<Begin Segment 21>

TI: How about things like Japanese culture? Did you do anything like, still do judo or sumo or Japanese language?

WM: We had no language, I think, only church.

TI: So tell me about church in Amache. What was...

WM: But I didn't go there. [Laughs]

TI: So you didn't have to go to church when you were in Amache. So besides school...

WM: Boy Scouts. I was doing Boy Scouts, too.

TI: Oh, okay. Tell me about Boy Scouts.

WM: It was good.

TI: And so you learned all the...

WM: For merit badge and cooking.

TI: Cooking, making knots, doing all that.

WM: Yeah.

[Interruption]

TI: Well, so one of the things Boy Scouts do is they go camping.

WM: Yeah.

TI: Did you ever go camping out of Amache?

WM: Two times.

TI: So describe that. What would a camping trip, where would you go and how long would you be out camping?

WM: One time we went down the place over there about three, four days. And one time we stayed outside of the camp and camped over there. Only two time, I went.

TI: And so how big a group would go...

WM: A big group, you know, five, six, cities like Tule Lake, Turlock, Los Angeles, all of us, group, joined together and went.

TI: And so, like, maybe twenty boys or thirty boys or even more?

WM: Our troop?

TI: Yeah.

WM: Our troop, yeah, about twenty.

TI: And so in terms of all the camping gear, like sleeping bags and tents, where did you get all that?

WM: I don't think so, we didn't have that, I think. But one group used to have tents, everything.

TI: So that was a different troop that had that?

WM: Yeah.

JS: Were you a Boy Scout in Walnut Grove, too, before camp?

WM: [Nods]

TI: And so tell me about that, the Boy Scouts in Walnut Grove. I mean, how big was that troop?

WM: That was more, though. All Japanese, not too many. A lot of people don't want to join Boy Scouts.

TI: And so who was the troop master, the scoutmaster?

WM: All grownup...

TI: Yeah, but do you remember the name?

WM: (Jack) Ito and Furamoto or somebody.

TI: And where would the Scouts meet in Walnut Grove?

WM: Japanese school.

TI: So the Japanese school building that they would meet. And so when you went to Amache and then the Scouts started there, was it the same scoutmaster, or different scoutmaster?

WM: Different man. (Jack Ito).

TI: So different man. And that sounds, like, interesting, to go camping and do all the cooking and all these different things.

WM: I used to work only sixteen dollar a month, dishwashing.

TI: Yeah.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright (c) 2009 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.