<Begin Segment 17>

TL: So was this uncle living... in the household?

YB: With us, (yes).

TL: And were there other members of the family living?

YB: No, that was all that was living in the house.

TL: So he helped out with the, with your father's farming activities?

YB: Yeah, and then we had adjoining cottages that they could live in, or they lived in their own homes around the neighborhood.

TL: How many acres were in farming?

YB: Goodness, as a child I can't remember. I knew we were near a riverbed that I knew that we had to watch... overflow the river. And then the mesa, up the hill, up on the, across the riverbed where the spring poppies would bloom out, California poppies with just fields of orange. Was just beautiful. And I can look back to the days they would shoot jackrabbits, when I think of it, I feel so badly for them but that's what they would shoot and kill, and eat.

TL: So were the fields that you were farming, were they near the house or were they actually removed and you had to ride out to them.

YB: Well, if there is an orchard it would be beyond that, so that we would drive out to them. We had a little Model T Ford which I tried to drive one day, was going down the country road, they said the car's moving all by itself because they couldn't see my head. So Uncle ran up to it because it was going very slow. He saw me inside, finally got in there and put the brakes on.

TL: Well how old were you when you decided to drive that --

YB: I was only eight or nine.

TL: Ah [Laughs]

YB: It looked so easy... two peddles, no three, reverse and the one that you, the clutch and then the brake. But if you stepped (on) the brake, (and) the clutch too far, it would start going so you had to step on it a certain way. And that's what I wanted to try myself, and I couldn't stop it.

TL: But women generally, like the older women, your mother didn't drive did she?

YB: She tried to and she ran into something, so she quit. [Laughs] She said, "No more, I don't want to drive." So I learned to drive after my uncle (taught me) to drive. I could hardly reach the clutches but I learned to drive. And drove the Ford and the big Studebaker.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.