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TI: So let's talk a little bit more about you, so in your family, when the family wasn't farming, what kind of fun activities would the family do? You mentioned earlier things like every year a couple weeks you would, your dad would take you someplace.
ES: Oh, that was during, when we were growing up.
TI: Yeah, talk about that.
ES: Well, I can hardly remember a time when my father didn't have a boat. He loved sport fishing. He loved sports games, baseball, and of course we didn't have too much in football or basketball or anything like that, but there was a lot of baseball among Japanese. And my three brothers always liked to play and so, and Hood River had Japanese, so did Gresham, Troutdale, and let's see, I think there was a group from Kent Valley, Kent and...
TI: And so they would play against each other?
ES: Yes. We'd have a team.
TI: Well Kent would be pretty far, but I could see the Portland --
ES: Yeah, but we went. My dad always drove and we all went as a family, and my mother would fix Japanese picnic food that we loved, and so we'd, maybe it'd take us a half a day just to drive from Brooks to Seattle so we'd stop at a park and have lunch.
TI: And the whole team would go up, so it would be like a caravan of cars?
ES: No, this was just my family.
TI: Okay, so not like a team thing.
ES: No, but the team would be going there, but they would all go separately and then meet at the same place.
TI: I see. So you were there to go root the team on, to be the fans for the team.
ES: And so that kind of sport we always did do. Then, of course, my dad loved fishing and so we'd go fishing just, at least once a week or twice a week, maybe three times, lake fishing, river fishing, and he'd always have a boat. Seemed like --
TI: Now would you go with him, or was it more the boys?
ES: With the whole family. But he always made time for us to enjoy that kind of life.
TI: How about things like, I'm not sure if they're down there because there's, I can't think of any mountains, but matsutake during the fall?
ES: Oh yes, we loved that.
TI: You would do that.
ES: Oh yes.
TI: Where would you go down in Oregon?
ES: We'd go up to Mount Hood, and then of course we'd go down to Netarts, Tillamook area, and then Newport. Well, later, after we were married, my parents, well, my one brother bought a home out in Newport, Oregon, and there was nice places where matsutake would grow right out in people's yards, and my dad, he's so smart, he'd take vegetables to all these people that had the farm, had the homes. And I don't know what kind of work they were in, but several were Indians, and he'd ask 'em, "Can we go in your farm? Because we want to look for mushrooms." And so they say yes, so they let him in and then here's my dad with all these vegetables in the pickup truck, he gives it to 'em and they're just delighted with that and so they just thought that was the greatest thing that could ever happen, somebody bringing them food.
TI: Food, and all they're doing is walking out there and picking mushrooms that they didn't care about.
ES: Yeah, that's right. It was, yeah, so they must've done that for ten years at least. But it was fun, and we were always invited to go, my husband and my children.
TI: Okay, good.
<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.