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TM: Well, it's 1919. Anyway, is myself decided go to the America and see what look like. So start out. I think that's be all right. I start out. First I went to Kobe. Everything, everything all right. And ready and, by gosh, I get sick, really get sick and so I couldn't get on that boat. Well, so I have to go back to Kumamoto again. Oh, gee. My grandpa really disgusted, but I can't help it. So I wait until about six months more and my grandpa said, "This time we change. We don't go to Kobe. We go to Nagasaki and we get on from Nagasaki." So I came from Nagasaki and finally I passed everything at Nagasaki and so get on the boat in Nagasaki. And that was around, I think, first of February, if I don't make a mistake. And this Osaka shousen boat. Even before leave the Japan, stop all over. They stop Kobe little bit, Yokohama little bit. Then come out in ocean. And man, man, it was really rough weather. But good thing I didn't get seasick. Well, then came to the Seattle. That was, I think, 25th I think it was.

AI: A long trip.

TM: Long. That sure was a long boat ride I remember. It was sure funny. There was one man get on the boat from Nagasaki, and then he came out to the deck. "Now that we will get off and you look around and you see father over here." So I look. I see my two brother. That is, I can, right away I notice that was James and John. So I told him, "That is my brother right there." He sure laugh, you know. Then we went immigration office. I passed real fast. Other people took long time, but anyway I passed right away. And what the trouble was, I come off boat in Japanese clothes. I didn't have a suit on. My dad said, "Well, that is the first thing we have to do is go to the, buy the suit." I remember I bought first suit at below the Smith Building. That was, those days, highest, tallest, building in Seattle. And I don't know why he went, but anyway I bought the suit right there. And well, meantime the dad was in Barneston Sawmill. So... well, I think we stay a couple days. That's what the idea was. Well, that night we went to the hotel. I think it was Olympus Hotel. That's Maynard Avenue. That's front of the Atlas Theater. That's what used to call. I don't know what call now, but anyway the front Atlas Theater, yeah. And James get sick. Dad said, "Well, we have to go back." Then my brother had asthma, James. When he was a kid, he had bad asthma so we let's go home. "Let's go home," my dad said. The next day we went home.

AI: How did you go from Seattle to Barneston?

TM: Barneston, yeah.

AI: Did you go by train?

TM: Train, yeah. Come to think of it now, that train go Maple Valley and Barneston and go around to Snoqualmie, and I think it go around to Everett. I'm pretty sure that was the route. Yeah. And nowadays, you look from map, pretty close from Seattle, but those day I thought it was a long way to the mountain. Anyway, after you pass Maple Valley -- gee, that was a mountain. That's what I thought. Well, and then I went to Barneston.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.