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MN: Now, you were talking about how you had to do some chores in the morning before you went to school?
MT: Oh, yes.
MN: What kind of chores did you have to do?
MT: I'd have to clean the house, sweep the house, fix the bed, because my mother, you know, she'd have to work from morning to night. So we'd do the, all the washing of the dishes and everything.
[Interruption]
MN: So the chores, you had to do the bed and sweep up?
MT: Well, you got to wash the rice and that, too, 'cause wash it and cook it is not that good, huh? And you like to let it soak, so we used to wash the rice and then have it ready for the night. Then my mother had to come home in the evening and make the okazu. Like I say, my mother had to work really hard.
MN: So what did you have for breakfast?
MT: Rice and tsukemono. I think we had a chicken, but we didn't eat too much eggs at that time. If you need meat, you used to kill the chicken, and I had to chop the head off because my brother was too kindhearted... well, I should say too timid. He couldn't do that. So I said, "Okay, I'll cut the head off, but you got to pluck it," 'cause I don't like the smell. So he agreed to that. So he always plucked it and I did all the chopping. Take it out there, lay the chicken down, whack, and it's finished. My work is finished in about two minutes, and he had to pluck all the feathers.
MN: So when you came home from school, what did you have to do as your chores?
TM: Well, we got to get the water for the bath, so we'd chop wood. Because that's the way we used to heat up the bath. My father always had a galvanized bathtub, like in Japan. It'd be about four feet by five foot and about, oh, gee, three or four feet deep. But we had to fill that water because there was no pumps or anything like that. We'd have to use a bucket and fill it. And so he had it so that he put a washtub and had a pipe that goes into the bathtub, so that when you fill the tub up, then it'll go into the bathtub and then you got to go out and check and make sure you got enough water. But you know, after so many bucketful, your water should be real close. Then we had a little, go out there and get the fire going and have the bath ready for the parents when they come home. Anything else that had to be done... then my mother wanted vegetable peeled or anything like that, we did all that. We tried to help as much as we could. My mother's job was too hard. She always had to work hard. That's why I don't like farming. [Laughs]
MN: What about the rice?
TM: The rice, too. We used to light the fire for, it was a kerosene stove, but we'd cook it. Sometimes... I know one time I forgot, and boy, did it burn the pot. Then I was cleaning the pot when my mother came home. She said, "How you forgot?" I had another pot going, but then now, you just washed it and you're cooking it right away, so it doesn't cook as good. But can't help it; I burnt it.
MN: And you cooked this on a kerosene stove?
TM: Kerosene stove, yes. Even your lamp for your light. We didn't have electricity until 1939, and we didn't have a telephone until 1942. You know how kind of country we were living in.
MN: But you had a gasoline lamp, right?
TM: Yeah, they had a gasoline lamp, but then it's kind of like a, they used to burn like a Bull Durham bag, and you tie it up there and you burn it, and it makes a white crystal there. And when you burn the gas, it gives out a white light like these light that we have now, and that was our thing. So you had to be very careful you don't shake that lamp or that thing will break right away because it's only... what would you call it? It's very fragile. It's sort of hard to explain. But it will break very easy if you just hit it one time, that was it. So when you're moving that thing around, you pick it up very gently and move it to where you want, but you don't move it too much because that's when you break it. But the kerosene lamp, it don't matter, 'cause they only gave out an orange light anyway.
<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.