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TL: Well if we went really far back, what would you say some of your earliest memories of growing up with the Yamada family, like the house that you lived in or what the farm looked like?

YB: I think the farm days were the happiest... what would I say, none caring, no worrying... out in the open. Chickens, and ducks, and geese, and goats and horses. I had a... the colt was mine. The horse that we received as gift from our family doctor -- and in those days that's all they had was horse and buggy -- and everytime they had a Japanese patient, either Uncle or Dad had to go with the doctor, 'cause nobody understood English. And I was still a baby. But they would go away. And when the first Ford came out, of course, Dr. Brown was the first one to buy it in Santa Maria. And he had his first Ford and so, he turned around and gave us the horse and buggy. And that horse was a trotter, she would travel so fast. Get you someplace in no time. And then, she eventually gave birth to a little black colt, and her name was Cloud, Cloudy because she was swift as a cloud. I thought I'd go one better and call my little horse (the colt) Sky. It was coal black with one little white star, but I called him Sky. And from the day that he was born I'd play around with him, so I could get in between his front legs, underneath, any place. Never bothered him. And even hitched him to cart and trained him to pull a cart, and ride horseback on him. And I did it all myself because he trusts me. Those were the good days, that we'd go horse, back to school, either horse and buggy to school or bicycle.

TL: Uh-huh.

YB: And the trouble is, every time I go with my little tiny bicycle, this big friend of mine would say, "Can I try your bike?" Leave the big one behind and I'd have to stand in the middle of the air to pump to meet her wherever she's got mine. [Laughs] But, those were the wonderful grammar school days that we had. And before that, little Raymond, Ramon Goodchild, who was Spanish, their grandmother owned a beautiful hacienda and a farm, and a group of Palomino horses. Beautiful. She was very wealthy. And on the way home we'd stop and have a snack, and she'd have something ready for us. Spoke no English, rattled away in Spanish. That's how I learned Spanish. I said, "Ramon what's Grandma saying?" [Laughs] I wouldn't understand. So, I learned to speak Spanish and English first before I spoke Japanese.

But we had, I had my own horse. And then billy goats, they chase you but they never horn you. They take the forehead and push you when they get mad at you. But it's funny, once they're your pets they seem to be very gentle. But they chase you -- you'd better run because they're really going to boost you. But they never use their horn. And we'd have chickens that we'd hatch out of the incubator, geese, ducks, turkeys. So we used to have, and out of that we had a blind, one eye blind hen and a duck that I had taken care of because it couldn't waddle, and a geese, or a goose. We'd go for a walk, they're so closely attached to you, the dog, the cat, the duck and the goose would follow us down the street. I never did take pictures of them. But that was something to see. One would quack and the other would, geese, sort of, make a sound. And the little chicken would run along.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.