Densho Digital Archive - June Takahashi Interview (denshovh-tjune-01-0024)

<Begin Segment 24>

BK: Before we can leave camp, because we've already left camp, if I can bring you back to camp, because I think that... I'm really curious, you were what, sixteen, seventeen years old? What was the social life like in camp?

JT: Oh, the social life was just wonderful. [Laughs] I think they had dances every weekend and they have girl's dances because so many of the fellows at that point were beginning to go into the service. And so we had girl's dances and girls dancing with each other and that was pretty much fun. But we had a lot of dances and they had, they did have movie theaters in certain areas. They have a movie theater, but I didn't go much to the movies 'cause I was always working and messing around at the hospital afterwards even though I wasn't on working time. It was kind of a social area.

BK: Where did they have these dances?

JT: They had the dances in the mess halls. There were mess halls among every block and so I don't know how they determined where they were going to have them but each mess hall would have dances at various times. We just stuck around to the ones that were closest to us, which would be like Block 8 or wherever. And they had a recreation area also, but that was more like crafts and things of that nature so it wasn't good for dancing. So we just took over the mess halls and they moved the tables aside and we just had a grand time.

BK: So were these dances then open to everybody in camp?

JT: Oh yes, you could go to any of the dances that you want to as long as you want to walk that far, because some of them would be way up.

BK: But this way you had a chance, then, to meet some of the other...

JT: Meet a lot of the other kids, yes. We made a lot of -- I mean, if I thought Puyallup had a lot of people when we went to camp -- they were all together in one area so it was, it was very large, really. I don't know how many thousands there were there but there were a lot of people there. But to me, it was great fun. [Laughs]