<Begin Segment 18>

MN: What was your impression, first impression of Poston Camp I?

MT: There's nothing there. It was wide open, and when we went into the barracks that they told you was going to be your home, there's gaps in between the wood, the floor has gaps, and when the wind blew, all the dust came in, so it was terrible. We just didn't like the place.

MN: And then you mentioned that you had to put in the hay in the bag?

MT: Yeah, straw, uh-huh, into the bag. That was going to be your bed, mattress, actually.

MN: Do you remember what your address was in Poston?

MT: That was... let's see. It was in 5-C, I think it was. No, 5-B, it had to be 5-B.

MN: Which block was this?

MT: Block 59.

MN: Were all the Imperial Valley people in Block 59?

MT: Not all, no. There were so many people, Block 59, 60, 53 and 54, and quite a bit of 'em went over to Block 39, that was further away.

MN: At Poston, what was your first job?

MT: Oh, my first job? Oh, I had a good one. We delivered milk. The milk was coming from Los Angeles, they come in and so they gave us a truck that we can keep twenty-four hours, because we never knew when the milk was going to come in. So they said, "You can keep it," but don't ride around with it. That's what they told us, but we didn't listen. We hear of a good movie at the other end of the camp and jump in the truck and go.

MN: But when you got into camp, you didn't know how to drive.

MT: I didn't know how to drive, but I learned. The first truck that I drove is a one and a half ton truck. My father wouldn't teach me to drive at home because he said, "Oh, your brother's already got a license. He's going to drive you anywhere you need to go if you have to in an emergency. So he got a license, but they wouldn't teach me. So I went into camp, and riding on the truck, and just unloading the milk, and I said, "Come on, you guys, let me learn to drive." I said, "I know how to shift gears," 'cause I was watching my brother shift gears. Everything in those days was gearshift. Then they finally told me, "Okay, you're bugging me too much," 'cause we had a Camp I, II and II, and we had to deliver all three of 'em. So they finally says, okay, there's a wide open place in between camps, there's space there, so he says, "Okay, we'll let you do it," jerk, jerk, jerk, and learned to drive. But I got to learn how to drive a truck real good.

MN: So as a person delivering milk, what were some of the perks that you got?

MT: Oh, when we were going around, all the kitchens didn't get the same food because that's hard to do. So we'd be going around, "Boy this place smells good." Our place was the only one that had frankfurters and wieners, those kind of things. I said, "We don't want to go back there." So we tell the cook, "Boy, your place smells good." He says, "Well, come on, if you're hungry, come on in." Two or three guys, that was nothing. "We can feed you." So they used to feed us. So we'd give 'em all the extra milk. Well, we controlled who gets how much.

[Interruption]

MN: So you tell 'em, "Boy, your place smells good." Did they give you extra food?

MT: Yeah. They feed us, make our delivery, there's always some milk you got leftover. They say so much is supposed to be given out for so many kids. But when the truck comes, we don't know how much is on there because they load up the whole truck, full truck. And so we're the ones that said, "Well, they got this much milk," so we delivered what they told us. We got this much left, we'd go back to the kitchen that fed us good, and, "Hey, we got this leftover, here you are. Two case, three case, here, take it." And we used to give it to 'em. Well, he was nice enough to feed us. [Laughs]

MN: Now, why did you choose this job?

MT: What?

MN: Why did you choose this job?

MT: Well, that was the only job that was around at that time. And they said they're going to pay us twelve bucks a month, and we wanted money 'cause we didn't have any money in the camp. So any job that came around, and that was one of the first ones, so we took it. And our block got it.

MN: So now from delivering milk, what job did you transfer to?

MT: Well, I went to the warehouse because I heard that in the warehouse they got all kind of food, different kind of food you need to have. And when we got on there and we get hungry, you get bologna, you get two slice, and once slice of bread, and then we eat it. It's not two slice of bread and one slice of bologna, because we cut the bologna ourselves because it's there. So we'd eat bread sandwich, not a bologna sandwich. [Laughs]

<End Segment 18> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.