<Begin Segment 2>

MN: Now your father was a carpenter, and you mentioned that he was known for building the stages for the various kenjinkai picnics?

TY: Uh-huh.

MN: Do you remember being taken to a lot of these kenjinkai picnics?

TY: Yeah, because we had stages. So that was much after '47, so my brothers and I would go and help my father set the stages up. I think my biggest being proud of my dad was when they put together the stage in Poston, the one and only stage, there are pictures of it everywhere. But that's the one that he was responsible for, and I'm most proud of that.

MN: You know, now that you mentioned the Poston stage, can you describe that to us? What does it look like?

TY: Oh, I wish I had a picture of it. Here it was a regular mainstage, and then they had a hanamatsuri, which was a thing that goes off to the side. And then when dances start they would start from there and go on, because that was like, like that were part of coming to the mainstage. And to me, that's what I always thought it was like, it was great to see that. When we moved back to Los Angeles, they used Koyasan in the same fashion, and I think that was neat.

MN: Now, how was your father able to get permission to build a stage in Poston?

TY: I think the fact is they wanted some kind of entertainment for the troops, for the people that were there because it just wasn't anything. They had movies in the auditorium, after the auditorium was built, but other than that, there wasn't. So this was a nice thing for us to have. Now, of the three camps in Poston, we were in Camp I. And it was the only one that had that. Now, we were envious of, I think, Camp II, 'cause they had a cement pond. We just swam in the irrigation ditch, so they were at a different level than we, and we kind envied that.

MN: But going back to this stage, where did your father get the material?

TY: Okay. Since he was the carpenter and he could request some of this material, and they were readily available to him and his crew. So he got cement and wood and stuff like that, and that's what they mainly needed to create the stage. So that was a good thing for us, 'cause we were able to do that. But of course that would only go on during the summer, 'cause wintertime, who's going to watch an outside stadium? But when he set it all up, you still had to bring your own chair, so you had your own little folding chairs that everybody sat in and watched the production, whatever it was. And they all had a great time.

MN: What about his tools, though? Was he able to bring his tools into camp?

TY: Well, he had his tools that we carried into camp, but later on, since he was the head carpenter, they had stuff like that available to him and his crew. So we weren't lacking for saws, hammers and stuff like that.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.