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TI: So you talked about earlier going to school. Tell me a little bit about school. What was your school like?

LP: School, Mt. Pleasant school started in Halls Valley, and they moved it down to Clayton Road, and they moved it again farther down Clayton Road, and then it burnt down, and then they built... which is the Moose Lodge today, in 1915, and that's where I started school. And it's still there. That's a big redwood building, and as strong as can be, it's still there. But Mt. Pleasant school now is over, I don't know, it's over near White Road and Clayton somewhere down there. So that's how many times Mt. Pleasant school has moved. They moved the building back in those days. That's pretty complicated.

TI: Well, when you think about the school, this is like about 1928, 1929, how many students were in each class? How many, like, classmates did you have?

LP: You know what, I'm not sure, because it varied. When I graduated, there was probably only about ten of us. But when I was in the first grade, there was more. There was probably twenty. That was probably average, average kids in the school.

TI: Now I'm curious, have you stayed in touch with any of your old classmates from elementary school?

LP: Yeah, we have a school reunion every year up at the drying shed on... where was that? So some of 'em still come there, the ones that can. It keeps getting less each year. A lot of 'em aren't making it.

TI: Now when you get together for these reunions, is there like a story or person that you guys talk about as a memory back in school?

LP: They probably do, I don't know. I don't know what they really talk about, they talk about everything, I guess, about what's going on around them and what happened last year and that kind of stuff.

TI: Because it's amazing, some of these people you've known for, like, eighty-five years.

LP: Well, I've known them since they were, like, six years old. And I still know some of 'em. In fact, I have, there's a couple of women that live, Betty Harris and Sarah Myers, both live on Clayton Road and they're both up there. I don't know, there's several. When I go there I see 'em, but I don't see 'em all the time. Maybe, a lot of 'em I only see at that reunion.

TI: I think it's just so, I guess so cool that you've known people for so long. I think in America we're such a transient society and people move around, and here you've had such deep roots in one place for so long and friends for so long.

LP: That's true. I read somewhere that the average family moves every seven years.

TI: So your experience is, in some ways, not --

LP: I'm still living on the same property that I was born on. In other words, I had built the home at the end of this ranch.

TI: Yeah, so that's not a common...

LP: No, it's not, not anymore. Probably used to be years back.

TI: So tell me a little bit about what your family did for a living. How did they make money?

LP: My dad raised apricots, prunes, he raised cattle, and he grew hay for dairies, primarily what he did for a living.

TI: Wow, so it sounds like a lot of property. How much acreage...

LP: Well, he didn't own a lot of property. He owned that ranch we're on, but he leased a lot of property. Back in those days, there was a lot of acreage out there that he could grow cattle on, and he raised a lot of hay that he sold to the dairies.

TI: And when he leased it, who would he lease it from?

LP: I can't tell you.

TI: Okay, so just some --

LP: I was just a kid.

TI: Okay, good. You know, I'm curious, as you're growing up, did you have any Japanese American friends?

LP: Yes. We had quite a few of 'em at Mt. Pleasant school. I can't remember all the names, the Yoshiokas, there was a family that lived on White Road. Mike and Roy Muratsumi, they had a shop here up in this area somewhere, but they grew up on, up in the White Road area and they used to farm, the family farmed vegetables, and so did the Yoshiokas. There was probably more of 'em, too, but I can't remember. Those are the ones that were in my classes that I was with.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.