He figured, well, it takes so many cords of wood to take a bath, so then I think it's about one or two cords of wood, and then he used to assign us guys, one of my brothers, to burn the fire. And so the wood was right there, the cord of wood's about, what, six foot, eight foot long, eight foot by so high, three foot, four foot high. And then we had our wood automatically 'cause he bought the wood. The wood, eucalyptus wood salesman used to come once a year or twice a year to sell wood. That's how we got our wood.

MN: So this wood, person who sells the wood, was it a hakujin man or is it a Nisei or Japanese?

TY: Hakujin, yeah.

MN: How about the man who was selling ice?

TY: Hakujin man.

MN: And the ofuro, the person who made the metal ofuro?

TY: He's a, not a blacksmith, but sheet metal shop, they built it. They built a bunch, man. They made money.

MN: And they were hakujin?

TY: Hakujin, yeah.

<Begin Segment 5>

MN: Let me go back to your early childhood, going back to where you were born, and then you were there for about three or five years and then you moved to Inglewood?

TY: Inglewood.

MN: Now why did your family have to move from the Moneta area into Inglewood?

TY: Well, I don't really know the cause of it, but I asked him, I asked my dad, he said, "Well, we have to have new ground to grow good strawberries." And that's the reason why he moved over there, I guess, is my guess. So that's what he said, to have new ground to grow good strawberries, because strawberries, you can only grow strawberries so long in one same soil. So then, say like you eat a, say like a, say like you grow a certain kind of food in a certain spot, it loses all its nutrients of that certain food, plant, rather, so that's one of the reasons. So now they don't do that. They fumigate it. That's modern technique, to fumigate it to kill all the worms and bugs, sterilize the ground. So then at that time they didn't have such a thing. That's the reason. It was all nature, natural.

MN: And then your family was in Inglewood for about four or five years and then you moved to the Johnson ranch?

TY: Moved to Hawthorne, Johnson ranch.

MN: Can you tell us a little bit about the Johnson ranch in Hawthorne? How big was it?

TY: It was huge. It was about, one section, El Segundo Boulevard to Rosecrans and Imperial Highway, Aviation Boulevard, so it must've been about one section, one section of land. That's six hundred and forty acres.

MN: Now, the Kurata ranch, was that part of the Johnson ranch?

TY: No. Kurata ranch was another ranch that Mr. Kurata leased from somebody. I don't know who the owner was, but because of the Exclusion Act the Japanese couldn't lease land, so then Mr. Kurata leased the one section, or half a section of land called the Kurata ranch because Mr. Kurata signed the lease on it, so that's why it's called the Kurata ranch. And then the Kurata ranch was from Perry Avenue to, Perry Avenue and Rosecrans and to Redondo Beach Boulevard, I guess. And so Leuzinger High School was between Johnson ranch and Kurata ranch, which is about, maybe about five miles apart, I would say. That's why we know the Kurata ranch people and Johnson ranch people, Kurata ranch people know Johnson ranch people, and all that, because there's Hawthorne Grammar School, Lawndale Grammar School, and Inglewood Grammar School, and Wiseburn Grammar School, and... yeah, so they all went to Leuzinger High School and that's how we know all the people.

<Begin Segment 6>

MN: Now, you mentioned all the grammar schools. Which grammar school did you go to?

TY: The first grammar school I went was Hawthorne, Hawthorne Grammar School. And then they built, the population was getting thicker so they built a grammar school called Wiseburn Grammar School, and then after Wiseburn Grammar School was built then we transferred from Hawthorne to Wiseburn. And that's where I graduated.

MN: Now, at Hawthorne and also at Wiseburn, can you tell me what the racial makeup of the students were?

TY: They say Wiseburn was about seventy, I don't know what it was, seventy percent, or thirty percent white and seventy percent Japanese, because the Hijis and Yamashitas and Nishimotos and Hasegawas, and so I don't know what the, what the student body was, but all the area people went to Wiseburn, Wiseburn Grammar School.

MN: So you're telling me that there were more Japanese American students than there were hakujin students.

TY: More or less, because hakujin -- okay, let me, let me make this a little more better. See, the Johnson ranch, okay, all the Japanese lived on Johnson ranch, so then a lot of Japanese, right? So then from Inglewood Avenue east was Hawthorne, Hawthorne proper, so there's no ranches over there, no vegetables, nothing, all residential, so that's where all the hakujin people lived and the Japanese lived on this farm like on the Johnson ranch. So that's why there's more Japanese. And then they built this Wiseburn Grammar School, I think, within the Johnson ranch. That's why there's more Japanese in the Wiseburn Grammar School.

MN: Now, on the Johnson ranch, all the Japanese Americans are working on there, were they mostly from Kagoshima like your parents?

TY: Not really. There were Kagoshima people, Hiroshima people, Nagasaki people. As I can remember, a lot of Hiroshima people and Kumamoto people were there, and a lot of other prefecture people there, but there were more Hiroshima, I think. The Kagoshimas were only the Hijis, like Chiyoko Nishimori Hiji, us, Nakamuras, yeah, about three or four families, the Seinos, Kiyono, Hondo. So quite a few Kagoshima people there, yeah.

MN: Now, while you were growing up on the Johnson ranch, did you attend Japanese school?

TY: Yes.

MN: And which Japanese school did the kids on the Johnson ranch go to?

TY: Johnson ranch people went to Japanese school, name was West Hawthorne, West Hawthorne Japanese School.

MN: Now, explain to us the difference between West Hawthorne and East Hawthorne.

TY: Okay. As I can remember, as I can recollect, East Hawthorne was, East Hawthorne Japanese School was built already because there were a lot of people in the east Hawthorne side because prior we moving to Johnson ranch, there were Japanese farmers already in the east Hawthorne area. I don't know what the ranch, they called that, but they had a big section over there, about two sections, maybe one thousand acres or more, and a lot of Japanese farmers were there. And then that's why the East Hawthorne Japanese School was created in that area. That was east of Hawthorne between Washington Boulevard, you know Washington Boulevard where the Washington High School is, and Eucalyptus, Eucalyptus Avenue, I guess it was. In between there was all Japanese. That's why that call that area East Hawthorne, with the Japanese community, that's why the East Hawthorne was built there. And so not that we couldn't go there, but we went over there. I don't know how long we went over there, but we went there a couple times. And the parents on the east, west Hawthorne decided that that's too far to cart the kids every week or whatever. They decided to buy a building and they bought a building and set it up on the Leuzinger, Leuzinger ranch. That's where the West Hawthorne Japanese School created, on the Leuzinger ranch. Yeah, the Japanese people, let's see... yeah. Within the Leuzinger ranch there, yeah, that's right.

MN: So Leuzinger ranch, I'm assuming, is where Leuzinger High School is now?

TY: No. Leuzinger ranch is between El Segundo Boulevard and Imperial Highway. That was Leuzinger ranch over there, I think a half section or one section. And then south of El Segundo Boulevard was Johnson Ranch. El Segundo Boulevard divided Leuzinger and Johnson ranch, okay, so then West Hawthorne Japanese was on the Leuzinger ranch and Wiseburn Grammar School was on the Johnson ranch area. So the Leuzinger ranch people came to grammar school in Johnson ranch, as I can recollect. So that's how it was.

<Begin Segment 7>

MN: Now tell me about this Japanese school. Did you go every day, or just Saturday?

TY: We went just Saturdays, yeah.

MN: And what was it like? Did they teach you how to sing the Kimigayo? Did you celebrate the Tenno's birthday? What did you do there?

TY: We went to study, study Japanese language and we went, I went to see the pretty Japanese girls so I can have fun with the girls I saw. That's beside the point, but you know. [Laughs] We went to Japanese school to learn Japanese, and we learned a lot of things. I'm surprised I know the things that I know because the modern Japanese people say, "Oh, you know that? You know that? Where'd you learn that? Where'd you learn that?" So I tell 'em I went to Japanese school in the '20s. And so our Japanese schoolteacher was from Japan, and young people, young students from Japan and they wanted to earn money to go to school here so then they taught Japanese to the kids over here, and so that's why they taught us everything that they know, so that's why we know these things. So like sometimes I'll sing, I'll be humming this tune which I like, "Tennen no Bi," I don't know if you know that or not, and I don't have nothin' to worry about anymore so I hum these songs while playing golf and all that. "Where'd you learn that? Where'd you learn that? Who taught you that?" So, "I learned it in Japanese school." And they're so surprised that I know that.

MN: Hum it for us, the "Tennen no Bi."

TY: Pardon?

MN: Hum it for us.

TY: Hum it for you?

MN: Yeah.

TY: [Laughs] Well, I'll sing it for you. [Sings] That means "the old hardship that I went through, it makes me relax and enjoy my life," or whatever. That's what that song is. That's why I like it. It's really true to life. That's why I love that song. I learned that as a kid and I still know it.

MN: Now, what about judo? Did you take judo lessons?

TY: Yes.

MN: In what dojo?

TY: Moneta dojo. I call it the Moneta dojo in Moneta.

MN: Who was your sensei?

TY: My sensei, original sensei was, what's his name, some kind of (Toshitaka)? Yamauchi Sensei, we called him Yamauchi Sensei, anyway. His first name, I can't remember his first name.

MN: Now, did you also say that Nishimura, Mr. Nishimura's brother later became your sensei?

TY: Yep, he was there before we were. He was a little bit older than I was, and he was, I think he was doing judo about two years before I was, and then so he, he was a good student and at that time when I started he was a brown belt. And then as time went by Sensei said, "You teach these guys and I'll take care of the seniors," or whatever. So then he started with us little kids. And so we go to Yamauchi Sensei and then he would teach us different things, and then Nobu Nishimori would teach us different things. He was our trainer. So then I started there as a kid, I think I was eleven years old, and then I went there until I was seventeen.

MN: How often did you travel to the other dojo for shiai?

TY: We went different times. Shiai, we had shiai in different areas. Depended on when we got invited, once a month or every other month or, depended on where the main shiai was. And they have a three dojo shiai, three dojo shiai here, and so and so, then the best one goes to another elimination type of a match. And then we have one great shiai once a year at the dojo in L.A. What was the name of that dojo? You mentioned it last time.

MN: Rafu Dojo?

TY: Rafu Dojo, yeah. That's where we go for the main event, to get the big promotion. We used to have, say ten dojo, or maybe twelve or fifteen, we'll have a competition, elimination competition, and then we would fight for the banner of the best team, say like a World Series type of thing. [Laughs] And that used to be once a year.

MN: Was Moneta Dojo considered a strong team?

TY: One of the, one of the better teams, yeah. And then Nishimori, Min Nishimori's brother, him and I were same.

MN: Is that Jinobu?

TY: No, he's the brother of, what is it, Joe Nishimori. He was older than Min, Min, next older brother. Say like, Nobu Nishimori, then Jinobu, Jinobu, and then Minobu. And Jinobu and I was the same, so we used to really fight to get the yuushouki, the flower, I mean the flag. So we were one of the better teams, not bragging, but we used to be proud that we got the big banner. [Laughs]

MN: So after you had the big shiai in downtown, what did you do, where'd you go?

TY: What did we do? We had dinner, I guess, Sanko Low, China meshi, Sanko Low, I think it was. And then, yeah, we were all invited to Sanko Low restaurant and had China meshi. [Laughs]

<Begin Segment 8>

MN: So I'm gonna go back to the South Bay and ask you a little bit about that.

TY: Okay.

MN: When you were living in the west Hawthorne area, was there a Japantown nearby?

TY: No. The only Japantown nearby was Moneta, Gardena. Moneta, yeah.

MN: So this, in Moneta, Gardena, what was the main road that had all the Japanese businesses?

TY: Western Avenue.

MN: What store, what kind of stores were lining Western Avenue at that time?

TY: Well, you asked me that once before, but then I was thinking about it and thinking about it, then I came up a few more. There was a barbershop there, and there was a tofuya there, and there was a grocery store there, and there was a Kurata Shoten, Kurata Dry Goods Store, then there was, I think there was a Japanese restaurant over there, come to think about it, a little Japanese, little small, what do you call that, the small eating place over there. I can't remember what the name of it was. We used to eat over there before we went home. And there was a Yamato Hall, I think it was Yamato Hall, where they had the big gatherings. Oh yeah, and then there was a Nihonjinkai over there someplace. There was a Nihonjinkai on Western Avenue also. I can't remember where it was. Anyway, all the community people used to meet over there to do different things, to develop Japanese school or why can't we do this or regular community meeting, like Ken Nakaoka used to have. You remember, you know Ken Nakaoka, right? So something like that. And then when World War II started those were the, those were the first people that they gathered for some reason why.

MN: When the Japanese navy used to visit from --

TY: Japan.

MN: -- San Pedro, did they come to the Western area? Did you folks have parades for them?

TY: They used to have a big thing about it. Oh yeah, they used to have, as I can remember, I didn't care to go to those things. My dad used to say, come on, let's go see and so-and-so, let's go see so-and-so, then people from Kagoshima was on the boat so then we'd go meet 'em, this and that. They used to have a big parade, yeah. What did they call that? I think one time the emperor's son came or something. Then my dad wanted to go see him too, and so he really wanted us to go see him too. I forgot his name, but anyway, some imperial personnel came and that was a big, big event. I can remember that. Then they used to have, every time, they'd call the ship Renshuu Kantai, training, training military ship or something like that. And we used to go to the parties. Dad used to go to the party 'cause Dad liked things like that. So anyway...

MN: Now, you mentioned also the Yamato Hall and you said they had all kinds of shiai and, and showed movies. What kind of movies did they show?

TY: Well, as I can remember, we used to see Mito Komon, Mito Komon, I think it was Mito Komon, Sarutobi Sasuke. And there used to be... the main one. I can't think of it. Maybe you, maybe you know a few of 'em.

MN: You mentioned Saigo Takamori.

