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ES: And she, and one girl mentioned that, something about... I couldn't remember whether I went swimming or not. She said we used to go swimming in the canal. And I don't know why we took a chance in there, 'cause it was kinda dangerous. Because some people did drown in there. I mean, that's the only place you could go swimming. And I remember parents, our parents, using these... since we didn't have much furniture, they used to take these roots or these old woods and make carvings of tables and, and lamps, and stuff like that. It was, when I think of it now, it was really amazing. They carved it out and they varnished it. And where they got the tools, I don't know, 'cause I thought we couldn't have those kind of tools at first. But I guess later on they let up, so I guess you could order it through the catalog. And so they did some amazing work there, and some beautiful garden that some of them made. I was really amazed that from nothing they built all these beautiful gardens, between the barracks. And even today, I think we brought some back that my father had done, too. And I never knew he could do such a thing like that. Those Issei just did it, and they never thought much about it. They didn't think it was much of an accomplishment, they just did it because they had the time. So I thought, gee, that was great. I would have never done that. [Laughs] I would be so mad, I thought, "Oh, I don't have no tools, I can't do this." But they did with what they had, and that kind of amazes me.

And we used to go to more birthday parties in Hunt, too. We used to invite each other, write invitation, and try to make it real elaborate and best as we could, and exchange gifts. And I remember doing baton, trying to learn the baton. This one girl was teaching us, and oh, that was fun. Another incident in Manzanar, when we were in Manzanar, we, we joined this group of tap dancers, and they were called the Manzanettes. There were about sixteen of us and we all had taken tap dance lesson. And we did this, had this talent show, we did it, and we all had the same dresses and stuff. And I really remember that, that was really fun. Got to tap dance, first time, in front of people. That was kind of exciting. Well, I think mainly it was wearing those... all the dresses were the same. You know, looks nice when you're up on the stage and everybody's got the same thing, they're doing the same steps. So that was, that was fun. Oh, and then Hunt, too, I think we used to... there used to be a fad on clogs, you know, these wooden clogs. Because, you're off the ground and then when it's icy and snowy and things, that's kinda nice shoe to have for walking. And I, I remember, I don't know why, but I remember those shoes that we really liked wearing. It was something new. I don't know where we got it from, whether it was a catalog, I, that I don't remember. But, we had fads there, too. Like in Manzanar, I think the hairdo was pompadours, they had it up real high. And when we came to Hunt, Idaho, they would say, "Oh, you could tell those people that came from California, they all got high pompadours." [Laughs] So, they distinguish us from that. And they used to say, "All the Block 44 people." But, eventually they accepted us. We probably were different when we first got there, I'm sure. Yeah, some of those things are kinda things that happened, I guess.

DG: Those are all good stories. I like hearing about different things the young seventh, eighth, ninth grade girl experienced. Do you have any other memories of camp?

ES: Well, no, I don't... not really. '42, '43... oh, I can't think of it right now. There was... oh, I mentioned movies. We did go to movies and things. I don't know what we did during the day so much. Of course, most of our time was taken up in school. We come home, we had to study, so most of those weekdays, school days were pretty full up. But I remember having to go to the... we didn't have any laundry facilities in the barracks, so we had to go to this main, main place where they had all the laundromats and things -- not laundromats, they had to wash by hand mostly, yeah, by hand. And the bathrooms are there, too, but those bathrooms were much better. They had private bathroom, whereas in Manzanar it was just one long barrack. I don't remember even having doors on there. And then where you brush your teeth is just one long sink and, you know, there's faucet and everybody's rinsing and thing in the same, in the same trough there, or whatever. [Laughs] But at least in Hunt they had more privacy in the showers. In Manzanar, there was very... well, because it was a new camp and they were just building these buildings. I mean, we were one of the first ones there.. or, third ones, third block. We were Block 3, there's, 1 and 2 was already finished. And so there was still, everything was still pretty new. And the, and the buildings weren't built so the dust can... I mean, it wasn't papered so the dust wouldn't come through. All the dust would come through the cracks and stuff like that. So all that had to be, eventually, they did fix it up, little by little. And by then we were ready to move to come up to Hunt.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.