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PW: You're an all-around athlete.

RO: Right. And also then, what had happened was, talk about that, it's very interesting. Because also then, because there were young men on the base with a small group. So we used to get together and play basketball, volleyball. So the major who was in charge of that headquarters company said, well, they have these competitions with armed forces, and navy and various places, in Norfolk, Virginia, and other places. So he says, "Let's get together a team," because he wanted to go ahead and be involved in that as well. So then he would play volleyball with us, so then eventually we were scheduled as a team, and we then drove up to this base to compete and so on. So that was, again, another thing they did that was out of the base and the regular army, five days a week doing the same things over and over again. So it was a chance to be able to ahead and experience other places. In fact, even after... I can't remember when it happened, I was chosen as the, they had this thing called the "soldier of the month," and the soldier of the month gets this furlough of a weekend free. At that time, I had my car, and so then I had been chosen by, I don't know who does this," and so I went to Charleston, South Carolina, and spent the weekend there. What do you do, you just walk around and go to a restaurant and this and that, but there's not much you can do. But then again, what happened was that the Selma newspaper, the Selma Enterprise, they sent that information to your hometown. So then it was this big deal when my mother says, "Here are your pictures, in uniform, and you were chosen as the soldier of the month." She was so proud. [Laughs] Very interesting how you just kind of pick up on these things. And then at the end of my tour, I had my little sports car, I says, "I want to go in and make it an adventure for me to drive all the way home." And I so I said, "I'm going to go ahead and try to visit as many people as I could." And it took me a month to get home, just from going, and this is when was in upstate New York and then eventually went to Minnesota to visit my uncle Kenji, who's the youngest child of my mother's family. And so a chance to be able to meet up with them, which I...

PW: Where was that?

RO: This was in Minnesota. And then from there, you'd go to places where you met other people that you had stayed doing your tour, just from going from place to place, you meet people, and you become kind of friendly with people. And so then you would stop by to see them. And so all through the Midwest, I remember... the kind of things that you do as a young man, I remember driving. If you're driving in the Midwest, then you have field after field after field of cotton and corn and so on, and I remember there as a point, I was driving and I was getting tired, and I pulled into the back of a gas station. And here I had this little convertible sports car, but I'd pull the top down and try make a little bed for myself and catch some sleep. And in the morning, then gas up and get in the car and drive off to the next place. It's really an adventure, because you can travel the entire the United States as freely as possible. I remember driving into New York City in my little sports car. But what do you do in New York City, you go and you find a hotel, and you don't know what the hotel is, it's probably a big deal hotel. But it's new to you, and you to take a tour of New York and find out what the rest of the world was like. It was an adventure, I think, that you realize as a young man that there's more to your world than Fresno, California. And so you're taking advantage of this, and you have the means to do so. It was wonderful.

PW: I love the story of your return. You didn't just get back on the bus and come home.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.