TY: Saigo Takamori, yeah. Saigo Takamori, and they had Mito Komon and Sarutobi Sasuke. It was all about the warrior, you know, katana, protecting the woman here, and so I really couldn't understand it those days but it was fun to go see. So those, what'd they call it, the, fighting for the girl with a katana and bogeki, the peasants fighting the samurais all the time for the women, and that's what they call the bogeki and they used to be fun to watch so parents go, would go too. [Laughs] And then, I didn't know too much at that time, but as I was, around 1950 or something like that my friend and I used to go wrestling at the Olympic Stadium, the Olympic auditorium, or stadium, and then the promoter, I don't know if I told you this or not, but the promoter asked us if we know bogeki, and I had no idea that bogeki, we used to watch bogeki at the, in the olden days at the Miyamoto Hall, and then we told him that we don't know nothing about it. So then he said, "You guys study up on it and then put a, perform a skit for me," and then, so okay. And month or month and a half later, after we studied it, and then I got to thinking, well, it's the same thing with that picture we saw at Yamato Hall, warrior against the peasants, so that's the skit we put on in the '50s. I was on TV on the Art Baker Show. I was on Art Baker Show two or three times, and we were on Art Baker Show about three times, I think, and then we were on the Olympic Auditorium, a skit there one time. And then in '51, I think, the Art Baker program, I was on Art Baker program twice, Olympic Stadium twice, then, then the promoters from Las Vegas asked us if we want to put a skit on their wrestling, wrestling stadium when they have their professional wrestling matches, so then we couldn't say no, so we said okay. So then they flew us up to Las Vegas on the airplane, Western Airlines it was, and they, prior to that they picked us up in a limousine, put us on an airplane, and after we got to McCarran Airport they would have a limousine waiting, took us to Showboat Casino, then we put on a skit over there and we got paid. And we got brought back home through taxi and airplane, taxi to my car, this and that. And then somebody, about a year or two later, asked, Art Baker Show asking to put the show on again. So then they said, "Well, you can stay home and watch it, we just want your permission to put it on." So they said they'll pay us a hundred and fifty dollars at that time, then so I called my buddy up, my partner, and then we said, well, okay then. We sat home and watched ourselves a couple times, it was so funny, on television. [Laughs]

MN: Now, so you performed in these skits?

TY: Yes.

MN: And did you, you're talking about pro wrestling also, so did you work with, like, Kimon Kudo or Mr., was it Mr. Moto?

TY: No, I worked with, he wrestled as pro, but I worked with my friend. My friend was a wrestler, so then he was an amateur wrestler and then I worked with him.

MN: And is that how you got hooked up into doing this, through him?

TY: Yeah. So it was amazing. And then, what's his name in New York, Ed Sullivan, they wanted us to come over there and put the skit on. I would say, "No, we got a job over here. We can't leave our job," so then we turned them down. And then that ended our career. It was fun while it lasted. [Laughs]

<Begin Segment 9>

MN: Okay, now you went to Wiseburn Grammar School. Now, from Wiseburn did you go to a middle school or did you go directly to high school?

TY: There was no middle school then. I went directly to high school.

MN: And that would be Leuzinger High?

TY: Yes.

MN: What was the racial makeup of Leuzinger?

TY: I would say about one quarter Asian and about three, say about, Hispanic about maybe three percent, and then the whites was half, about three quarter of the student body was white, I guess.

MN: Were there any blacks?

TY: Hardly.

MN: How did the non-Japanese students and teachers treat the Japanese American students?

TY: I didn't get it. Sorry.

MN: How did the other, non-Japanese American students and teachers, how did they treat the Japanese American students?

TY: How did they teach us?

MN: Treat you.

TY: Just like you and me, anybody else. There was no prejudice then, or racism. Only racism was Mexicans didn't like Japanese. That's about what it was.

MN: How did you know that they didn't like Japanese?

TY: They'd throw a rock at us, "You Jap, you Jap." That's the only reason.

<Begin Segment 10>

MN: Now I want to ask you a little about your farm life. How old were you when you started helping out on your family's farm?

TY: Well, how old was I? Ever since I could work. Ever since I was able to work, so that was about, I'd say ten, maybe ten years old.

MN: Well, at that young age what can you do on the farm?

TY: Pull weeds, help Mom, this and that. Mainly pull weeds and help pick crops. We had to work, man. We didn't have one minute to waste. I guess Dad would put us to work because he didn't want us to be a bad boy or spoiled boy or whatever, so they put us, soon as, soon as we were able to do something.

MN: How about, how many acres did your family farm in west Hawthorne?

TY: Probably about, well, up to prewar I can say we used to farm about fifty acres.

MN: And what did your family grow?

TY: My family grew all kinds of vegetables, say like strawberries, cauliflower, cabbage, string beans, onions, carrots, more or less.

MN: So can you kind of share with us what your work and school schedule was like, like how early did you get up to go help out on the farm and then after that did you go to school? Or tell us what your schedule was like.

TY: We really didn't have a schedule. [Leans over] Oh, you don't want me, you don't want me to bend down. We really didn't have a schedule, but we had to get up early. If we don't get up early Mom will wake us up. "Hey, five o'clock, time to get up," so we'd get up and we'd have our breakfast, and at dawn we're out in the field helping the folks pulling weeds or digging carrots or picking beans or whatever. It was all work. And then we lived on Johnson ranch and the school was about, I'd say five hundred, thousand, maybe fifteen hundred foot away from us, Wiseburn School was, so they had two bells, one to get ready to get in and the next one we should be in the class. So when the bell rang we used to run, the first bell rang, we used to just leave our work and run 'cause we had our books and school materials at the ranch when we, I mean, in the field when we went there. So then when the bell rang, first bell rang, we would pick up and boom, we'd run over there to school so we would be in time for the class. So then we studied in school, recess, play games, soccer ball, baseball, whatever else, and then, then go into class for two, two or three more subjects, then we'd finish about three o'clock, I think. School was out at three o'clock, 3:30, 3:00, yeah, three o'clock. Then we'd go home and then we'd get a bite to eat, and then we had to help the farm again 'til nighttime, 'til dark. Picked beans or cultivate or, or... my dad was kind of weak so then I had to help him cultivate the, cultivate the rows with the horses. I was responsible to do that, so I would come over and Mom would say I have to take over Dad's cultivating, so I would cultivate until nighttime, take the horse and take the harness off of the horse, put him in the corral, feed the horses and see if he got water, this and that. And then it'd be dinnertime so we'd eat dinner, and then we'd do a little studying for homework or whatever. And then that was one day's life every day. One day's life was the same every day, work, work, study a little bit, work again, back and forth. And then as I was growing up my dad would say, "Well, you can harness up the horse and plow the field." I'd plow the field after school when it had to be done, just the field. Then as I grew older, then I had to work Saturday and Sunday to help cultivate, plow, disk, whatever else to help him out. He was having it pretty rough that, I can see that he was having it rough, so then I just was a good boy, I guess, and helped him. People used to praise me, "Oh, Taka-san, you're a nice boy. Taka-san, you're a nice boy, you help your folks," this and that, so I don't know whether I was or not, but that's what I'd done. And then my father, well, he caught Asian flu during 1917 Asian flu attack. That's why he was weakened by that, so I'd done a lot of work to help my folks. And I was a delivery boy. Well, maybe I told you this already, I was twelve years old when I got my first driver's license.

MN: How did you get your driver's license so young?

TY: Well, you got to be a honest boy to get it so young. I got caught. That's why I got my driver's license. I was twelve years old. I was twelve years old and helping my folks deliver his produce to the grocery stores and get orders for him, and then I'd bring the orders home and they would fill the orders, and then I would I have to deliver after school. So then one day I made a wrong turn and the policeman was right behind me. "Say, little boy," he says, "you're hardly old enough to drive, aren't you?" I said, no, I'm not. He said, "Well, are you fourteen? You got a driver's license?" I said no, "Yeah, I'm fourteen. I don't have a driver's license." He said, "Go to the police station and take your test over there and get your driver's license," so I got my driver's license by taking the test, and I was twelve at that time and I faked my age 'cause fourteen was the limit, you see. So then I got it at fourteen, and then I drove until World War II, two years, two years, fudging two years. The only way I was able to change to my true age was evacuation, which was one good thing that happened to me. [Laughs]

MN: You said you were taking orders for your father, you were taking these vegetable orders. Where were these stores located?

TY: Hawthorne. It was about, let's see, I would say two and a half, about three miles from the farm, maybe five.

MN: And were these mostly Japanese grocery stores or hakujin grocery stores?

TY: Both. One was a Nihonjin and the other was hakujin. Roth Market, as I can remember, and the other was, let's see, Roth Market and Sam's Market or something. I don't quite remember the name, but I can remember one, it was Roth Market and... used to be Japanese. Japanese used to run the fruit and vegetable there. I forgot what the name was. I can't think of it. What the hell -- oh, yeah, Fukui. No... I guess it was, I can't think of it. Fukui? Fukui or somebody. Anyway, something like that, Fukui Market or something.

MN: Now you're very young at this time. How did these store owners treat you?

TY: They treat me like a nice boy. "You're a nice boy, you're helping your father." Yeah, they respect me as a little kid. [Laughs]

MN: You're talking about, when you're working on your farm, you're talking about horses, so I'm assuming there was no tractors at that time.

TY: At that time, no.

MN: Now, when you're young and you're helping your father, was it difficult to manage the horses?

TY: Well, in those days the farmers used to buy good, good, what do you call it, good, small farm working horses, and then they were all trained already. And then as the horses got older they would buy horses from up north, for some reason, I don't know. They were trained real well, so then the new, the folks would buy a new horse to replace the old one and they were pretty well trained.

<Begin Segment 11>

MN: Now, you're the second child but the first son, and it sounds like there was a lot of pressure for you to work and help your father out. What about the firstborn who is your sister? What, did she have to help out on the farm?

TY: She did, yeah. She helped weed, cut weeds, and she helped, well, my father used to raise a lot of carrots and the beets and turnips and all that, so she was pretty good on her fingers so she helped tend. In those days you just plant seeds. Seeds were cheap, I guess. Not broadcast, but with a seeder, and they used to have to thin it out to give space for it grow, she used to help doing that on our lots. Yeah, she was good with her fingers.

MN: Now, I want to ask you a little bit about your mother. Did she have her own little plot of land that she grew Japanese vegetables?

TY: Well, on the side she did, yeah. She, especially for the table, she'd grow azukimame, she'd grow shiso, she'd grow daikon, she would grow necessity things for the kitchen, I guess. And it used to be kind of fun to watch her, watch her separate the beans from the hull, and she would cut the beans and then she would lay it on the canvas, and then she would wait, she would pound it every day just to loosen the seed from the hull and then she would wait for a kind of breezy or windy day and soon as that happened she'd go out there and she would take a handful and put it up there and let the wind blow all the hulls away, and the seeds would drop. That's how she used to do it to, to get her azukimame. She was pretty, I wouldn't say intelligent, but she was a pretty handy woman. I used to watch her, so that's how she raised our food. Imo, she used to raise imo, sweet potato, and nagaimo, used to raise all that on the side. And so she didn't buy much vegetables; we had all the vegetables at home.

MN: You, I asked you about your schedule and you talked about having breakfast. What did your mother make for breakfast?

TY: Well, she didn't really specially make breakfast. We had gohan and fish, leftover fish from the night before. Those days were tough days, you know. Fish leftover, we had gohan, and once a week we would get a treat, pancake. It was a big treat for us, pancake, and in strawberry season she would make pancakes and she would make this, what do you call it, shortcake with pancakes, and that was a big treat for us. Otherwise it was fish and rice, maybe tsukemono.

MN: So you folks ate a lot of fish, even in the morning.

TY: Yeah. We used to, yeah.

MN: Where did your mother purchase the fish from?

TY: Fish man used to come. Japanese fish man used to come with a little panel truck, used to have all kinds of fish and tofu, konnyaku, this and that.

MN: So he wasn't just selling fish. He was selling konnyaku and tofu.

TY: Yeah, yeah.

MN: And your mother, I guess, I assume she puts it in the icebox to store the fish?

TY: Yeah.

MN: What kind of fish did you usually eat?

TY: My mother came from a fish, fish cultural family, so she knew exactly what kind of fish she wanted to eat and she knew how fresh the fish was, and so she would buy the freshest fish on the, on the delivery truck. And if the fresh fish man didn't have the freshest fish she wouldn't buy it. And I'd say, "Mom, the fish man came, how come you didn't get any fish?" She said, "Oh, they weren't fresh." "How can you tell, Mom?" She said, "Well, you only buy the fish with the eye that's still glowing and shining. Otherwise don't buy the fish." She used to tell us that. So she said in order to make sashimi or to buy good fish or, buy the fish with the eye pika pika. That's what she'd say. And she was brought up in the fish, katsuobushi factory family. You know what katsuobushi is?

MN: Yeah, and you had fresh katsuobushi all the time at your house. How did you manage to get that?

TY: My mother's brother would mail it. He would mail a box, little bitty box with three, four, five katsuobushi, real, about this big, about that round. We used to have katsuobushi almost every night. It was, now you can hardly buy it. You buy little pack about this big and that big, costs you two, three dollars or four dollars, whatever. [Laughs]

MN: Now, did your family have the dried katsuobushi and you shaved it?

TY: Yeah.

MN: Can you share with us -- well, I'm sure a lot of people don't know what this box looks like -- how do you make fresh katsuobushi?

TY: How do you make fresh katsuobushi?

MN: How do you shave it?

TY: How do we shave it? Well, they, she used to have a shaving box. There used to be a box, I don't know, I guess they used to sell little katsuobushi tsuri box. It was about, a box about that long and about maybe that wide with one blade in it and we used to go like back and forth, tsuru the fish and shave off so much at a time, and she'd say, "Oh, that's enough." So we used to put shaved katsuo on rice, tofu, and fish and everything we eat, we'd put katsuobushi on because we had plenty of katsuobushi 'cause my brother was in the business.

<Begin Segment 12>

MN: Now, your mother, did she, is she the one that used to buy the rice and miso, and where did she buy it from?

TY: We used to go to Gardena, buy one taru at a time. You know taru? Big taru like this, what is it, about four, five gallons, three gallon, five gallon, whatever, the bamboo taru. That's how we used to buy it, one taru at a time. And then she would pour it out to one gallon can or whatever, and that's how she used it.

