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TI: And so you're born in San Jose. Do you have some, like, prewar memories of San Jose, growing up in San Jose as, like, five, six, seven years old, do you remember?

PF: No. I remember around seven, eight years old, my father was a farmer, and I liked to help him gopher trap or irrigate and take care of the horse. So my father didn't like that. I was too tomboy.

TI: Oh, because you liked doing that.

PF: Yeah, I liked to do it, take care of the horse, you know, and then I ride 'em from the back and front, he don't kick, nothing, and I feed him water and hay. Eight, nine years old I was. Take care of the horse, you know, and then my uncle was a mechanic and I helped him. Tell me to go get the hammer, wrench, and my father said, "No, no, no, you can't do that."

TI: Now was that the same thing like your older sister and older brother did?

PF: No, my older sister, she'd just hear a radio and crocheted and all that. I never played with her, my sister. But I played with my brother, two brothers in between, we played baseball, football and shoot pool and all that stuff I did. But I never played with my sister; I don't remember.

TI: Because she was more inside...

PF: Yeah, she'd hear radio and crocheted. She liked sewing; I don't like that. And I liked to help my father irrigate, and that time, the water, you have to tell him it's okay when it goes to the end, and then put the dirt there and cover the plot. You had to help.

TI: So I think your father maybe liked that. Didn't he like the extra help?

PF: No, no, he liked me to do it, but he don't want me to do that. He wanted me to be like lady. And I said, "I don't like lady things," you know, kitchen and sewing and all that. I'd rather wear a hole stocking than patch it. No, no, he said, "No, you have to be sewing and this and that." Then they decided to send me to Japan.

TI: Well, before you go to Japan, there are some things you mentioned I want to learn more about. You said you did gopher trapping?

PF: Yeah, yeah.

TI: So explain that. How do you trap gophers?

PF: You got this thing there like it goes and then the gopher get in, and catch 'em. And my sister don't like those kind of things, no. I liked to help my father do all that. No, he said, uh-huh. And then we'd get on the tractor, sled, we'd ride on the sled. No, those stuff my father didn't want me to do. He wanted me to help the kitchen and wash dishes and set the table. No, no, I didn't want to do that.

TI: With your brothers, what were some things you did outside of the home? Did you ever go out and maybe go swimming?

PF: In a ranch, they had a little ditch, irrigate, so we'd just get in there, but I didn't know how to swim, no. We'd just play. And then, yeah, I helped my brother do all that. And we'd play baseball and football, and then we'd make a swing out of rope and put a tire there and make a swing, and then our place was like this, driveway, so we'd get on a sled and slide down like that. Oh, about one house, two house, we'd go in the garage. But nobody didn't get hurt. And then we had a barn...

TI: So the sled was so fast it would go right into the barn?

PF: Yeah, barn, like that, because it goes like that and it's around one house, driveway. And the Bayshore came 1937, Bayshore, yeah. That was the street there, and we were living there.

TI: And so the sled had wheels?

PF: No, no, just wood. We had wood.

TI: Wow, that would be fast.

PF: Yeah. We didn't have those kind of fancy things. So wood, slide, and we'd hold on. And then sometimes we'd do with a tire, get inside tire and they roll us down and then go. But nobody didn't get hurt.

TI: Oh, so actually you'd get inside the tire?

PF: Tire, yeah.

TI: And you would go around and around?

PF: Hold the tire then...

TI: Then you'd get really dizzy?

PF: No, no, didn't get dizzy, no. And then nobody didn't get hurt, my brother and we used to do all that, yeah. And then play, and then we didn't buy no toys. My father buy wagon and bicycle, so the three of us get on the bicycle and we go friend's place.

TI: So it sounds like you and your brother were really close.

PF: Yeah, yeah. Three of us, we were all close. But my sister, I don't remember I played with her.

TI: How about your mother? Did you do much with your mother?

PF: Oh, my mother, we had raspberries, so she always packed the raspberry, so we have to help her pick raspberry. That time, buckets were only ten cents, yeah.

TI: So all day you'd get one big bucket, ten cents?

PF: No, the bucket's small like this, yeah. And then we do that, pick that, and then basket was paper, so we'd have to put in the crates, we'd help all that. So we were farmer, but we always had to work.

TI: How about outside the family? Did you have, like, playmates that you...

PF: No, no, we had to go places. They live all far, because we had forty-eight acres. So we had to go friends' places, kind of far. But we'd go with the bicycle, and I'd go, my brother, three of us ride the one bike and we'd go.

TI: And in terms of crops, what kind of crops did you have?

PF: We had pepper, cauliflower, cucumber, five kind of berries.

TI: Strawberries, raspberries...

PF: Loganberry, then little bit bigger than raspberries, there was one, yeah, like that. Yeah, there was five, yeah.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.