<Begin Segment 12>

MN: I want to ask you, before we get into the guayule project, I want to ask you about how you met your future wife, Keiko.

AK: Well, I was in the front end of the barrack, and there were four rooms and she was in the opposite. And we used to see each other. We'd all go, lunchtime, everybody'd go at the same time. I don't know how we got, I got to know her. Then I start, I guess I started dating, huh? Yeah, whenever there was a dance, I didn't know any other girl, so...

MN: So you asked her to go dancing. What other things do young couples do in camp?

AK: Most of the youngsters, they'd all have baseball, softball in between the barracks or wherever there's a big empty space, they'd play baseball there. And older people...

MN: Well, you didn't play baseball with your, softball with Keiko.

AK: No.

MN: You played tennis with her.

AK: Was it tennis? Tennis. Yeah, there was a court there.

KK: Played tennis a few times. Not good at it, but... [Laughs]

AK: We'd always meet when we would go to the mess hall. We'd go up there about the same time. And then they had that, they had a party, big dance party or something. Then I asked her, and that's how I got acquainted with her.

MN: Did you go to the movies together?

KK: Yeah, a few times.

AK: Few times, yeah.

MN: How about like, do young couples go to Merritt Park for privacy?

AK: Merritt Park or, there wasn't very many private places, Merritt Park, was there? I don't know about that.

KK: It's so long ago. [Laughs]

MN: Now, you also went out on a work furlough. Where did you go, and what did you do?

AK: Mostly the farmers in Idaho and Montana, they needed help to harvest the crops, mostly sugar beets. They, I don't know who arranged it, but we, whoever wants to go, we'd go there for, I don't know how long we stayed there, but anyway, I volunteered to go. Wherever, any chance I get to go, I didn't know what it was.

MN: Your wife mentioned that you remember having Jamaicans working?

AK: Yeah, they had the Jamaicans come in and harvest that. That was the sugar beets, wasn't it? Was it sugar beets that they came helped? Yeah.

MN: That was hard work.

AK: Yeah, it was, if they let it get big. Some of 'em get that big and you have to chop the head and throw it up into the truck.

MN: And you got paid by the tonnage?

AK: I don't know if we got paid or not. [Laughs]

MN: You did get paid, because I was gonna ask you, what did you buy with the money you saved when you went out sugar beet topping?

AK: Mostly for my, I had my sisters, and whatever we can't get in camp. Yeah, we met, she was in, I was in one end of the barrack and she was the other end. And at the dance, we knew each other, so we'd go to the dances together.

MN: How did you buy your wife a wedding ring?

AK: I think I just went out, I used to work for a couple Syrians, from Syria, and he, they were really...

MN: This was before the war, right?

KK: Do you remember? You bought this ring, you had Fumi buy it for you?

AK: Was it Fumi?

KK: Yeah.

AK: Maybe I sent the money.

KK: [Laughs] You gave her the money to buy the ring.

AK: I don't know how I got, where I got it.

MN: Did you forget?

AK: I can't remember where I bought it, so it must be that ring. [Laughs]

MN: It's okay. It's okay, it's alright. You don't remember going sugar beet topping and saving the money, and then sending it to your sister in Chicago?

AK: That's what I did. Yeah, I forgot how much an hour we got, but boy, we sure had to work hard. If we go to a poor farmer that didn't take care of the plant to fertilize the right way, the beets were smaller. But when we went to a rich farmer who, they could spend money fertilizing, that was heavy, get tired. The truck is, well, it'd have a side, not as high as the ceiling, but we used to throw it over that fence, I mean a, whatever. What was I thinking of? Boy, that was hard sometimes. When you go to Idaho, they seem like they're better farmers, because beets were that big, and boy, you get tired throwing that up on the truck.

MN: But you get more money that way, right?

AK: I don't know if we got more money. I forgot how they paid us.

MN: But you saved your money up.

AK: Yeah.

MN: Do you remember how much the ring cost?

AK: No, I had my, I saved the money and sent, my sister was in Chicago, I think, so I sent the money to Chicago to have her get it for me.

MN: It's a real diamond, I think. It must've been very expensive. Did your sister pick out the wedding ring?

AK: Yeah. Didn't she? She picked it up. She couldn't go over there and see it anyways, so... I think she, my sister just thought that was the right size and, I don't know how it happened. But she got it for me, anyway.

MN: Do you remember how you proposed to Keiko?

AK: I don't remember. I was in a daze, I guess. [Laughs]

MN: You were nervous?

AK: Yeah. I was scared to ask.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.