MN: So what did you buy in the taru, shoyu?

TY: Shoyu, yeah.

MN: What else did you buy?

TY: We bought miso, miso in a big container. And I don't know how long it'd last, but as I can remember, shoyu, miso, yeah, those were the big items, and the rice. So my dad used to buy half a ton of rice at a time, or one ton. We had five boys, eat up the rice in no time. [Laughs]

MN: Where did you store all the rice?

TY: Well, he had a place to store it. He stored it in the ofuroba. He had a little house about ten, they call it the koya, anyway. Koya means small house. Koya, and he used to have it in there.

MN: Is this where your father also made his sake, in the koya?

TY: No, he made his sake, shochu in the barn.

MN: Can you share with us how he made the shochu?

TY: Well, we weren't supposed to get in there where he's making the shochu, but we got in there, and he made, he had a boiler, he had a concrete boiler where he would burn his wood, then it'd have a copper, copper bottle or tub, I guess it was a copper, copper kettle, I guess, he had in the hot water. And then he had a little spout coming out of the hot kettle, and then he had a little, little dish right below where the water, the shochu would drip, then he had his bottle there, which would, which would drip into the bottle. That's how he used to make his shochu. And then he, in those days they would invite their friends and then celebrate making a shochu and drink. And I used to be there. "What are they celebrating for?" And they wouldn't give me a drink. I was a little kid. [Laughs]

MN: So what are they celebrating? Like Oshogatsu, or what are they celebrating?

TY: Buddy buddies. That's it. "Hey, come to my place today. We make shochu today." He used to make it quite often. That's amazing, the steam comes out and drips to water, and then the bottle would fill up, they'd drink and celebrate, half drunk. [Laughs] They used to have a good time. You know, those days Japanese people were really, really good. Those days they would help neighbors, neighbor to neighbor help plant, help harvest back and forth, and then when the crop is done, that's when they used to celebrate, I guess. And I used to go help my neighbors with my folks, and they would come to help our folks. In those days, I guess, well, I wouldn't say labor, but I guess labor was hard to get or something, or else they were friends enough to help each other. I don't know which, but those days they used to help each other. Nowadays they don't help nobody. So, like after school, my dad used to say, well, so-and-so, "Mr. Hiji gonna plant cauliflower so come and help over there after school," so we just come home from school and automatic, go there and help him, so then in turn they would help my father too, you see. So things worked out real well then.

MN: And so your father, when he would make shochu, was it, like, once a week or once a month?

TY: I don't know how often he made it. I'm not sure. Maybe two or three times a year or something like that.

MN: And since we're, I mentioned Oshogatsu, what was Oshogatsu like?

TY: Hoo boy, Shogatsu was Shogatsu, man, I'm telling you. Boy, my mother used to prepare food, I don't know how many days ahead, but boy they used to make gochiso, gochiso, man, every house, every Japanese house. And then we would eat our morning Shogatsu celebration, have a little sake. Those Shogatsu celebrations, they didn't mind giving us sake so we drank sake at Shogatsu no morning. And then we had to dress up. My father was a loyal Japanese, I guess. He would make us wear a suit every Shogatsu morning, and then before we ate our ozoni breakfast or whatever we had to gasshou to the shrine, our butsudan, every, every Shogatsu, and we had the ozoni and then we would relax for a while and Dad would go to his friend's place, celebrate Shogatsu with all his friends at the friend's house. So we lived on Johnson ranch, as I can remember, we'd go to every house and all the people on the other home, they would come to our house visiting. And it was nice, it really was. And so it lasted for two days, and the women folks would stay home and accompany the people that would come to celebrate Shogatsu with the Yamashita family or Hiji family or, all the parents had their way to enjoy people that visit them. So two days it was Shogatsu, I'm telling you. Nowadays they don't do that because we live so far apart and the culture is different.

MN: Now, when you mention gochiso, what kind of gochiso did your mother make?

TY: Oh boy, she made royal Japanese Shogatsu gotso, is the best way I can put it. She would get the ebi, big, like a, what is the ebi?

MN: Iseebi.

TY: Iseebi, cooked that, two of 'em, male and female, I guess, decorated on the table on a plate with all the veggies around it. It was beautiful. And then she would cook a fish, I don't recall what kind of fish, but anyway, fish, one or two fish for decoration. Man, then they'd cook konnyaku, they'd cook fish rolls, kombu, and I don't recall what, but anyway, all the Japanese food, tempura, ebi, kai, abalone, sliced abalone or konnyaku and, what do you call that brown thing, that brown cake? What do you call that brown cake? They were so good. Molly, what do you call that?

MY: What?

TY: You know, that brown thing that my mother used to make. It'll come up pretty soon. That and --

MY: Something like jello.

TY: Yeah, something like that. Yokan. Yeah, yokan, they used to make yokan with beans, lima beans, white ones, brown ones. It's pretty beautiful. And then all the, anyway, all type of Japanese food, and it was really, really a Shogatsu. This Okinawa friend of ours does it over here yet, and it was a real Shogatsu, celebration of the New Year, really was.

<Begin Segment 13>

MN: Was there mochitsuki on the Johnson ranch?

TY: Yes.

MN: So did it go from one house to another, or was it a, one family just did it and everybody came? Who did the mochitsuki?

TY: Who did the mochitsuki? Most of the, most of the families did mochitsuki in those days, at their home. What I know about mochitsuki is our own home because we don't go to their home, you see, so mochitsuki was a family celebration, I guess, or family tradition, Japan tradition or whatever. So then they would invite the friends to come to mochitsuki, so then they would celebrate New Year together, so and so, and that's how mochitsuki was for 'em, through individual families.

MN: What did your family use for usu?

TY: Well, my folks, when my folks used to, they used to have a -- oh, I'm not supposed to move here -- they used to have a eucalyptus tree trunk carved out as the usu, then they used to use, for kine they used to use a, well, I wouldn't say eucalyptus, eucalyptus was one of the hammers that they used for pounding. And then in those days we had to burn firewood to heat the water to steam the rice, and that's how we done our mochitsuki for Shogatsu. She would make the okasane mochi. She had to make okasane mochi so we had to have mochitsuki every year. So we still make okasane mochi to keep up the tradition, whether we need to or not. That's why we have it. And then right now we have it, for quite a while he have it for the family gathering, which is a good gathering, all the relatives come together, and this way we know our relatives and we know who they are, and if we don't have a mochitsuki at my house we won't know our relatives so we will never see them for ten, twenty, thirty years until a wedding or a, or a funeral time comes. This way we can see them once a year, we can see our grandkids grow up, great-grandkids grow up, so I kind of think it's a nice thing to do and I like having it. This way they know, they know Grandpa, Great-grandpa. Otherwise they won't know, right? So that's the reason why I like to have it. That's why we do have it.

MN: Let me go back to your, your childhood time when you were doing mochitsuki, so to have the okasane and the ozoni on New Year's, did you have to pound the mochi on New Year's Eve?

TY: No, mochitsuki, well, as I can remember, we did mochitsuki prior to the first day of the year, so it could be one week before or two weeks before or whatever. So mochitsuki should be done prior to the new year.

MN: How do you keep the mochi from getting moldy?

TY: Well, freeze it.

MN: In what?

TY: The freezer.

MN: But you didn't have a freezer, you just had an icebox.

TY: Oh, in those days? We ate the moldy mochi. My mother used to say it was good for you, so she used to make us eat it. She would scrape off the mold and she used to feed it to us, so she said, good for you so you got to like it. It's not that we really liked it, but we got to like it.

MY: They soaked it in water.

MN: Soaked it in water?

TY: Yeah.

MN: And then took the mold off, scraped the mold off?

TY: Yeah.

MY: And I guess kind of leave it in water.

MN: And that doesn't, that prevents the mold?

MY: Uh-huh.

TY: Oh, yeah. That's right.

<Begin Segment 14>

MN: Now, your family is not Christian, but did you celebrate Christmas?

TY: Well, that's the Western way, so in a way, we lived in a Western society so we'd go to school, grammar school, wherever, and when Christmas, it's Christmas. So not because we're, we are, how do you say that... we lived the Western style living, so then we had, it's not that we had to, but we did.

MN: So you exchanged presents.

TY: Yes. We celebrated Christmas every year, yeah.

MN: What was Christmas like in the Yamashita household?

TY: Well, it was Christmas. We didn't have any kind of a sermon or what Jesus said or what God said and all that, but it was just a gift opening type of a thing for Christmas, so the kids know Santa Claus and so and so.

MN: Did you have a Christmas tree?

TY: Yes, every year. Every year. We still do. So you live, you live with the Western people, you got to act as a Westerner, otherwise you're out of the society, right?

MN: What other holidays did your family observe? Did you observe, like, Fourth of July?

TY: Oh yes.

MN: What did you do for the Fourth of July?

TY: [Laughs] Not much, but, not much, but we used to wait for Fourth of July -- you're talking about Fourth of July, right? Fourth of July we'd go buy fireworks, blow fireworks and enjoy ourselves. That's all we done for Fourth of July. We really didn't celebrate, but when the day come everybody blow firecrackers, well, we'd blow firecrackers too.

MN: So you didn't go on a picnic or anything like that?

TY: No. Well, there was no special picnic or anything, but, say like Kagoshima, Kaseda kai, kenjinkai, they didn't exactly have it on the Fourth of July or whatever. They had it on their own convenient days.

MN: And where did they have their picnics at?

TY: Their picnics? We had, we used to have a lot of picnics at the Elnedo Park on Hawthorne Boulevard and El Segundo Boulevard, Elnedo Park. Nice park over there. We used to have it over there. Then we used to have it at a different place, San Pedro, let's see, Brighton Beach, I think we went to Brighton Beach for a picnic every now and then. And then Kaseda kai that we were in, they used to have a meeting and they used to reserve places and have a picnic wherever campground or park we can get.

MN: So when you went to Brighton Beach did you have any interaction with the Terminal Islanders?

TY: No. It was nice. We'd just reserve a spot and we had it over there.

MN: And then this Kaseda kai that you were involved with, what, what is that?

TY: That is a, they formed the Kaseda kai because the Exclusion Act, due to the Exclusion Act. And then Japan people, they do have a tanomoshi, okay. Do you know what that is?

MN: Well, share with us what it is.

TY: Tanomoshi is a savings. Say like Japanese bank don't pay no interest, right, so then why put the money in the bank? So then tanomoshi is everybody puts their money in together in a certain place, five dollars a month or ten dollars a month or whatever, and they would accumulate the money and then whenever they accumulate so much money, and then -- at the beginning, this is the beginning -- they accumulate so much money, then they will start to loan the money to the people that are contributing to the tanomoshi kai, the kai, the group. And so then that was advantageous to them to put five dollars or ten dollars a month into this tanomoshi or kai, and so that they can borrow the money when they want the money, and they return the money at a low interest rate. Banks would charge five percent or ten percent, where the kai would charge maybe one percent or two percent. It was advantageous. So then Kaseda kai was formed due to the Exclusion Act because when the Exclusion Act came they could not come to United States, and then the people that came to United States -- [clears throat] excuse me -- United States, came by Mexico or Canada, so they had to walk into United States. And then they didn't have no money to go home because they walked to United States, and then they didn't have a bank account and so and so, and they wanted to go back to United States to come as legals, so then they started the tanomoshi or Kaseda kai so that they could gather the money. And when the people would want to go back to Japan to come back legally, well, they can borrow the money from the Kaseda kai or tanomoshi to go back to Japan to buy a citizenship of somebody else to come back over here. It was a method of depositing money and borrowing money. That was, that was the key thing.

And then especially when the Exclusion Act was in the, in the legislation and passed, well then what can you do, you see? So then that's how our Kaseda kai was formed, for the advantage of people going back to get their citizenship or buy whatever, and so it was a good thing. Then at one time they had lots of money. Prior to the war they had lots of money, and because nobody would borrow because things were getting better. Then the government confiscated that money, which is a big sum of money, and that was more or less the end of the Kaseda kai. So then after, after one or two years they released the money, and so the Kaseda kai had a big meeting, what shall we do with the money? Shall we keep up the Kaseda kai going or shall we just disband it? Well then they decided to disband it because everybody, they didn't have really much use for the money --

<Begin Segment 15>

MN: -- '39 the Graf Zeppelin visited Mines Field. Were you able to go out there and see the Graf Zeppelin?

TY: Oh, yes. Yes, I was right there. That was a big thing, man, I'm telling you. It was amazing.

MN: It was, it landed on Mines Field. For those of us who don't know what Mines Field is, what, where is that now?

TY: That is, right now it's LAX. It's right there, right there.

MN: So what was Mines Field before it became Mines Field?

TY: It was a pasture. I think that was Leuzinger's property. I think, I'm not sure, but I think it was. There was one section there. I think it was Leuzinger's property, I'm not sure. And the way that LAX became was prior to the Graf Zeppelin two people -- one, one of 'em was my friend -- they had a biplane. Our friend, rather, and then they used to land their airplane there and they used to take people for a ride, ten dollars or five dollars a round trip. And then somebody else brought their plane over there, then they started taking passengers for a ride, this and that, and in due time they decided to make L.A. Airport over there. And so then they zoned it for L.A. Airport and then, I don't know how long L.A. Airport name was, name lasted, but all of a sudden became Mines Field, and so that was Mines Field for a long time. They made additions to the buildings and they improved the landing strip and all that, and then no sooner after that they got to be LAX, Los Angeles International Airport. And then they had so much runway there and the runway wasn't enough because as time went by the plane got larger and larger and they needed a longer flight, flight path, so they dug up Sepulveda Boulevard and then they put an underpass in there. And that was, I don't know what year that was, but yeah, that was way before evacuation, but they dug a tunnel through somebody's field and then they covered it over, then they made the runway strip longer so the larger airplanes could take off and all that. And then as time went by, man, it got to be a huge airport, and today it is a huge airport. So we just lived right there, and we used to go jackrabbit hunting over there, nighttime, one guy would drive the car and a couple guys stay on the back with a shotgun. Nighttime, we got the spotlights, spot the jackrabbit, boom. We used to have a bang out of shootin' jackrabbits because you hit the jackrabbit and the jackrabbit'll boom, up, jump about twenty foot up in the air. Yeah, we used to have a bang out of it. We done that for a long time. [Laughs] It was good old days then. You can't do that anymore. You can't even carry a gun anymore. It's kind of bad, but I guess due to the density of the population.

