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HC: And then December 7th, we were visiting friends in West Seattle, and my first reaction is, what's gonna happen to me? Are they gonna put me in the army and shoot me or something? I think many of us were pretty self-centered, and as a result, didn't, didn't do what we could've done to help the Japanese. But what could we do, you know? The word had come down from on high. But the night before the evacuation, my mother took my sister and me up to say goodbye to the Kouras, a lovely family. I picked strawberries for Art, and he always tells everybody I was the slowest picker they ever had. But they were the two nice girls, Sumiko and, good lord...

HM: Sachiko?

HC: Huh? Who?

HM: Sachi?

HC: Oh yeah, Sachiko. Nice, nice boys too, but Grandma Koura, she was the character. God, she was nice. After the war, I went to visit them, and after coming off the road as a musician I had gotten onto the Stan Boreson Show, and so I guess they saw that, so when I finally got around to visiting -- I was so apologetic for not having done it sooner -- she, Grandma Koura said, "You no stranger in this house," and that made me feel very, very good. But it was a sad day when they left. I was working on the shipyard then, and nothing was being said. And I had assumed that they were going on the ferry from Winslow, and later I found it was Eagledale, and they wouldn't let us out. Probably couldn't have gotten over there anyway, but that was a bad day. So do you have any...

HM: Yes. Well, during this time, what were your parents, what was your father's occupation?

HC: He was a fisherman. He had a purse seiner, and he'd go to Alaska in the summer and return in the fall. And things were a little tough, so he changed the boat around a little bit and went down to California, went tuna fishing, so he was kind of an absentee father. But after, getting in the Depression, it was rough on everybody, and my mother and father were both Norwegian immigrants, from different parts of Norway, and my mother wanted to see her father before he died, so they scheduled a trip, but we were too late. At any rate, my mother took my sister and me to Norway. It was gonna be for a year, and then it ended up being two years. Got back, my sister couldn't speak a word of English, and I did fairly well 'cause my godfather had been sending us the Sunday funnies all that time, so I could keep my English up a little bit. Eventually I was moved, moved into class with my original classmates, and we got along pretty well -- Sada got into a fight one day, at a class picnic. [Laughs] He was mad because I had dropped an easy ball. That was out in the sand dunes at Yomote. But we, we made up. I think he was even in a play with us. In a school that small they had to utilize everybody, so I wasn't good enough to play basketball, but I played football, and our left guard was Harry Koba, who was the toughest little son of a gun in the whole league. Several of the Japanese kids shone as far as studies and so forth were concerned. In addition to Sada and Sakasa and Tom Kitayama, there was one white kid who was also very good, Earl Oliver, one of four boys, and he also distinguished himself. He got his doctorate in, I believe, chemical engineering. Sada's degree was, Dr. Omoto was, he retired as professor of art history at Michigan State University in Lansing, so, and he's a marvelous speaker. He, at our reunions, we'd always ask him to speak to us, which he did, and they, always great subjects and he laid it out so it was just perfect. I was thinking of something Italian, but it has alluded me.

HM: While your dad was out fishing, did you also have a part time job or, some kids would work on the farm to help their, their family, did you have another job to help?

HC: Well, I picked strawberries and then I chopped wood, chopped a lot of wood. And I also chopped a finger, so, but there I must admit to some laziness, and I discovered jazz music, or big band jazz, and that was the beginning of the end. It still is going on. So my mother was pretty soft on us. Both my mother and father were more interested in serious music, the classics and all that, but I never took to that. What, what is another question you might have?

HM: Pardon?

HC: What is another question you might have?

HM: Do you remember anything about the FBI coming to the island and rounding up some of the Isseis?

HC: No.

HM: Were you aware of anything like that going on?

HC: I think towards the end of that I had some inkling of that, and I remember thinking, boy, it's pretty serious. In retrospect, I know it must've been very tough, all the things that happened, but they were such strong people they didn't let outward feelings or appearances change. As for people at Manzanar, I did send some music magazine to Peter Ohtaki, and I guess I must've thought I'd done my good deed.

HM: Did you keep up a correspondence with anyone while they were in, were detained?

HC: No. I was an avid reader of the Review, and one time I did write a letter to the editor when it was said that some people didn't want the Japanese to come back, and I was out in the Pacific at the time, but that made me a little angry. I think I've seen a copy of that letter in some scrapbooks, which makes me feel good.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.