<Begin Segment 25>

BK: And as far as dating, where would youngsters go out on a date?

JT: Well, mostly, mostly to dancing and just running around. I don't know what -- I can't really remember what we, we just kind of stuck together and we'd go... well, there were baseball games and things like that. We used to just -- they had organized sports teams and basketball and things like that so we would go to the games, well, baseball, of course, was outdoor. Basketball I think they had in the recreation areas, I'm not sure about where they had basketball 'cause I didn't pay much attention to basketball. They didn't have football, either, really. And then in the wintertime we used to go skating on the irrigation ditches, which was rather dangerous. And I remember one point Mits had fallen in and he got pretty cold and got pretty wet. But he was fortunate because there were a lot of accidents in that irrigation ditch. It had swift undertows and I know that several children drowned. So I didn't really like -- I didn't go swimming, I don't know how to swim, that's one thing -- swim proficiently anyway -- so I just stayed away from that. But we did go skating and that was fun in the wintertime. If you had skates, and somehow or another we all had shoe skates at that time, so we were able to go skating and that was fun, I think.

BK: Being able to carry only limited things with you to camp, where did you get all of the special equipment, the special clothing?

JT: Well, I don't know how other kids did, but I think they all wore their jeans and at that time most of the boys were wearing those engineer-type boots because it was so dusty and everything. But we all had... I brought my things from home and I don't know where the other people got theirs. But there were a lot of skaters out there, it surprised me there were a lot of skaters out there. And yet, not everybody knows how to ice skate either, so it was kind of nice, just enough to make it fun. And then when it got cold, we'd roast potatoes out there and stuff, if we could find some potatoes and have a fire. Hot potatoes are really great when you're cold in the wintertime.

BK: When would young people find privacy?

JT: Well, that was the difficult part. There was just no privacy at all, so I think they probably went behind a barrack or something where there wasn't another barrack facing them. And they warned you not to go out too far because you could get -- they had ticks in the bushes -- and you could get lost if you went far enough. I mean, there were several men, older men, who'd go after that wood, grease wood they called it, and make various shaped things and canes. And I know that several men got lost out there so it was kind of dangerous. But I never went that way because I don't like to go out where there are bugs and ticks and all that sort of thing so we stayed just close to the home and we just go to the movies. And when nobody was home, we'd be home. [Laughs] Things like that, places like that but there really wasn't that many places to go to be alone, so to speak. And some of the older fellas might have had their own units but you didn't go there anyway, so I don't know where they all went. And then, of course, when the war broke out, a lot of the girls or guys who were old enough, they married right away -- due to circumstances they didn't want to be separated -- so a lot of the older, younger older Nisei would, got married just before evacuation, I know that. So, but we weren't in that age at all but I know that that was a fact. If you had a boyfriend, they got married because they didn't want to be separated and there were a lot of marriages like that.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.