MN: So what was it like seeing this big Graf Zeppelin?

TY: Pardon?

MN: What was it like seeing the big Graf Zeppelin?

TY: What was it like? Wow, a big cloud came by. Just, it was amazing. You just didn't know what to think about it because it's so huge and large. Wow, that thing came from Germany all the way up to here? How many people was on it? This and that, how did that thing go through the air through the storm and the wind and all that? But it got here, and it was so, so amazing that it was hard to believe. That was our thought. And then we didn't see how they landed. I mean, I guess the way they landed was the crew slid down on the rope and they pulled the zeppelin down and tied it down. It was right there, not, not immediate there, but it was about maybe hundred, two hundred foot away. It was amazing. It was really, really amazing.

<Begin Segment 16>

MN: Now, Tak, you came of age during the Great Depression.

TY: Yeah.

MN: So how did the Great Depression affect your family?

TY: 1929, tears came out of my eyes. It was terrible. Well, I was about ten, nine, let's see, '17, '29, about ten, nine or ten years old. I don't quite remember, but it was bad, man, I'm telling you. My father's farm was going pretty well and the produce he was shipping out was okay, and then all of a sudden everything went down, down, down. And at that time my father was growing cucumbers and carrots and yasaimono, like that, and then he got a, he got a check from the market, I don't recall how much. It was about five hundred, five hundred dollars, something like that. I was about eleven years old, he said "Take it to the bank for me 'cause I'm busy." So he signed the check and then he told me to take it to the bank, so I went, I went to the bank and I deposited it for him, and then the news came out the next day, said the bank's closed, shut the doors. And it was terrible, after depositing the money the day before and the bank shut the doors the next day. That's how bad it was. And then I don't quite recall, but we just went on about our business, and then I guess produce sold 'cause everybody had to eat. And it was pretty tough, I guess, for my folks, because as a little kid you really don't know what the situation is, so I know that the bank closed and times were tough and Dad had some cash money at home, I guess, and just, things went along, but he could not buy us a shoe, shoe or clothing and all that. I think we had to really work to the bone, and it was pretty hard for the folks to fix our shoe for us. We went to school on a torn sole and our foot sticking out of our shoes. And I forgot what kind of pants we wore. We wore some torn pants to school. It didn't matter; we went to learn, besides the looks, so it didn't matter. But days were tough. I could see it. And I was a little kid, so I didn't know the feeling of it, but I can tell that my folks were having a hard time.

MN: Now this check that was deposited and the bank closed, did your father ever get any of the money back?

TY: That I don't recall. They shut the doors, see, that time it was Bank of, Bank of Italy. That was the main bank. Then the Bank of America bought the Bank of Italy out, so then something happened in between there, so I don't really know exactly.

MN: And that's the building that's on Western and 166th, I think? Or 169th?

TY: No, this one was in Hawthorne. This was on Hawthorne Boulevard and, I think it was on Hawthorne Boulevard and El Segundo Boulevard. On the corner there was a Bank of Italy there. I think that's, that's where it was. They shut the doors, no more bank, no more bank. That's it.

MN: Now, during the Depression, did the government bring people to your father's farm as part of Roosevelt's Work Progress Administration program?

TY: Yeah. That was in, what year was that? '25, '29, so let's see, President Roosevelt was in there about '31, I forgot year he was there. The country suffered so bad and the recession was so bad, people was out of work. It was terrible, and people laying on the streets, nothing to eat, this and that. Then President Roosevelt, I guess it was, formed the Workers', WPA, Workers' Public, WPA, Association, Workers', what was it? What was it called? Workers' Public Program, I guess it was. It was WPA, anyway. And then, like my father was farming then, then they bring fifteen people saying, well, can you use these people to do some of your work, hire them, because there's no work. And the bus would bring ten, fifteen people, my folks would hire them, and at that time he was having some, growing some onions, so my dad made 'em top onions, this and that. And then I don't know how long that lasted, but it lasted for quite a few weeks.

At the same time the government, through the WPA work, they had to put people to work, so they had them plant eucalyptus trees on the coastline. All the eucalyptus trees that you see know, if you know what eucalyptus trees are, the WPAs planted 'em, 1932, '31, '33, something like that. And that's what, that's what brought the economy back, little by little. And then '32, let's see, yeah, the economy was coming back slowly and my father was having a hard time and I had to help him because due to the, due to the recession, and then my mother went to Japan in 1936 for a little vacation and then she was there for about five or six months, and then she came back home. And the first thing she told us was Japan and United States gonna have a war. "Mom, you're crazy. Thing will never happen." "Oh yes, Japan and United States gonna have a war. You watch." Well, "Mom, Japan don't have enough oil to come to Hawaii, they don't have no oil to come to United States. How are they gonna fight United States? There's no way, Mom." Mama said, "You watch." 1941 came, boom, and that, it happened.

MN: Don't go there yet. Let's not go there yet. I have some other questions. Let me ask a little bit about your shoes. I know a lot of people during your era sometimes didn't even have shoes. Did you put cardboard in your shoes?

TY: [Laughs] Cardboard. Newspaper.

MN: Newspaper in your shoes?

TY: Newspaper, cardboard, yeah, like you say. Say like, part of the shoe was mostly over here, right, and this part was always bare because the folks couldn't afford to patch my shoes or buy us a new shoe or whatever, and our stocking was wearing out over here and was barefoot over here. And we wore a shoe like that for I don't, I forgot how long, but for the longest time, and we used to go to school like that. And then more or less barefoot, maybe it was better that we took our shoes off, but shoes helped. We done that for a long time, let's see, 1930, about a couple years, and then I guess he earned enough money to buy us a pair of shoes. And then school pants, my mother bought the cheapest pants. At that time corduroy was the cheapest little, cheapest pants that they could buy. Corduroy pants, that's all we wore to school, half torn. Couldn't buy another pair, so that's how it was.

MN: And did you wear the same pants every day?

TY: Every day. She washed it on Saturday and dried it, Monday we wore the same pants, pants torn over here. She was so busy she didn't have time to patch it and we wore torn pants to school, at that time not only us but everybody else. And that's how tough it was. It really was.

MN: Tell me about your outhouse.

TY: My outhouse, or benjo?

MN: What was your, what did you use for toilet paper?

TY: Telephone book. I don't know where they got the telephone book, but we had a telephone book. Okay, our benjo was dug in the ground, hole in the ground maybe five, six foot deep, and I forgot how long it lasted to fill it up, but then it got filled up, and then after it got so full then they dug another hole and shoved that, the hole, the dirt that came out of that hole was used to cover the old hole, filled up hole, then they moved the little two by four outhouse over the new hole, and that's how, how bad the sanitation was, or that, how the countryside sanitation was. No running water. Of course, there's running water for the bathtub and the kitchen now, but in the outhouse type that was what it was out in the farmland. So the city folks, city folks already had sanitation. They had this toilet, ceramic toilet bowl, and they had this, they had a tank upstairs on the ceiling, and they filled the water through the pipeline in the ceiling tank and then when they finished they had a chain from the tank to the, to right here. After they finished, wipe their butt, this, that, they pulled this chain and it will flush the toilet. That's how the city was, Los Angeles. Then we had an outhouse in the country, and that was difference between the city and the farm.

<Begin Segment 17>

MN: I'm gonna go back to your high school years.

TY: Okay.

MN: And I know you were very athletic and you were very good in pole vaulting.

TY: Yeah.

MN: And you went to school at the same time as Louis Zamperini, who has Torrance Municipal Airport named after him.

TY: Yeah.

MN: Did you compete against him?

TY: Yeah, we did. He was too good for us. He was in varsity and I was in the C class. We went to the same meet, but he was varsity, so we didn't compete with him.

MN: How did you get into pole vaulting?

TY: How did we? We learned how to do it.

MN: What got you interested in pole vaulting?

TY: I wanted to be up high as I could want to be. That was my dream, to go up high as I can go up high. And then when we were kids we used to go chop, chop eucalyptus tree limbs, long one, real skinny, long one, and we used to do it at home, see who can jump the highest. And that's what got me interested in it, and I used to high jump a little bit. And pole vaulting was interesting because you're, you swing yourself up in the air high as you can. Real interesting.

MN: Did you ever letter in pole vaulting?

TY: No, 'cause Coach, Coach... I broke one of the new pole vaulting poles, so then I didn't know how to replace it because my father didn't have no money and I didn't have no time to help him to recoup the expense of a new pole, so then I just ignored it and the coach came to tell me that, "I was gonna give you a letter this year, but you broke one of my best poles, so I'm not gonna give you no letter." "It doesn't matter. If I get a letter okay, if not okay, but I'm sorry I cannot pay you back. You know my father don't have no money and I don't have no time to help you." So him and I departed on a bad note, but that was my junior year, so we made up after that. So I wish I could've recouped the money and paid him back.

MN: So when you were going to school, what was the pole made out of?

TY: Bamboo.

MN: What is it made out now?

TY: Fiberglass, aluminum.

MN: So what other athletic activities were you involved in?

TY: I was involved in track. I ran the 660, 660 and the 440. That's what they used to call it, 440 and 660. I did pretty good in the 660. I came in second, third all the time, but never, never the best. Because I had to help my folks and I didn't have time to train in school.

MN: Did you play any team sports?

TY: Team sports, no.

MN: Baseball, basketball?

TY: No. I just done that in Japanese school. Japanese school, coming back to Japanese school we had a baseball team, and we competed against East Hawthorne and Gardena, Compton, Rafu Betsuin, Higashi Hongwanji, I think, yeah, El Segundo, Compton, Torrance. We competed in that. I played baseball then, through the Japanese school.

MN: What was your team called?

TY: West Hawthorne. West Hawthorne baseball team.

MN: You didn't have a fancy name like Taiyo.

TY: No, West Hawthorne, we called ourselves West Hawthorne. The Hijis played, Shioko's brother played and all that. We used to play against Nishimoris, they're Comptons.

MN: And what position did you play?

TY: Me, my position? I was a catcher. I played catcher. I loved to catch, so I played catcher.

MN: So, and you mentioned you had to work on your farm quite a bit, did you resent not being able to participate more in sports activities because you had to work on the farm?

TY: Oh yes. I wanted to be more active in, active in high school, but I just couldn't. "Got to come home and help Dad. Come home and help Dad." So I really didn't enjoy my high school activities. But I enjoyed my judo, and so I used to look forward to it.

<Begin Segment 18>

MN: Well how did you do academically in high school?

TY: Academically? Well, not bragging, but I graduated top third of the class, and we had thirty-seven in our class. Thirty-seven, mind you.

MN: How were, where did you find the time to study?

TY: Nighttime. Nighttime, only nighttime, just after dinner, nine, ten o'clock. That's it. Like a lot of nights I couldn't study because -- you know Iku Kato? Iku Kiriyama? Her dad and my dad was best drinkin' buddies. They would, he would come home every night, every other night, bring one gallon of sake, they'd drink it up, and there's no room for us to study because they're just talkin', gabbing, this and that, too much noise. But we made it somehow.

MN: Now I know, I think Gardena had that Ascot Speedway.

TY: Yeah.

MN: Did you do any midget car racing as a teenager?

TY: We used to go watch the Ascot Speedway races. We used to go there, and I forgot what the entry fee was, twenty-five cents or something like that, admission. We used to go see 'em, Ascot Speedway, midget races. We used to love to go see midget races. [Laughs]

MN: So for those of us who don't know what midget races are, what is a midget race?

TY: Midget race is little bitty cars, little bitty hopped up cars, high compression motors. They used to run, they used to, I think they used to burn castor oil on those little midget cars. It used to be fun to watch those, just like watching the Ascot Speedway, I mean Indianapolis Speedway, but they were midget, only about six, six, seven foot long and four tires. Used to be pretty fast.

MN: Were there any Niseis racing at that time?

TY: Nisei Week, yeah, in L.A.

MN: No, no, were there any Nisei racers, midget car racers?

TY: No, not at that time. I don't think so. I don't think so, no. Not that I know of. Right now there is, but not that time.

MN: So you mentioned also judo and how you enjoyed judo, but around the age of seventeen you quit. What happened?

TY: Oh boy. The girls got to be more interesting than judo, you know? I was already second degree, so I didn't care. I'd rather go see the girls and the girls want to see me, vice versa. A girl got interesting, so I forgot about judo and I quit judo. And I used to go to judo, but I used to go see my girlfriend the same time. "Hey," Mom'd say, "judo night." "Yeah, okay. Thank you." Carried my judo gi on my back, go to judo. Hey, girlfriend lives over there, I start going to judo and I go this way with judo gi on my back. [Laughs] Well, you got to enjoy yourself. So that's the way my judo went, from eleven years old to seventeen, and after seventeen girls got interesting, so what you do? Way of life, right?

MN: So, and then around this time you went to go see Dr. Tashiro. Why did you go visit him?

TY: Why did I?

MN: Uh-huh.

TY: Well, we used to go for little cold and whooping cough and all that, and I had an operation on my head. So girls got interesting and my, a cyst, I guess, was on my head. I don't know what it was, but I had to get it out so that it won't get too big. Got to impress the girls, you see, so I went to Dr. Tashiro and I showed it to him. "Oh, nan de mo nai, kitero, kitero." My dad says, "Oh, it's gonna be that simple?" "Oh yeah," he says. "Come next week." He said, "[inaudible]." So I don't know whether he gave me anesthesia or not, but he might've given a little something 'cause it didn't hurt. He took a knife, I don't know whether he shaved it or not, but he might've shaved it. I don't recall. Cut it and took out the cyst, and that was it, just cut it out. Why can't they do that today? That's all he done and it's okay know. You can see the scar on here.

