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RW: There were a couple of questions that we wanted to ask that relate, before you get into your business for the greenhouse. And the question we wanted to ask was about the paper, when you were working in Tule Lake, and you started to mention about the process of putting that paper together. Alice was mentioning that it was a daily paper. So, tell me a little more about that process, and how quick your deadlines came, and walk me through putting that paper together.

KO: Well, we all had our assignments at the beginning of the day, and we scrambled around to get these stories and come back and type 'em up as fast as we could. But of course, in sports we had an advantage, in that the stories were happening perhaps the day before, so we had a chance to get back and put the story together. And the tough part was that, trying to make all of the stories fit the space you had. So, some of the stories that you had written would get chopped down because of space limitations, and the deadline you had to meet to get the paper out on time.

There were a lot of talented people on the newspaper. Good artists, and good reporters, and people were able to dig up a lot of information. So, I thought it, just putting a staff together cold, that they did a real nice job of getting a good mix of people who could do the job. I think on the whole, every, they got all the information out that the people needed to know. I don't recall an instance where somebody said, "Hey, you didn't cover this situation."

RW: And then when you were talking about it being manually put together -- explain how that worked.

KO: Well, you type it up, and you'd have to kind of space it out and type it so it would fit a certain column. And you'd have three columns to a sheet of paper. And you'd try, paste it all together and fill up the page, fill up the lines. Then the typist would take this sheet of paper, and type her stories on this stencil. And she'd have to type it so the, that there were three columns, and that all of the columns were -- somewhat even, anyway. We tried to make 'em totally even, there's a way to do that. But it was done quickly, because we did it over and over again. Then, after we put the stories in, naturally you left room for your headlines, and then the artists would go in and use a stencil or a stylus and put the headlines in. And if you needed a drawing, the artist would put the drawings in. And so, it was a production. But, nowadays, it's so simple to put something like that together with the computers and things, that it is really odd to think back that things were different in those days.

<End Segment 34> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.