<Begin Segment 6>

MN: Now were you the only one in your neighborhood, when you started to go to Maryknoll, were you the only one going to Maryknoll?

BS: No, the other person, my other playmate had the hotel, so we both went to Maryknoll.

MN: What was the ethnic makeup of Maryknoll at that time?

BS: At that time, I would guess there was maybe five hundred students from kindergarten to ninth grade, and ninety-nine percent was Japanese Americans. I know there was one Filipino and one Chinese that I can recall.

MN: So what were the nuns and priests like at Maryknoll? Were they strict?

BS: They were very strict. But they sure taught us how to be polite and courteous to the adults, especially the sisters and the fathers and the brothers there.

MN: So what would happen to a student if they went out of line?

BS: Well, we got slapped on our wrist with a ruler.

MN: Did you ever get hit on the wrist?

BS: I would assume so, but I don't have any scars here. [Laughs]

MN: I assume you brought lunch to Maryknoll. What kind of food did you bring for lunch?

BS: I really don't recall that. But I assume the standard sandwich and maybe once in a while a nigiri or musubi.

MN: I was gonna say, you're going to school with a lot of Japanese kids and Japanese Americans, did you swap lunches with the onigiri and sandwiches at all?

BS: I don't really recall that. But you know, since we had the grocery store, always had lots of lunchmeat or something just to slap into it. But then I recall that sometimes, my brother and myself, we used to make our own hamburger sandwich or even our own tacos. So I learned that when I was real young.

MN: Soft tacos, I assume?

BS: No, deep fried.

MN: What about Japanese language school? Where did you study Japanese?

BS: I really didn't study it. At Maryknoll we had a Japanese class, I believe that was just on Fridays for one hour. And my parents really wanted me to learn English, so she wasn't concerned about my Japanese studying. So I used to do lots of my English homework in my Japanese class, so I know I didn't get too many good grades in Japanese.

MN: So when you were attending Maryknoll, what kind of games did you play there?

BS: Oh, the common games of Tag and Hide and Go Seek and maybe a little bit baseball. But then we had a dirt playground, so we used to play marbles and then a pocket knife games. We used to call it Cut the Pie, so we make a big circle, then with a knife, if it sticks, then we get to draw a line and we choose that half is ours and the other half the other person's. So you're trying to always cut into the other person's so-called land or territory with the knife. So we played that knife game and we never thought it was dangerous. I don't think the sisters or anybody stopped us from playing that.

MN: So other than your neighborhood of Main Street and then Maryknoll dirt yard, where else did you play at? Did you play city hall area?

BS: Yeah, we were just a block and a half away from city hall, and the city hall had a huge grass area and it's on a slope. So we used to go down there and roll down the hill, slope side, or along the edges of the grass, they had maybe a, for lack of a better term, a marble ridge. So we used to go on our homemade coasters and go along that until the security stopped us. So that was the extent of our playground. And sometimes we had sidewalk bicycles, so we used to go along the city hall in our bicycles.

MN: What's a homemade coaster?

BS: Homemade coaster? Oh, regular skates, we used to open the skates up and get a plank of wood maybe twenty inches by six inches and put it underneath that plank, then we'll get a lug box, a box that the vegetables come in, and put it on top and started steering and put a handle on it, and that was our homemade coaster or scooter like vehicle. We had to improvise a lot in those days.

MN: Now you lived on Main Street, and then a few blocks away is Hill Street. What was Hill Street like before the war?

BS: Oh. That was just, the Hill Street was actually on the tunnel underneath the hillside, so that hillside was another place of our playground because it was just all dirt. So we used to take cardboard and climb up to the top of Hill Street and then slide down on the dirt. So we had our own homemade sled or toboggan. So that was another adventure there. But again, no commercial things, just homemade things like the cardboard boxes.

MN: It's all developed now.

BS: Yes. Now even the tunnel's gone, so the hill is gone.

MN: What other creating games did you play that you can remember?

BS: Okay. The milk bottles had a cap on it, so we used to play those and collect them, and we threw it on the ground and if it's on the opponent's cover, then we get to keep it. So that's how we played that. Also, a cup of ice cream, cup of ice cream had celebrities on there, usually movie stars. So we started collecting pictures of the movie stars, and also we exchanged or sometimes played this, for lack of a better term, Slapping the Cover on the Sidewalk, and if it lands on an opponent's one, you get to keep it. So I guess those are some of the games we used to play.

MN: So in a lot of ways, you didn't have, like, store-bought toys. It seems like you made up these games.

BS: Maybe we had the game of checkers, but that's about it. And dominoes, dominoes and checkers, that was about the only games we had.

MN: Now going back to Maryknoll, you shared about sometimes you purposely missed the Maryknoll bus going home. Why did you do that?

BS: [Coughs] Excuse me.

MN: Do you need a break?

BS: No. Sometime we had the desire to get what we called jinjimo. It's a pickled fruit, and we used to stop by at the Far East restaurant there and they used to sell it there, and we used to buy that, I forgot, it was two for a nickel or three for a nickel, just a special treat. And then also at the corner drug store, we used to buy a vial of concentrated cinnamon. So with that little vial of cinnamon, we used to get toothpick and soak it with that cinnamon oil, and then let it dry out a little bit and then we could carry it around and suck on it whenever we wanted, so we had cinnamon stick. And then another thing, there was a corner drug store right there on First and San Pedro Street, so that was sort of like our reading room. So us kids used to go there and read, then when too many children came there, they asked us to leave because it was the comic book section of the drug store, and we used to all look at the comic books there. Oh, speaking of comic books, also on the way home, there used to be a so-called Goodwill store, a secondhand store. So we used to go in there and get our comic book, I think get two or three for a dime. So it was a used one, but still, it was cheaper than paying ten cents for a new one, so we used to get two or three instead.

MN: Do you have a favorite comic book?

BS: It seemed like it was Captain Marvel or Superman.

MN: Now, let's see. You're going to Maryknoll five days a week, then you helped out on deliveries, probably on Saturdays? What did you do on Sundays?

BS: Let's see. I'm not sure. I don't think we went to church then, even though we went to a Catholic school. We were never Baptized, I know, but I don't believe we went to church. So, again, we just had to play around the store, or sometimes we'd get to go downtown Broadway and watch a movie. So my older brother and my other Japanese friend, the three of us used to go to downtown Broadway.

MN: Where did you get the money to go to the movies?

BS: I guess we got regular allowances. Because even to get the comic book or the jinjimo, so we must have had allowances.

MN: Did your parents enroll you in any musical instrument classes?

BS: Yes. I remember we started the violin class, I know we didn't keep it up. That wasn't for me. [Laughs]

MN: Now, as a student of Maryknoll, the bus must have driven through Little Tokyo. But how often did you go to Little Tokyo with your parents?

BS: It's very seldom. I would think once a month at the most, probably once in two months or three months. So I wasn't really familiar with Little Tokyo other than when I used to walk home. And then I know we used to go to the Japanese movie, Fujikan there, and I remember that. I didn't understand the movie, but lots of times it's samurai movie, so sword fighting, things like that. But I always remember that was sort of a mushy atmosphere. Always seemed like it was warm and musty in there. The Fujikan Theater there on First Street.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.