MN: Yeah, yeah. I see it.

TY: You know, my, at that time my skull was dented like this because of the cyst on here, you see. It was pretty big, about that big, and I guess it just gradually grew and grew. And then finally the skull grew out, I guess. I don't feel a dip no more. So he says, "Nan de mo nai, kitero." I said cut 'em out. [Laughs]

MN: Now, was Dr. Tashiro the only Japanese American doctor around at the time?

TY: I don't recall. I think Dr. Tashiro was the only -- oh, there was another, another doctor named, I can't think of the name. He worked under Dr. Tashiro for a while. Maybe you heard of his name. Let me think about it, name was...

MN: There was also Dr. Goto.

TY: No. His name started with T, I think. But he in turn was Dr. Tashiro's, I can't think of his name now. Then later on we went to him. He was a young doctor. That was about the only two doctors that was in Gardena, I think, at that time.

MN: So you wanted to have this removed because you started to date.

TY: Yeah, because I was embarrassed. [Laughs]

MN: Your girlfriend, was she a Nisei?

TY: Yes, classmate.

<Begin Segment 19>

MN: Did you date non-Nisei girls? Did you date hakujins?

TY: A couple times, couple times, my classmate girls, went to football game. I really liked this hakujin girl, but those days parents monku you go around with a hakujin girl, this and that. I did it a couple times, went dancing. It was fun.

MN: What kind of dancing?

TY: Foxtrot. Foxtrot, waltz. Those days that's all there was, foxtrot and waltz, so that's what we done.

MN: Where did you go dancing?

TY: We went class dancing and senior prom, and they used to have dance parties. We used to go to the dance parties, and I used to go, I used to go a lot to taxi dancing. You know what that is? Taxi dancing, you pay to dance with, dance with these girls. That's called taxi dancing. On Main Street in Los Angeles, Broadway, Main Street, we used to go there once a week. [Laughs]

MN: A lot of the Filipinos went to the taxi dances.

TY: Yeah, probably. Yeah, all kinds of people. In those days we didn't see too many blacks, but they were all whites and Asians. Taxi dancing, nickel a dance or penny a dance. I forgot what it was, one whole music. It was fun. So that's where I learned a lot of my dancing too. A lot of these girls, your girlfriend teaches you how to dance. It's funny that girls, the girls know about dancing more than the guys, so I don't know where the girls learn how to dance, but when you're down there it's what the girls said.

MN: So when you started to go steady with a girl what did you guys do?

TY: I didn't, I didn't like to go steady. I always liked variety, so I never did go steady. Mostly dancing and football games and different organization meetings, that's about it. We didn't go steady to hold hands under the moonlight or under a tree or anything like that.

MN: So you had a lot of girlfriends.

TY: I had a few in my day, yeah. The one I really liked died on me, two of 'em died on me, but maybe good thing I got this one here yet. [Laughs]

MN: So you also liked to go roller skating. Where did you go roller skating?

TY: I went to the roller dome in Long Beach and I went to the roller dome in Los Angeles. Los Angeles used to have a big roller dome.

MN: Down at the Shrine?

TY: Yeah, the Shrine Auditorium, certain day was roller skating. We'd take girls, four, five girls at a time to roller skating, couple of guys. Neighborhood girls, "Hey, you want to go skating tonight?" "When are you going?" "Saturday night, Sunday night." And we used to go.

MN: What did your parents think about you going out like this?

TY: They didn't say too much. I'd say, "Well, I'm gonna go roller skating." We didn't tell 'em we'd take girls, but "I'm gonna go roller skating tonight," just tell 'em, then on the way pick up the girls and go.

<Begin Segment 20>

MN: Let's talk about Pearl Harbor day. What were you doing on Pearl Harbor day?

TY: I was working on the ranch.

MN: How did you hear that Pearl Harbor had been attacked?

TY: We were on the ranch, my dad, me, and my brother was out on the ranch, about seven o'clock in the morning. Then my sister comes running out to the ranch. "Hey, what Neesan running out the ranch for?" My sister said, "Japan attacked Pearl Harbor." "No. No way." We were just out on the ranch, just standing around, what to do, that day. My dad says, "No." He was kind of downhearted. He said, "No." And I was there, "Can't happen." I told my sister, "You're crazy. Got to go listen to it again. Can't be. It can't be." So that's, that was my reaction. It can't be. So then had to go home and listen to the radio, and then I heard President Roosevelt say, what did he say? Said United States and Japan entered a declaration of the war, or something like that, declaration of the war. I think that's how he said it. And then I just did not believe it.

MN: But your mother had said, when she went to Japan in '36 she said there was gonna be a war.

TY: Yeah. It happened. You know what Mom said? "I told you." [Laughs] Because she said there's gonna be a war. "You're crazy, Mom. Can't be." Well, the big whacking on the Japan Sea every day, see how they're gonna approach, see what they're gonna do, see how they're gonna attack, this and that. She was right. Five years later, boom.

MN: So that evening, December 7, 1941, you already had plans.

TY: Yeah.

MN: What did you that evening?

TY: That evening we had a date already. That was Sunday, so we had a date with the girls to go roller skating. So then three of us and three girls had a date and then we went roller skating to Long Beach roller dome, and then we were skating, skating and skating, all of a sudden the girls came up, said, "Hey, Tak, let's get out of here." I said, why? "The guys are, guys are tripping us." I said, "No, you got to be kidding. You guys must've misstepped and tripped yourself. Keep on skating. Nobody's gonna hurt you." Another comes, girl comes up, says, "Hey, I got tripped from a guy." What's happening? "You guys maybe stepped on your own skates and got tripped." "No, no. No, somebody really tripped me." "Skate around. Anybody that trips you, I'll knock him, knock his, give him a, I'm gonna fight with him, knock him down or whatever." "No, let's get out of here. Let's get out of here." So we just took our skates off and took off. We took off and I guess the guys were watching us, so they followed us and tried to run into us and throw, I think they threw tomatoes or, tomatoes or something at us on the way home. That was it, so we never did go roller skating after that no more. So that was the end of our social life for a while. That's what happened. That was it on the skating social activity. That was the end.

MN: Now, did anyone that you know get picked up by the FBI?

TY: Well, I don't exactly know, but I think some old folks, like the Nihonjinkai people got picked up immediately, as I recall. The folks were saying, my folks were saying that So-and-so got picked up, So-and-so got picked up, so I didn't know who they were, but, I didn't personally know 'em.

MN: But you kept hearing a lot of...

TY: Yeah.

<Begin Segment 21>

MN: Now, soon after Pearl Harbor your parents moved with friends into Downey. Why did they do that?

TY: Well, at first when the war started they asked the, they asked the aliens, they asked the aliens to move out of the vital strategic area, as I remember, at least fourteen miles inland. So then that's why all the Issei folks had to move at least fifteen miles, fourteen, fifteen miles inland, so that is the reason why, my folks had friends in Downey, so that's the reason why they moved to their friends' place.

MN: Was it only your parents? What about you kids? You're American citizens, did you move to Downey also?

TY: No, we didn't have to move. Citizens were okay, so we stayed there until, I should ask, I should say, some crew came down pounding signs on telephone poles. So I said what the heck do they know, they're pounding signs on telephone poles? So we went to see and it was Executive Order 9066. What's that? So we read what it said, oh no, you got to be kidding. So we told our hakujin friends that we had to go. We're American citizens, we have to go. Why? "You guys are American citizens. Come stay with me. You guys don't have to go." So our hakujin friends invited us to go live with them for the duration, whether it takes one year or five years or whatever, and so we could do that, but I guess we shouldn't do it, so we just ordered the, we just obeyed the order. That's why we...

MN: Now, before the order was placed on the telephone poles, and before Executive Order 9066, there was a curfew that was put into place.

TY: Yeah.

MN: Did you obey the curfew, or did you go out?

TY: No, why should we obey the curfew? We decided we're American citizens so we don't have to obey the curfew. So anyway, we decided that, no, we all had to carry a birth certificate to prove ourself, I guess it was, so we carried our birth certificate in our hip pocket and we went out every night just for the hell of it. And so I thought, well, if we go out and come back home curfew shouldn't affect us because we're American citizens. That's what we done. When we went out of our area nobody say anything and we come back home, well then MP will stop us. "Hey, you guys, where're you guys going?" "Going home." "You can't go beyond this curfew line." So, "Yes, we can. We live over there." "No, you can't go. What proof you got to go there?" So we just pulled out our birth certificates. "Okay." They used to let us go. "Okay, okay. You live over there? Go ahead." That's what we used to do every night, just, just for the orneriness, you know? [Laughs]

MN: So they never jailed you for that?

TY: No. No.

MN: So was it the same MP that stopped you every night?

TY: No, they had different people, military police, MP.

MN: Just for the orneriness you went out.

TY: Yeah.

MN: Where did you guys go?

TY: Just to go drink a malt, have hot dog, just movie, whatever. "Let's go to the movies tonight." "Got curfew, can't come home." "Oh, we'll get home." As long as we got the birth certificate we would come home, so that's what we done.

<Begin Segment 22>

MN: So now, shortly after your parents moved with their friends in Downey the military showed up on your farm. What were they doing there?

TY: I'd be surprised, the military with trucks, they brought searchlights, they brought aircraft, aircraft machine guns or whatever it was, machine guns, searchlights, tracer, what do you call it, tracer bullet guns or whatever it was. Anyway, it was all big equipment, they placed it on my dad's farm and I guess, I don't know, I really don't know what the reason was, but I guess they bivouacked our, they said "Japs are comin'," so they brought the equipment over and one night I guess the "Japs" did come. I don't know. They fired the gun, searchlight going back and forth looking for the airplane and the guns are shooting, the tracer bullets are flying, and it was kind of like fireworks, kind of fun to watch. But we couldn't get out of the house. They told us to pull the blinds down so that the light won't shine outside, so we just turned the lights off and went outside to watch. And then just tracer bullets flying and flying, and the searchlight going back and forth, and where's the airplane? We don't see no airplane or nothing, so I guess it was a bivouac or something. I don't know. And the milkman would deliver milk the next morning. "Hey, did you guys see something? Did you guys an airplane flying there?" "I don't think so, just saw tracer bullets flying. Don't seem like it hit anything." He said, "Hell, there was nothing flying there, was it?" I said, "I don't see, didn't see anything." [Laughs] So even, even the town people watched it, I guess. It was kind of fun to watch.

MN: Although the newspaper did write a story called "The Battle of Los Angeles on February 24, 1942," and it just reported that this unidentified aircraft was a lost weather balloon. I think that's what they were shooting at.

TY: I really don't know because they didn't tell us what they were shooting at. They didn't tell us nothing. "Japs gonna come, so get ready." I don't know what they were shooting at. Maybe that was what it was.

MN: Did they ever ask for your permission to put the equipment onto your farmland?

TY: No. They just brought it in. They thought they owned the place, you know?

MN: So how did that make you feel?

TY: I mean, it didn't feel, it didn't make it feel good, them trampling on our ranch. They'd drive a truck over the, over the crops and in the field. They thought they owned the place and then they just done that, for what, you know? They didn't even ask us whether they could bring the equipment here or not. They brought it in, so what do you do?

MN: What happened to your crops? Did you lose a lot of crop?

TY: Well, they didn't, they didn't destroy that much, but they destroyed what, wherever they placed the equipment. But my dad's crop was taken over by some Chinese produce man, promised that he'll take care of the crop and harvest the crop and send my dad the money, so then my dad said okay, he'll do that for us, he'll appreciate it.

MN: This is when you were gonna move out.

TY: Yeah.

<Begin Segment 23>

MN: But before we move out, you found out on the, when they put the notices on the pole that you had to move out. Now, when you found out that all the Japanese Americans on the West Coast had to move out, did you discuss this with your parents on what to do?

TY: Oh yes. I said, well, what are you gonna do with the farm, Dad? What are you gonna do with your horses, Dad? What are you gonna do with your house, Dad? What are you gonna do with the contents in the house, Dad? Dad said, well, we have to do what we got to do. Then, I don't know whether we got a letter or whether, I don't quite recall whether they came to tell us that we can't do this or it came out of the newspaper or whatever, saying that we cannot keep a gun, camera, a dangerous weapon or whatever it was. I don't recall, but we couldn't keep those, so then we had to dispose of 'em somehow, so people come to buy. Then we didn't sell 'em nothing because they won't, they get things for little or nothing, so my dad says dig a hole and bury it in the ground. [Laughs] So we dug a hole and buried the guns and all these precious things and everything in the ground. And it's probably still there, but that's what we had to do. That's why, when we moved out we didn't take, we couldn't take anything besides, only thing we were able to take was our bedding and the food and whatever was necessary.

MN: What was the decision to move out? How did you, how did your family decide to move rather than go into camp?

TY: Well, my mother, my dad had ill health, so then my mother didn't want to go to the camp because she was afraid that he just might die over there, so he didn't want, she didn't want him to die there, I guess. So then she decided that, well, let's go to Dad's friend's place. So then, "I'd rather have," she said, "I'd rather have Dad go someplace else besides the camp." That was a decision that, I guess, the parents made, so that's the reason why we went to Colorado. And then prior to going to Colorado we had to go observe the place because we thought that why should we get out of here, so that was our decision, the Nisei decision. Well then Dad said, "Well, we got to go, we got to go. You got to go too." I said, no, we don't have to go. We're American citizens. But we got to go, so Dad said, "Well, why don't you go visit my friend?" So I don't know whether I told you this or not, but we went to a district attorney in Los Angeles and we got a letter to come back home just in case the curfew and limitation of the time, this and that. We were there for two, three days to observe the place and rented the place.

MN: So when you say Festo, where in Colorado did you and your brother go out to?

TY: Went to see Kersey, Greeley. I don't know whether we went to Denver or not. We went to Littleton and all that, and then so happened my father's friend lived in Kunick, Kuner, town called Kuner. And then he found the place for us in Kersey, so we decided we're gonna work for this German farmer that's gonna supply the house to us, so we worked over there.

