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BT: Then come September of 1942, we were told that we would be moving to Topaz, Utah, which is far away. We never went outside of California, so it was hard to know where it is, but we had to board trains. And I remember when we got on the train, this was exciting because we never rode on trains. So I noticed that when we got on the train there was one military police assigned to each car, and all the shades were drawn so that we couldn't look out. And so I knew that the train that we were going to be on would be going to Utah would go past San Mateo and onwards to Utah. So I was bold enough to go to the MP and say, ask him if I could open up the shade when we passed San Mateo so that I could say goodbye to my hometown. And I remember he said, "No." And then I remember he was looking at me very carefully when the train started to move to make sure that I didn't open the shade and peek. So... but I fooled him because I knew that when we passed the railroad crossings, the rails would come down, ding, ding, ding, and then go up when we passed, but it would come down, ding, ding, ding. So I would count those ding, ding, dings from San Bruno to Millbrae to Broadway, Burlingame to Burlingame, and then San Mateo had about three of these railroad crossings. So I figured that we must be passing San Mateo, so I gave my own private farewell to San Mateo, not knowing when or if we would ever come back, because naturally this was part of the war effort and we didn't know what was going to happen anyway. So I remember that vividly, that even talking about it sometimes I feel something inside. Because it was a sad part of our journey, because we were leaving our hometown and leaving California, that we were used to, and then not being able to come back or whenever we're going to come back. So it was a funny, eerie feeling that I remember passing by San Mateo.

The next day, on the train ride from there on was no trouble. We went to the dining room and so on, and had our meals and so on. But then the next morning, this same MP said, "Okay, you can open the shades." So we opened the shades, and then all of a sudden there was nothing there. I guess we were either in the eastern part of Nevada where it was a desert, or into Salt Lake, Utah, where again, that was desert. So there was nothing to see, no buildings or anything, so it was really disappointing as far as I was concerned. And then by mid-afternoon, then we ended up stopped at the central part of Utah where the city of Delta was located. And to this day, Delta is still existing, and in fact, it's a very friendly town now. But in those days, we just got off the train and boarded the trucks, and from there, we were taken on to the central part of Utah to a place called Topaz, Utah. And naturally, no one lived there before we did, and thousands of years ago, when the earth was forming, that whole area was covered with water, almost like an ocean in itself. So the soil was like fine sand, fine just like cement, and so if you got off and stepped on it, it would just puff up. And we found out later that there was a lot of windstorms, so I remember wearing handkerchiefs around our mouth and nose so that we won't breathe that fine sand. So that was the new experience that we had to get used to. The barracks that we got again because of our family, we got two rooms so that was okay. But they had sheet rocks instead of thin plywood, and then they would eventually put the ceiling on top so we were able to, the privacy factor was a lot better than Tanforan.

In fact, in Tanforan, as I said, when we first found the room, we were given canvas bags and told to go to a certain place to get, to stuff those canvas bags with hay and then take it back to our rooms, and that was the mattress. I wonder, to this day, if I started to know about hay fever, because ever since then, I've had running nose, and it was miserable. But we also found out that those canvas bags that they have us were actually body bags, and they were bags that were used to put dead bodies in, and they gave it to us to use to stuff the mattress with hay so that they could be our, be our mattresses to sleep on. So I remember that part from Tanforan. But in Topaz, we had regular mattresses and so on, so it was a little better there.

And Topaz was, had forty-two blocks, and a block consisted of about maybe twelve... it was made into wards, as I said, not blocks. They had blocks with barracks, about twelve barracks on one side and twelve barracks on the other side, and the mess hall and showers and so on were inside, in between, right inside the middle part. So it was a little more, made better, used better, we didn't have to walk as far. And there were forty-two of these blocks, and we were in Block 37, so it was 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42 at one end of the barracks. Started out with Block 1, Block 2 and so on, which was closer to the hospitals and so on, that kind of thing. So anyway, we started to get used to this new life in Topaz, Utah. But bad for us was that school started almost right away. So most of my life was spent in Topaz going to school like anybody else. There were times on the weekends when they would, blocks would begin to form baseball teams and so on, and they would play against each other and so we would watch baseball games.

And when we left home, we couldn't take any toys, but I remember having my bag of marbles that I had, so I was able to, we were playing marbles, or some of the other games were like Stick, where you put the stick down, sticking into, make the point sharp and stick it into the ground and have someone else try to knock it down and so on, that kind of game that we would make up and play. And then they started making little things that we could climb up on and do that kind of thing to spend our leisure time, so to speak. And then they had movies that they showed at some of their barracks, and so we would watch those. And so that was the kind of life that you start to get used to. Again, the weather was, we experienced our first snow there because in San Mateo we have no snow. So that was part of a new experience for us to experience the snow. But most of the time was done going to school. But I also remember that we had talent shows and different kinds of shows at the mess halls, and as part of the entertainment for a lot of the older people and so on, and in our block there was this person that was bilingual, and he wanted, he got me and another guy involved in a performance where I was the general, butaicho, called him Onitsuka Butaicho, he was evidently a famous general of the Russo-Japanese War way back in the early 1900s. And so the narrator will say something, and to explain what I was doing, I would then talk and say something, all in Japanese. We didn't have no idea what we were saying, but they would teach us how to say it, and ups and downs and how to say it. And so we would perform and go to the mess halls and different mess halls and perform. And I used to make, I noticed that some of the people who understood what we were saying were dropping tears, so I guess we were doing pretty good. [Laughs] And even to this day, for example, "Shokan wa, shogun no gunji shokan toshite. Shogun no kyoku ni atatte mairimashita." I have no idea what I'm saying, but we memorized it, and I still, to this day, could say it without even thinking about it. But that was the, kind of life that we had in Topaz. So we did that and did other kinds of entertainments, got involved in it. But that was more to kill time and try to make the best of the living in this kind of situation.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.