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TI: Okay. So let's go to Minidoka. So from Puyallup you mentioned how you were in Area D, you were one of the first groups to go to Minidoka. Some of your friends from the dishwashing crew were with you. So pick it up there, what did you guys do together? Did you guys stay together in terms of the same kind of jobs or activities?

VI: No. What happened is we lived in the Block 1 through 7, 13, 14 area. On Block 5, the chief cook was Mr. Kaseguma, which was Kassie, and his assistant was Mr. Tanabe which was Hank's uncle's dad. So we kind of congregated there. And then we never ate with our parents, we never ate with family, we always ate in our group. In fact, I ate at Block 5 so often that when I went back to Block 7 to eat one time, they thought they won't feed me because I wasn't part of the block.

TI: Oh, because you're only supposed to eat at your own block because of the amount of food they had. And so actually when you went to your block, they didn't think you belonged.

VI: Yeah. But we knew the parents of our group that was in Block 5, so we all congregated there. And that's when we started with the group that were eventually called OTs.

TI: And so Mr. Kaseguma, was he in that group, too, Kassie?

VI: It was a big group. But then by the time we got to getting our jackets and stuff, it was pretty small, compact.

TI: Okay, so start off when it first started, the group, what was the, kind of, membership criteria? How did you get to be part of this group? Was it Mr. Tanabe?

VI: No, Mr. Tanabe, Hank Tanabe, we were a group that was mixed, and a lot of them were college kids and all that. So we were more cohesive than other groups. You had other groups like Block 16 from Portland. So people thought we were bad kids and all that.

TI: Because you guys said you were more cohesive than the other groups. What does that mean, by "more cohesive?"

VI: That we all ate at Block 5.

TI: Okay, so you were always together as a group, you ate together and did things together.

VI: And played cards together, they played bridge and things.

TI: And it ranged from, you said college age?

VI: Oh, yeah.

TI: And then you were still like fifteen, sixteen years old, right?

VI: So it's amazing that they accepted me.

TI: Were you the youngest in that whole group?

VI: Yeah.

TI: Was there anyone close to your age in that group, like other fifteen, sixteen...

VI: Oh, Edo was a year older.

TI: This is Mr., Dr. Sasaki, Edo Sasaki?

VI: Uh-huh. And then George Tanabe was two years older. That was the closest. All the rest were college or older.

TI: Okay, but you are, then, the kid, the youngster.

VI: So we were this group, and people thought we were pretty cocky. Of course, that age, you get pretty cocky. So Lucko says, he decided that we should have a name. So he says, "We'll call ourselves OTs." You know how that started, it's "Odorless Turds." So we were OTs but SF. "Odorless Turd but Stinky Fart." So we're not that... eventually they dropped the SF part, so we were OT.

TI: And at that point, you knew what that meant. Did other people?

VI: Nobody else, just our group.

TI: Oh, so it was like a group secret, OTs. I think of OTs, I think when I first saw it, I thought it might be "Old Timers" or something like that.

VI: But we made the O and the T, but the T, T-E-E. So it's O-T-E-E. And then we were cocky. We went to Twin Falls and we got letterman jackets with our name and "Otees" on. So we had quite a reputation of not being the... so that's where it began. So instead of, the reason we got OT is, excuse me, but we thought our shit didn't stink. [Laughs]

TI: Right.

VI: But we had a "stinky fart." Are you sure that story will be in there?

TI: [Laughs] We'll see. But so you're part of this group, you were the youngest going to college age, and you did things like play games, you ate together, I think you guys also did some sports together, too?

VI: Uh-huh.

TI: So did you have like an OT baseball team and things like that?

VI: Yeah. But the OT baseball team was real broad. We took the best players in our area, which were maybe not the original OT members, but they play for our team. And that's the team that I think I told you that everybody had a nickname?

TI: Right, right. As you went around the diamond and talked about all the nicknames.

VI: Kind of interesting is we had such a rep, when you went out to pick potatoes, we were supposed to buck potatoes, lift the potatoes out to the thing. And we were going to this Oakley, which is in Burley, and there was a group of young teenage gals.

TI: These are Nisei girls.

VI: Nisei girls. When they found out that they were going to be with the OTs, they were just scared, because we had quite a rep.

TI: Okay, so they didn't really know you guys, but they had just heard of you.

VI: Yeah.

TI: And they were from Minidoka?

VI: They were from the area which is on the other side of camp. We were on the lower, they were on the upper.

TI: The upper side of camp.

VI: There were some girls that were even younger than me, and their chaperone was Yoshi Mamiya.

TI: Okay.

VI: And we knew Yoshi because of George. So we went there and it was an old schoolhouse. So we went there and we were there, they were there and they were kind of worried about, they thought, you know, bad boys. Well, Saturday night we had singalongs and we sing and everything else, so we had a good time. We didn't stay there too long, but after the season, we came back. And they were so happy that we weren't the things that they were... the crazy part about that is all these reunions, some gal would come up and say, "Remember me?" I said, "Yeah, I remember you." [Laughs]

TI: And it came probably from that experience.

VI: That group, yeah.

TI: Like how many girls were there?

VI: There were about, oh, eight or so. And they were the group that were on the other side of the camp, so we didn't associate with them at all until we went to the thing. Mom used to say, "Do you remember her?" I said, "No."

TI: Because Mom is in Block 16, so she was in that upper side.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.