<Begin Segment 24>

MN: So when you and your brother first went out to Colorado and Kersey did you drive out there or did you go by train?

TY: We went by train.

MN: Did you have any problems on the train ride to Colorado?

TY: We didn't have any train, I mean trouble, going over there, problems or trouble going there, but on the way home we had problems. On the way home, well, after two or three days there we decided to come home to pack up and come back here, so we had our, we had our papers from the district attorney to come back to the West Coast, so we boarded the train in Cheyenne, Denver -- no, Cheyenne. No, Denver, Denver we rode... we got on the train at Greeley and then we went to Cheyenne, then my brother said, "Let's go get something to eat," so I said, "Okay, let's go." So we got off the train and then my brother so happened to look back, and he said, "There's somebody following us," two suited-clothes young men following us. And, "Nobody following you." "Yeah, they're following us. Look at 'em. Look, turn your head and look back." "No, heck no, let's go. I got to go to the bathroom. Let's go." They came in the bathroom, says, "Hey, you guys can't go west. You guys going west?" "Yeah, we're going west." "You guys can't go. You got to stop right here." In the bathroom. "No, let me face, go, let my face my pee pee there," and then, "You guys can't go west." "Yeah, we can." And then I challenged him that we can 'cause I had the paper. I wasn't afraid. So he says, "No, you can't go." Well, we can go. Here, here's a paper here," so he read the paper, says, "Well, okay then. Go ahead." Then we, next stop was Salt Lake, or Ogden. Ogden, yeah, we stopped at Ogden, and then there's another two, two FBIs following us. My brother, "Hey, there's two guys following us again." "Oh, the heck with it, man, we can go west, so we don't, no use worrying about it." So I went to the restroom and the guy comes in the restroom, says, "Hey, you guys, where you guys going?" "We're going west. We're going home." "You can't go west." I said, "Why? Why?" "You got a curfew. You can't go." And we gave 'em a hard time. We argued with 'em for a while, and then finally the train's gonna go, so then train's gonna leave so we just showed 'em the paper and we were able to come home. So that's, they gave us a bad time on the way home, but other than that it was okay. We got home, we packed up our stuff, put 'em in the freight car and...

MN: What did you put on the freight car to Colorado?

TY: We put our clothing and then our bedding and kitchen, kitchen utensils or kitchenware, whatever you call it, and our bedding. My dad just bought a bunch of farm tools, equipment, tractors and all the equipment, all that, so we ordered the boxcar to haul it to Colorado and then we loaded the boxcar with everything that we can, and then we gave 'em a destination, they gave us a bill of lading to the destination, and they said it'll be, your equipment and your freight car will be there in five, five days, so it'll be on a certain place so then you unload it right there, the certain place. I said okay, so then we loaded our truck with the necessities to get over there, gasoline, oil, water, and we prepared ourselves to --

MN: What about, like, your other things like the mochitsuki, mochitsuki? What did you do with those things?

TY: We left 'em over here. And then we made our own mochitsuki usu and the hammer when we got to Colorado and New Year came. See, it was April then, I believe it was April, first of April that we went over there, so we had a mochitsuki over here already. Whether the war was happening or not we had our mochitsuki at home. And it was April that we moved out, then we had mochitsuki year end at the friend's place, I guess, yeah, that friend's place. Then we had a mochitsuki there at the Colorado, and the Colorado neighbor -- there was a Japanese neighbor there, so they were, they invited us to the mochitsuki, so we had it over there. The following year we done it at home.

MN: And then you left your farmland to this Chinese produce man. Did he ever share the profits from the harvest with you?

TY: Little bit. A little bit. He took all the advantage of the price and the volume and the money and everything and just sent peanuts to my dad. But when we came back home he treated us good, so it worked out.

MN: Now, before you left for Colorado, did you meet with your girlfriends?

TY: Oh yeah, I had to say goodbye, right? I wanted to marry her and take her with me, but what are you gonna do, uncertain, right? So you don't want to marry a girl and take her and then let her starve over there, so I didn't ask me to marry me or anything, but I really wanted to. But she was forced to marry somebody else. When she told me that, "Oh my god, my dad wanted to me to marry that guy and I married him."

MN: Did any of your hakujin friends come up, come to see you off?

TY: Not really, 'cause we just took off. My hakujin friends, "Come stay with us, stay with us. Live with us, live with us." What are you gonna do? It's government's order. What are you gonna do? Get put in jail like, what the hell's his name, all these people that fought against the evacuation, Korematsu and who else, a bunch of...

MN: Yasui, Hirabayashi.

TY: Hirabayashi and all those guys, yeah. And JACL should've fought it. I don't know why they didn't fight it.

MN: Now, when you went to Kersey with your brother the first time, you had, you got a travel permit. Did you have to get a travel permit the second time?

TY: You mean to come back?

MN: Well not to come back, to go to Colorado. Just to travel.

TY: No. You can go anywhere you want.

MN: So how many cars caravanned with you?

TY: We had a truck, family car, one, two, three, the truck... we had four car caravan including the truck, no, without the truck.

MN: And who made the trip with you? Was it just your family?

TY: Just my family and my folks' good friend and one of the Hiji brothers went. And then they didn't complete the trip. They got scared after Las Vegas. They said, "We don't want to go to unknown place," and so they turned back and went home, so then that was one, two cars less. So there was four cars total. It was tough. Like...

<Begin Segment 25>

MN: What time did you start in the morning on the day you left?

TY: I don't quite recall. It was in the morning.

MN: What did you pack for this trip?

TY: What did we pack? We packed our clothing, mattress, bedding, like I say, fifty gallons of gasoline on the truck, five gallons of oil, tools, all necessities for about a couple of weeks, canned fruits, few vegetables. We bought a chunk of meat, put it in, bought dry ice, stuck it in the box. That's how much we took, for a couple days, three days. Just in case, you know, we had to camp in the desert or the mountain or wherever. And then on the highway they wouldn't sell us gasoline. We had enough gasoline to go to Las Vegas and further on. And let's see, filled gasoline in Barstow or someplace, just to be safe. Went through Las Vegas and it was about four, five o'clock in Las Vegas, I believe, and as we were going we came, next big town was St. George. We stopped over there and asked to fill our tank up, and they decided that they don't sell gasoline to Japs. "Get out of here. We don't sell no gas to Japs." So we told 'em so what, there'd be somebody'd sell us gas. Then we said the heck with you and then we just went on. And then we went to about three gas stations, I think, and then they said they don't sell gas to Japs, this and that, then third gas station says, "Well, you guys want gasoline? How much do you want?" "Can you fill the tank up?" "Sure." They fill the tank up. There's some good people on the road. And then that was about six, seven, maybe six, seven, eight o'clock, something like that. I don't quite recall.

And then so nighttime came and it got dark and we had to sleep someplace, and so we stopped at a motel, said, "No, we don't rent no rooms to Japs," so okay, if you don't rent no rooms to Japs, well, we'll find somebody that wants our money. We just went along, we stopped another place. "No, we're all full up. All full." "How come you got a vacancy sign here?" "We're filled up. We forgot to take it down." Okay, forgot to take it down. Okay. So then about two o'clock in the morning -- I think it was about two o'clock in the morning -- we were so tired and then we saw a little bitty old motel on the side of the street. We rang the bell 'cause it said ring the bell, so we rang the bell. Some old lady comes out, "What do you want, boys?" "We'd like a room if you got a room." "Yeah, we got some rooms. You guys want to stay for a night?" "Yeah, we'd like to stay for a night. Thank you. Other guys won't let us, won't rent us a room, so I appreciate you guys renting a room to us." So she says okay, say, "Okay, what's the price?" Five or ten dollars, I don't quite remember. We paid 'em for one night and then we slept there 'til twelve o'clock. [Laughs] And then we went on.

And then we were determined to make Greeley, Colorado, so then hail, sleet or snow we just kept going. There's snow up in the Rocky Mountains, about fifty miles to Cheyenne, up in the high mountain, snowing and ice on the mountain, cold as a freezer, just cold, cold, and our truck broke down and had to jack it up trying to fix it, then the snowy, icy mountain. So we fixed it and we took it apart and got the, found the, where it had broke or burned out, and we were able to take that out, took us a while. It was so cold I couldn't, I couldn't believe how cold it was in the mountain. Our fingers froze, this and that. So it was about fifty, sixty miles to Cheyenne and so my brother says, well, how are we gonna get there? I said, well, one way to get there is hitchhike, I guess, so then we were hitchhiking. We hitchhiked about a mile. Everybody just zoom, zoom, passed by. One old nice car stopped by, "Hey, fellows, where you going?" "Well, our truck broke down so we got to go buy some parts to fix our truck." So it was a sheriff's car and the sheriff said, "Hop in. I'll help you. I'll take you wherever you want to go." He took us to Cheyenne. It was about, he was kind of interested in talking to us about the evacuation and who we are, this and that, and then he took us to the parts house. It was about eight o'clock by the time we got there and --

MN: Eight o'clock in the morning?

TY: I think, yeah, it was about eight o'clock when the store opened.

MN: So you folks had not slept all night.

TY: All night, yeah. We didn't sleep all night that night. Then the sheriff said, "I'll wait for you guys. You guys pick up your parts and I'll take you back." So he was a nice man, really, really nice man. He took us back over there and then he waited for us until we got the truck fixed. He was such a nice man. And then we got our truck fixed and we started rolling, and he said, "You guys okay? Gonna be okay?" He said, "I'll be in Cheyenne if it's not." So then we just went on. We made it Greeley, finally made it to Greeley. Oh man, we were so darn tired we slept all day. [Laughs] Snow on the ground, ice on the ground. That was the first time I saw so much snow and so much ice on the ground. Really, yeah. It was really, really quite a trip. So after we got there these Japs, Colorado Japs, they said, "Hey, you guys better straighten up." The Japanese boys telling us that, you gotta get straightened up. Why you say that? You're a Jap too. "Well, we're Coloradans over here." You don't look like no white man. You're a Japanese boy. You're same, if you was in California you'd be treated the same way. They say, you guys better straighten up, be good over here. Hey, don't worry. So that's how prejudiced those Japanese were in Colorado.

MN: You know, I kind of looked into that and I think I know where that came from, because in March in 1942 the Utah chapter of the JACL wrote a letter discouraging Japanese Americans from the West Coast from moving out there.

TY: Yeah.

MN: And the letter said because the local Japanese Americans had a good reputation and they didn't want it disrupted by undesirables.

TY: Yeah, yeah. That's how they looked at us, undesirable. They really did. And I was so disappointed. I said, "You guys are Japs too," you know. One Jap is the same as another Jap. And they finally, the girls weren't that bad. The girls were nice. The guys, the people, the guys were really bad. Then these one prominent Japanese JACL president, what's their name, Etamoto or somebody, Etamoto, I forgot what his first name was, he came out and says, "Hey, you guys be nice boys over here." I said, well, we're always nice. It wasn't us that caused the problem to evacuate. And they understood that too, but some guys, some of these Japanese guys, they were, they think they were white men and it ticked us off. But that's the way it was.

<Begin Segment 26>

MN: So you got into Greeley, Colorado, and so what did you do once you got into Greeley?

TY: Well, what did we do? Let's see, we'd scout around, look around. We, prior to setting down, settled down or just all through the life?

MN: Just when you got there, initially.

TY: Well, we went to our home, promised home, then we had to clean up, and then we moved all our stuff in there, and then we waited for our freight car with all our equipment on. We waited for that, which never arrived for some reason. And then, that was April so we just --

MN: Where did they tell you that the boxcar went?

TY: They told us it went to Boston, Massachusetts. And I don't know whether it was, they were lying to us or, or whether they, they got mixed up on the hook up or whatever, whether the railroad company was prejudiced to us or not. I really don't know. But then I went to the railroad station and told 'em that it's supposed to be at a certain spur track and then it's not there, so they told us to go look at it again, so we went to look at it again, it wasn't there. So then I said, well, we have all our, all our personal things and equipment in there, so when will, when will it arrive over here? Then first they say that they have to look up to see where it was, has gone or went, the destination. I told 'em our destination was in Greeley, Colorado, where they told us it's gonna be on a certain spur track over there, so it's not there so that's where I want it. Then after five days they brought it. Took us five days, man, I'm telling you, whether that was done prejudicial or whatever, mistake or whatever. We didn't complain. So that's what happened, Nancy -- Martha, rather, excuse me.

MN: Were there other Japanese Americans living in Greeley at the time?

TY: Japanese Americans? Californians or Coloradans?

MN: Both.

TY: Why, there was quite a few Japanese there, yeah.

MN: Were they mostly Coloradans?

TY: Coloradans, yeah. Let's see, after we went there, about a year later we met some Californians. They got out of camp to their friend's place or their relative's place, and we met some from, people from Washington, we met some people from Marysville, we met some people from Salinas, gradually met 'em as we got around. Go dancing, roller skating, "Where you from? Where you from?" That's how we met 'em. And so there wasn't that much Californians there, but there were a bunch of dumb Coloradans there. They thought they were king because they were in the JACL or whatever. And we started going to Buddhist, Buddhist sermons and talks here and there in different houses, and that's how we met more people.

MN: You started the YBA there, right?

TY: Yeah, I was in, I wasn't a member of the YBA, but I went to a lot of YBA activities, like they had a big conference in Denver which we went, kind of interesting, and met some Wyoming girls and Utah girls.

MN: Now, did your younger brother start high school in Kersey?

TY: Yeah.

MN: How long did he last there?

