<Begin Segment 7>

SY: So that was pretty much your life, then, going to school, coming home, eating, and then going to sleep?

KS: Well, we played out in the yard, out in the yard for a few hours and stuff. And there were times when, like when it snowed we were making these huge snowballs and stuff. And then they got the wise idea, the teenagers got a group together and just, "We're gonna make this igloo." [Laughs] So right in the middle of this backyard where it was fenced in, between barracks one and two of these three buildings, start piling up snow, rolling the snow, making this ball as big as possible, and start laying 'em out and then on top of, and had it enclosed. That igloo stayed there for quite a while.

SY: So there was really, kids of all ages kind of played together.

KS: Yeah, they did.

SY: You didn't --

KS: Up to a certain point. And I recall the teenagers would be a little more adventuresome and knowledgeable in doing certain things, and at night we'd see bats coming around by the hundreds, and they would fashion, they would get sticks and fashion a boomerang. And they says, "Alright, here comes one." And they would throw, you would throw these makeshift boomerangs and you manage to get one or two of those bats coming down. [Laughs]

SY: Wow.

KS: So we didn't, we did participate in that sense, and we had also a, if I can recall, like a basketball hoop on one end and a yard. They'd play just rough basketball type game.

SY: But nothing, like, organized.

KS: Nothing, no official game. Nothing official game or... I don't recall. I imagine they had other games that they played, but I was never involved with 'em because I'm not, wasn't a game oriented person. And I was always kind of kept to myself, anyway. And then I recall the teenagers trying to, they started to spread out a little bit further, get a little more adventuresome. And just outside of the Shonien, or Children's Village area, it was fenced in, then you had the orchards here, and then you had this little bit of an open area there. And they got some shovels and stuff and they start digging a trench, huge trench around a small area there. This is just outside of the Children's Village. And to me, it was quite deep, the trench, and they had, like an island in the middle. What they were gonna do is gonna create this huge trench, fill it with water, and they have this island in the middle. [Laughs] And have a raft to go back and forth on it. Well, I know it took them, it's taken days to dig this thing with shovels. Everybody's out there digging away. And one morning they go out there and the thing got filled up with water, underground water. The stream just filled that thing. And that stayed like that, with water in it, for I don't know, god, a long, for a long time. In my mind, it was a long time. And it got pretty raunchy, the water, 'cause it was stagnant water. And you couldn't get to the island unless you had a little raft to get there. [Laughs]

SY: It was big enough that you could get, you could actually take a raft and...

KS: Well, it was a short, I mean, you couldn't jump there, but you had to have something to get it over there.

SY: And was that okay with the people who ran the orphanage?

KS: Well, it was no, as far as I know, there was no complaints on it.

SY: That is...

KS: I had, was cautioned about it. Says, "You..." there was a trench out there like this, they said, "Do you know what that thing was out in the orphanage?" I says, "Yeah. That was a playground that we were creating." [Laughs]

SY: So the older ones were pretty clever.

KS: They had to have something to do I think. [Laughs]

SY: That's amazing. You really, and I admire the fact that you have those childhood memories too, that you, the things that you did.

KS: Those are things that are, was the more pleasant side. We had, I had my first exposure to Christmas, I found out what it was and all that sort of thing. And I think John or one of them had explained what Christmas was. Since I come from a Buddhist family background, this is totally new. And gifts giving was a first experience for me in the orphanage, and I think we had two occasions of gift giving situations that came up. At least the second time I was more aware of it. And of course, Children's, I mean, the adults were trying to get the younger kids more involved, physically involved in stuff, and boxing was one of 'em. And I just, I'm not a boxer, but I did the best I could and I wasn't very good at it. And I wasn't very happy with it either, getting beaten up. [Laughs]

SY: So you have a lot of kind of pleasant memories.

KS: Well, I have pleasant memory in the sense that I got to have some relationship with other people other than my brother.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.