TY: One day. [Laughs] I forgot what grade he was. He was in high school, maybe, maybe he was sophomore or something. I really don't know. I don't recall, but he said, well, I guess I better keep my schooling going, so he went to high school to register as a student, then he registered, came home, and then the following day he went to the class. And he had to go benjo, bathroom, and he went to the bathroom and he saw a fence over there. The bathroom was downstairs because Colorado gets cold, water freezes and all that, downstairs, so he opened the door and then he says there's a fence on the stairway going to the bathroom, to the latrine. He said, what's that for? So he asked the guys, said, "Look at the sign up there." It said blacks only and American here, so he says, that's funny. He said, "Man, they're sure prejudiced against the blacks over there." He says, "The hell with it, I'm not gonna go to that kind of school," so he just quit, quit the high school there and then he, what happened, he went to another school. It was the same way. He went to Kuner -- that was next town over -- so it was the same way, so he wanted to finish his education so he went anyway, but he said, "I don't believe it." Who would believe that kind of thing in California? California never did have such a thing like that. He just came home, stayed home one week, said, "I'm not gonna go to the damn school no more." [Laughs]

<Begin Segment 27>

MN: -- in Kersey, Colorado and you're working for this German man. What kind of work did you do?

TY: He put me on driving the tractor and feeding the cattle. That was my job.

MN: But he had both a vegetable farm and a cattle farm?

TY: No, he had a sugar beet farm, farming sugar beets for Great Western Sugar Company, and then -- that's summertime -- and then the wintertime he used to feed cattle. He used to go to Texas, Oklahoma, to buy skinny cattle and used to ship 'em up to the Greeley, Colorado, to his corral and then feed 'em sugar beet leaves, tops, alfalfa and all that, and I used to help him in the cold winter, ten below zero, twenty below zero, to go to the beet factory to pick up the pulp and go out in the field to get alfalfa, hay to feed the cattle, and in the cold twenty degree weather. It was cold, man. And then I worked for him for one year, maybe two, yeah, two years in the wintertime. Summertime we came back home to work for -- wait now, two years in the wintertime, and then summertime, naturally, work on his farm. And then the other years we started our own farm 'cause we were farmers back here, you see.

MN: Before you started your own farm, that, the winters, did you work part time in Denver also?

TY: Yes.

MN: What'd you do in Denver?

TY: Well, summertime we worked up to October, October until it got cold and frozen, then went to Denver, got an apartment, and then we applied for a job at the packing, packing shed. And I didn't know that they do this, they told us if you want a job go to packing shed, so went over there and, like I said, I didn't know that they done this, but the produce house over there, shipping vegetables from Texas, Louisiana, all the southern states, Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico, they're shipping the produce to Denver and Denver is the middle point between Boston, New York or whatever, and then they repack 'em, and then they repack 'em and put ice in it, and then we would load the cars after puttin' ice in it and they would ship it on to New York, Boston or Chicago, wherever, Canada, wherever they cannot grow vegetables, fruits, so and so. And it was a good job, breaking, breaking the crates, taking all the vegetables out, repacking, reicing, load the trucks, long distance hauling trucks and the freight cars, in the wintertime, November, December, January, February, I think about four months. And then the ground would thaw out on the farm, so after March we'd go home and plow the ground and plant our crops.

MN: So while you were working in Denver did you visit the Denver Japantown?

TY: Oh yes.

MN: What did you do there?

TY: Shot pool all night. [Laughs] We slept over there, we stayed over there and went to the Kagohara Restaurant for food, and played pool all night long. And that's more or less what we did at nighttime.

MN: What about your parents? Where were they?

TY: They were in Greeley, Colorado, at the home. They were, my dad was about sixty-five, seventy, sixty-five, about sixty-five, so they stayed home and kept warm. Nobody would hire them and he didn't want to work.

MN: So while you were in Colorado, what were you hearing about people in camp?

TY: Ooh, bad news. People in camp used to fight. I didn't like it, but Denver Post, maybe they over-exaggerated, I don't know, Denver Post used to write bad things about people in the camp. They said they had fights, fights. All we really used to hear was they used to have fights, riots and more riots, and they're not behaving. Denver Post was really bad on Japanese people, and that's why, like Governor Carr, he was the governor at that time and he was so good to the Japanese people that a couple years later the election time came up and he didn't get no vote. It was bad. We felt sorry for the guy. He was a good, good governor to invite us over there and then they didn't give him no vote and they just voted him out of the office, which is bad.

<Begin Segment 28>

MN: Now, while you were in Colorado did you get a chance to visit Granada?

TY: Yes.

MN: How long did you visit, what year did you visit Granada?

TY: I don't exactly remember, but, first year, second year, I think it was second year, second year.

MN: So '43?

TY: I think so, '43, '44. '43, yeah.

MN: Was it difficult to get permission to enter Granada?

TY: No, it, the only thing was to get gasoline to go to Granada 'cause gasoline was rationed then. So then since we were farming we had all kinds of coupons to buy gasoline, and you asked the town people, town people get so much then if they don't use it they'll give it away, so we used to ask some of the town people, "Hey, you got some gasoline coupons, so-and-so?" And so that's how we used to get gasoline coupons, and we went to Granada that way. And it was terrible. I thought everybody in the camp will die over there. Know why? It was in the desert. Then when the wind would whip up the sand was so loose that it just flies and you can't see nobody. You can't see nobody ten foot in front of you, that's how bad and sandy it was. And I thought, wow, man, they put these guys in here to die. And then maybe I told you that I never experienced a, I never did experience an open bathroom, pot here, pot there with no partition. So embarrassed to go do your potting, and I thought, wow, oh man, these guys, amazing. They had to go they got to go, right? That's, that's how they got used to it, I guess. And so that night about six, seven o'clock, after dinner, after dinner the wind blew, the sand kicked up like I told you, I couldn't see you in front of you. That's how bad it was. And then, well, it was so bad we just played cards for a while and went to sleep. And then our mouth, through your nostril all the sand comes in, and then you go to sleep and then next morning you get up, you move your mouth a little bit, full of sand inside of your mouth, man, I'm telling you. Wow. I don't know how long these people in the camp gonna last over here, that's how bad I thought it was. So I don't know whether the wind blew the next day or the following month or not, but it must have blown, and it was terrible.

MN: How long were you at Granada?

TY: For two days.

MN: Was this your first and last visit?

TY: Yes. I didn't want to go there anymore.

MN: Who were you visiting at Granada?

TY: They were the friends of my friends, so we went with him. He wanted to see his friends, so, "Hey, Tak, let's go for a ride to the camp." So I was kind of curious to see the camp, so we went.

MN: So when you were going out of camp did they give you any problems?

TY: No problem, no. No, sure didn't, just drove out.

<Begin Segment 29>

MN: So when you were out in Colorado what year did you receive the "loyalty questionnaire"?

TY: Let's see, that was, we were there, I think the second year, '41, '42, so the second year. I forgot year it was, '42 or '43.

MN: '43.

TY: Yeah. I think so, yeah.

MN: Did you have any problems answering the two controversial questions?

TY: No. People were talking about it. I guess some people, they got it through alphabetical order, I guess, and then we were the last ones to get it 'cause Yamashita, so then they were talking about it and we used to, they used to say, "Answer 'no-no,' answer 'no-no.' And I'd say, "What's 'no-no,' whether you are loyal or not?" And I said, what country could I be loyal to, you know? And the only country that I could be loyal to is where I am right now, USA. I'm born here. According the government statistics and the teaching of the history is that if you're born in the U.S. you're a U.S. citizen, right? Well then I used to tell the guys, "Why you guys vote 'no-no' for? You got to fight for your own country." And then these Japanese Issei, they say, "No, answer 'no-no.' 'No-no,' 'no-no.'" So even like my wife, parents told her to answer "no-no," well she did answer "no-no," so she really didn't know the reason why, but the parents pushed. So that was my idea. My idea was to fight for my country, which is natural, right?

MN: So your parents had no problems with you answering "yes-yes."

TY: Yeah. They didn't say nothing. "Up to you."

MN: Now what year did you get your draft notice?

TY: I got my draft notice... I got my draft notice before I evacuated, I think. Yeah, I think before I evacuated, the draft notice. Then I sent them a letter saying that I am farming, growing crops with my father and helping on the farm, this and that, they gave me a 3-A classification. So then I had 3-A classification until I went to Colorado. I got my 3-A classification, then I went to the physical at the Fort MacArthur, and then I passed it, then they gave me a 3-A classification after that. So then I went along.

MN: Fort MacArthur in San Pedro is where you got your, you passed the physical?

TY: Yeah.

MN: Now, did your younger brothers receive their draft notices and did they receive a 3-A classification?

TY: No. Let's see, my brothers, I think my second brother, he received it. And then he went to physical and he went to the, he was drafted so he went to the army. And time went by, my third brother got it in Colorado, I think. My fourth brother got it in Colorado and my fifth brother got it in Colorado, so they all went, passed the physical, went to the occupation in Japan, and I was the only one that was left home.

MN: How did your parents feel about having so many sons in the military?

TY: Well, you mean how they felt when their sons went to military?

MN: Were they worried that they may lose their sons?

TY: I don't think so. They used to say that, fortunes of war, so you know. I think that's how they used to put it. They knew. It was funny that they knew that. How, how would I explain it? They says, "Wakare ga warui toki ni doko na koto wa nai." And "Wakare ga wakattara," they would come home. That's what their idea was, and being in Japan, I guess, that's the way it is in Japan. You know what wakare means, right?

MN: Depart.

TY: Depart, yeah. "If departing is bad it's not gonna be good, and if departing is good, nothing's gonna happen," is the way they put it. So ours, all the departing was good, I guess, so they all came back home.

<Begin Segment 30>

MN: Let me go back to your work life. Now, you worked for this German farmer, was it for two years?

TY: I think about two years, yeah.

MN: And then your family decided to do your own farming.

TY: No, not my parents. We did.

MN: You did, okay. How did you start? I mean, where did you go find land?

TY: Well, we looked around, and people helped us, so we found, we found a hundred acres here, couple hundred acres there. And so we had our equipment, so there was no big deal to start a farm, so we rented a hundred sixty acres, half section.

MN: What did you grow?

TY: We grew sugar beets. We grew onions, cabbages for the marketing, fresh market. And then the buyers from the fresh market came, knowing that we grew cabbage and onions, they bought 'em for the military and we shipped 'em over to the military. Sugar beets went to the Western Sugar Company, Great Western Sugar Company. So we didn't have no problem of disposing or selling our products because it was in demand.

MN: So the military didn't have a problem purchasing produce from Japanese Americans?

TY: No. They purchased from the farm is the way I look at it, okay?

MN: But I guess they didn't think that the farmers would sabotage the produce.

TY: Yeah. I didn't think so, no. Well, it was inspected, you know? It had to pass three government inspections, so it was almost guaranteed.

MN: So was life better farming for yourselves rather than working for someone else?

TY: Naturally, yes. Freedom.

MN: You were also able to buy a brand new truck.

TY: Yes.

MN: So what did you do with this new truck?

TY: Well, first of all, in order to get a new truck we had to go to the OPA, Office of Price Administration. We had to apply for it and then we were farming and then we had to be farming so many acres before we can, OPA would okay the documents or the papers, and so that's how we were able to purchase it. So that's how we got it.

MN: So now with this truck you started to haul peaches, right?

TY: Peaches, sugar beets, made a sugar beet bed and made a regular truck bed, and we hauled peaches from Grand Junction over to Loveland Pass, to Denver. Then we hauled, contract hauling sugar beets from the farm to the sugar, to the gondolas on the railroad track. Yeah, so they put 'em in gondolas to ship the sugar beets to the factory.

MN: Going back to this, the Grand Junction to Denver, Loveland Pass, can you share with us what that's like?

TY: Ooh, it's murder. Have you been through Loveland Pass? Now they have a new highway along the Rio Grande river. Loveland Pass was a terrible pass. It's so hot in Denver, hundred degrees, hundred ten degrees, so we'd pack a water bag in the front of the car so that we won't run out of water, the trucks or us. By the time we got up to the top of the hill the water bag was frozen and we couldn't drink the water. That's how different the temperature was, from hundred degree temperature to the top of the Loveland Pass. And the Loveland Pass was just a hairpin curve, back and forth until you get to the top of the mountain. Ooh man, it's amazing. In order to pass two trucks, you can't pass two trucks. Oncoming and outgoing, you had to stop and wait for one truck to go by for us to go by. It was a steep, steep, terrible mountain pass. You know the ridge route used to be that way years ago. So now the Loveland Pass is closed now because they made the new highway alongside the river. It's really nice now, so we don't have to climb the Loveland Pass, but that's how bad it was.

MN: And now we have a grapevine instead of ridge route.

TY: That's right. It was quite an experience.

<Begin Segment 31>

MN: So when you were in Colorado were you able to have some free time and kind of explore and travel around the area?

TY: We did a lot of that. We did a lot of that. We traveled. We had a lot of time on our hands and we had enough gasoline coupons because we were farmers, and we went to Colorado Springs, went to Granada, went to Rocky Ford, Pueblo, and Conejo River Valley, down to New Mexico, and we went to that Arroyo Gorge where, see that bridge that the Japanese man built a long time ago, went to see that. We had a good time.

MN: Did you encounter any prejudice?

TY: Pardon?

MN: Did you encounter any prejudice?

TY: Oh yes, plenty, plenty of prejudice. You know, the Colorado people didn't really get around that much, I guess, Colorado Japanese. So we go to different cities, different parks, different hamburger stands, whatever, and we would, while traveling time goes by, twelve o'clock, got to eat, right? Not that you got to eat, but we eat, walk into the restaurant, we sit down at the restaurant and be waiting for a waitress or waiter to come in to serve us, and they never would serve us. They'll serve somebody that came in after us, so we'd ask the boss, "Hey, where's the boss around here?" Say, "Oh, he's in the back cooking," so one of the guys said, "Hey, where's the boss? How come, how come we don't get served? Those guys got served, they came in after us got served before us. How come?" "If you Japs don't get the hell out of here we'll get a shotgun and shoot you." So, "No, you can't shoot us." "I mean it, gonna shoot you," said, "I'm gonna go get the gun," so we just run out. [Laughs] We had about three or four experiences like that in Colorado. That's how bad it was over there too, because I guess the Japanese people didn't get around that much.

And then, like there was a cherry picking one season one time, advertised in the paper, pick your own cherries for so much, this and that, so a bunch of us guys went cherry picking. Got to be lunchtime, they said, "Hey, Tak, go get us some hamburgers," so I said okay, so, "Give me some money," I went to get the hamburgers. Waited in line, my turn would come up, "Hey, I want one dozen hamburgers." "We don't serve no Japs. Get the hell out of here. We don't serve 'em. Get out of the way." I said, "Well, if you don't serve me I'll get it someplace else." That's how prejudiced it was. And those people didn't know it, and they were, they thought they were king. But they weren't. So were there a lot of prejudiced then, yeah, so we almost got shot many times.

MN: Now, you mentioned a Oshogatsu in Colorado. The one year, the first year you went to your friend's place, and then after that you had your own?

TY: Yeah, on our own. Made our own usu with cement and a tub, made our own hammer with a wood, eucalyptus tree wood, different kind of wood, and we built our own fire outside with the butane gas, and we had our own mochitsuki, kasane mochi, all that. Mama says we got to have our kasane mochi every year, so we made an effort to make kasane mochi, and we did. And we, our mochitsuki hasn't stopped yet. [Laughs]

MN: Where did you get all the Japanese food?

TY: Let's see, Colorado has some Japanese food in, in Denver. Yeah, there was a store in Denver. We used to have to go to Denver to go to get it.

MN: Did you celebrate Christmas?

TY: Yes. As usual, yeah, we did. Give present to each one and decorate the tree, that was Christmas for us, so it wasn't religiously but traditionally.

MN: And then you became active with the YBA.

TY: YBA.

MN: The Young Buddhists Association.

TY: Uh-huh.

MN: Was there a Buddhist church in Greeley?

TY: Yeah. No, there --

MN: In Kersey?

TY: No, in Denver.

MN: Oh, in Denver.

TY: We used to go to Denver.

MN: Did you participate in their Obon?

TY: Let's see, I don't know whether I did or not. No, I don't think so. Not over there, no.

<Begin Segment 32>

MN: Now, when did you hear that the Japanese Americans could go back to California?

TY: When did I hear? It came out in the paper that they're gonna release the Japanese people to the West Coast. I think that's how it was, yeah. So boom, we got on our car, said let's go see, let's go see what California looks like now. So couple of my friends and I went in our '38 Chevrolet on a cold winter day, started to snow on the way. [Laughs] It was funny. And only thing we could see was barbed wire fence and a stake on the side of the road, and we had to find our own way, full of snow, it's snowing, and we made it back. Man, it was another place when we came back, four years later.

MN: This is '45 then, you came back, early '45?

TY: '45, yeah. Early '45, went in '45, yeah.

MN: Did you go into Little Tokyo, Los Angeles when you got to California?

TY: Sure did.

MN: What was that like?

TY: Ooh, it was a black town, man. It was a black, black town, and I just can't believe it. Blacks are loud, loud and loud and throwing everything on the street, furniture, cans, beer cans, what have you. It was a crazy, bad black town. It really was. But we found a place to stay at the old Miyako Hotel with the kurombos running it, and they gave us a room over there. And we stayed there one or two nights. I don't recall. But it was a bad town, I'm telling you. It was, it wasn't a town. It was just a savage, what do you call it, savage...

MN: Kind of like the wild wild West?

TY: Worse than that. [Laughs] Oh man, it was so bad, walked down the street, take a look at this and that, the girls would come up, the black girls would come up, "Hey, we got a room up there. Got a room up there." They're hustling, hustling everything. It was amazing. And the old black people, young people, running around midnight half naked. It was crazy. It really was, yeah. I did not believe it.

MN: Did you think that it would revert back to Little Tokyo?

TY: I kind of thought that in due time it will, yeah. I kind of thought so, yeah. But I told myself, got to chase these old blacks out of here and we got to take over again. That's what I thought. But they finally did.

MN: So you stayed at the old Miyako Hotel, which was, I think, the Civic Hotel at that time. That's on the corner of First and San Pedro?

TY: Yeah. Yeah, around there.

MN: So you stayed in, I guess, Little Tokyo -- it was called Bronzeville at the time -- you said two nights?

TY: I think we stayed there two nights, yeah.

MN: And then where did you go?

TY: Let's see, from there we went out in the field and looked over. We met a couple of our friends where we used to live, and then we went back, back to Colorado to bring our things back, our clothing, equipment, whatever else we had to bring home. So we came back home.

<Begin Segment 33>

MN: What was it like coming back? Was it just as hard to move back to California?

TY: No, it didn't seem to be. No, we got whatever we wanted. We got our gasoline at our demand, we got our motel at our demand, and stopped in Las Vegas for a couple of minutes and came back home. And we had a friend that took over my dad's ranch when we left, he gave us a place to stay, sort of a chicken coop type of house, cleaned it up, stayed there for about maybe two, three months, until we found some, another Chinese that was looking for labor or partnership or whatever. And then we got into partnership with this other Chinese guy, then he built us a new home, new house.

MN: This is in La Puente.

TY: Yeah, La Puente.

MN: So what happened when you tried to hook up the water there?

TY: Well, we didn't have a problem then because we was on the Chinese farm, see, and then we decided we don't want to go sharecropping with a Chinese, so then we decided we want to rent a ranch, ten acre, fifteen or twenty acre. So we rented a ten acre, I thought it was, yeah, ten acres with a house on it. Then we needed some water to bring up the seeds and water the plants. We went to the water department and, hey, we'd like to apply for water for the certain ranch over there, and we leased it so we want some water. "We're not gonna give no water to Japs. If you don't get out of my office I'll shoot you with a shotgun." This old lady, old lady in the office say they're gonna shoot us with a shotgun. Wow, better get out of there. [Laughs] So then we talked to the landlord, said, hey, that office woman, what was her name, gonna shoot us, not gonna give us water, so maybe you can get the water for us. "Oh yeah, I'll go get the water from her and I'll tell her off, kick her out of the office." So he got water for us, and that's how we got started, Martha.

MN: What did you plant?

TY: Plant lettuce, lettuce, cabbage, cauliflower, something like that, spinach.

MN: Why didn't you stay in Colorado and just farm there?

TY: I didn't see any hope in Colorado. There was no hope because you get one crop a year, and that don't bring you no money. You can eat up the one crop in one, that winter. See, then I really didn't see a future in farming in Colorado. That's why I came back, to farm at home. On the West Coast I can grow three crops a year, and if you failed in one crop a third of the year then maybe second part of the year maybe come back, maybe third, no, second part or the third part in one year's time. But Colorado you can't. If you have a bad year, well then that's bad for that year. That's why I want to come back to my West Coast, Pacific Coast, Pacific shoreline, Pacific Ocean.

MN: And you, and you can only plant one crop in Colorado because the growing season is so short?

TY: Short.

MN: And the ground freezes over?

TY: Yeah, one crop. Just one.

<Begin Segment 34>

MN: Now, for people like yourself, Tak, who did not go to camp, were you eligible for redress during, after Ronald Reagan signed the 1988 reparation bill?

TY: Yes.

MN: What did you think about that?

TY: Well, I thought we deserved something because they uprooted the American citizens, so I figured the government owed us something at that time. And then I wasn't really worried about it, but I'm sure they would've came through with something. And then, and then I thought it was a good thing that we Japanese people fought for our rights, and we shouldn't have really had to fight for our rights, but we did and we got it, which was a plus. And I was happy with twenty thousand, but I kind of think that wasn't enough, but I guess at that time it was okay. I would say that I wasn't really happy about it, but it was okay.

MN: Now, in retrospect, would it have been easier for your family to have gone into camp?

TY: Well, I don't, I can't really say that. I think they, it was better that we went outside.

MN: Why is that so?

TY: We had freedom, and then we didn't... well, the biggest, biggest thing was we had freedom, okay, and we could do anything we want and we weren't cooped up, you see, and we could go anywhere we want. If we want to go a hundred miles today we can get on the car and go a hundred miles, see? And I thought that was a plus, 'cause then they couldn't done that to a hundred twenty thousand people, you see? And so it was tough on us, but it was tougher on the people that went into camp, is the way I look at it, because they were cooped up, right? And so only thing they could do was talk to people, good or bad. And we had the freedom to talk to anybody, go see anything, entertainment and see the mountain, the springs, river, going fishing, whatever else. And I kind of thought that was, it was good, but it, everybody can't, couldn't do that.

MN: How do you feel about how history is being written? Seems like a lot of the museums or a lot of books focus on camp. Do you feel, as one of the people who did not go into camp, do you feel like your story is neglected?

TY: Well, I think some, something, I always used to think that something should be written about people like us, and then when I go to a museum I look for books, but I don't see any. So I used to, I used to think that I wish I could write a book, but I never did study poli science or whatever in high school and I don't know the first thing about it. Then I started many times, but I said, no, I don't think I could write a book. But I wanted to, before I die, you know? But I'm glad you're doing this. I am, I really am.

<Begin Segment 35>

MN: Let me ask a little bit about how you met your wife, Molly. How did you meet her?

TY: Boy, I turned a lot of stones. I couldn't find the right worm under the stone. So I was, I hate telling my story, but anyway, I was a flirt. That's why all the girls used to say "you tell that to all the girls," which I did. [Laughs] And so how I met my girl, well, to make a long story short, I was her sister's neighbor, and her sister was married to another farmer that I got to know good. And so then in La Puente there was no activities or no dancing or no roller skating or no social activities, so we used to play, since we're there we used to go every, once a week to play poker all night long, and then her sister that's married to this friend of mine used to bring Molly over there once a week or twice a week or something, and then that's how I met her.

MN: But what year did you two marry?

TY: Let's see, what, what, I guess I met her in about '46, yeah, '46.

MN: So this is shortly after the war. You're trying to get back on your feet economically; how did you finance your wedding?

TY: You know, I was lucky that my father, my father took out a life insurance for me, ten dollars a month, which I could pay. And so I paid ten dollars a month for about, I forgot how old I was, I think he started me off when I was eighteen, sixteen or seventeen, he started this policy for me. And then he told me that, "Someday you're gonna need this money when you get married or when you want a new car or whatever," so he said keep on paying it, so then good thing I had this insurance. That's what financed my wedding. In those days weddings were high priced, but it was cheap to, compared to now. So that's how I financed it. Sorry I didn't have a nice car to take her to my honeymoon, but I borrowed my brother's car and went to the honeymoon. [Laughs]

MN: Where did you go to honeymoon at?

TY: Went up north to see her friends, went to, my highlight of the honeymoon was Pebble Beach. Went to Pebble Beach area, nice place, Santa Cruz, Yosemite, San Francisco, Tioga up north, Watsonville, Monterey, and came home and started a life, in a shack. Shack, shack, rats running around all night long. [Laughs] So that's how we got our start, Martha.

<Begin Segment 36>

MN: Any other parting thoughts you want to share with us?

TY: Pardon?

MN: Any other parting thoughts you want to share with us?

TY: Parting thoughts? Well, I could think up a lot of things, but I forget.

MN: You're quite an accomplished painter also. You have a lot of your paintings in your house.

TY: Yes, well, I, after I retired, no, prior to retiring, I thought I had to do something because I didn't know too much of anything. And then I knew a friend for the longest time, and then he says, "Hey, Tak, have you ever been golfing?" I said, "No, what is golfing?" So he said, "Come on, come with me. I'll show you how to golf." So then I started golfing for my retirement when I was fifty-three or four, and then I started golfing, and at that one time I got pretty good. I came down to a sixteen handicap and that was my best, and then I achieved a lot of trophies, and then I enjoyed my golfing. I'm still enjoying it. And then I decided, well, what am I gonna do nighttime, not just look at the dumb TV all night long, so I decided, well, for my retirement, my spare time, I'm gonna take art. So then I thought, well, I want to learn the sumi-e, charcoal painting, Japanese type, and so I entered the class to take sumi-e twice a week, class, so I went to learn sumi-e art for twenty years. And then I decided that, well, I think I'm good enough because I got a certificate of accomplishment, and so I started painting on my own, which I learned all about brush painting, color, texture, paper and all that, so I decided to go on my own, so that's what, I'm enjoying my artwork. And I am happy that I can win a prize once in a while. I'm happy and all my kids are doing well and the grandkids are doing well and great-grandkids are doing well, so anyway, I think I fulfilled my life and I'm happy that I'm not disabled at this age. I had three brothers, let's see, one, two, three passed away already, and I'm the niisan and I'm still, fortunately, upright and alive. And I have a nice wife that takes good care of me, cooks me good food. And I'm so happy and enjoying my life. Thanks for interviewing me. I certainly appreciate meeting you and I'm sure you covered everything that needs to be covered, although I might have forgotten certain things, but it's okay. But if you have any more questions just give me a buzz and I'll do the best I can.

MN: Well, we'll have that included in your memoirs when you finish your book.

TY: Finish my book, huh? Okay, thank you. And... no, that's okay, I will write it down.

MN: What are you thinking?

TY: I'm thinking, did I skip anything? That's what I'm --

MN: Did you skip anything?

TY: I might have. Let's see, I don't want to tell you my bad experience in life.

MN: Why? Those are the interesting stuff.

TY: Would you like to listen to it?

MN: Yeah.

TY: Well, I hate to say this, but I filed bankrupt one time.

MN: Oh, okay.

TY: And I had to do that, because of the situation.

MN: This is after the war?

TY: After the war. Yeah, after the war. Then I bought, fortunately I was lucky enough to buy properties and rentals and half a section and also file bankruptcy, and got back on my feet and able to keep going and do some investment, and my wife and I are still here and we're happy.

MN: Yeah, you retired early.

TY: Pardon?

MN: You retired early.

TY: Yeah, I retired too early. I retired when I was sixty-five, due to my back problem after I got in a broadside accident. I couldn't get out of bed anymore, so I decided something, something's telling me something, so then I thought I better retire and get my back fixed. And I got my back fixed, and then I didn't know what to do with myself but to play golf and take care of my yard.

MN: And do some painting.

TY: Yeah. And my painting, yeah. And so now we got little Chibi so I got to take care of little Chibi. I don't think we'll outlive Chibi, but...

MN: Your dog, Chibi.

TY: Yeah. [Laughs] So anyway, my grandsons are all doin' good, my granddaughters are doin' good, and so there's nothing more I can ask for.