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JS: So can you, who were some of your friends? Can you name them? Are they mostly Japanese?

SK: All Japanese.

JS: All Japanese.

SK: See, in the old days, the Japanese, if you lived on one block, almost every family that I know of, we went from house to house through the backyard. I mean, everybody had a fence to the neighbor, and you would go to the neighbor's by opening the fence and go to your neighbor. And I can go one block through the backyard of every, every family that lived on the block, and that's the way it went. [Laughs]

JS: What kind of activities did you do when you got together with your friends and you visited?

SK: I can't remember, but we were mostly running around in the, well, I guess the base was a church. The Christian church was on the corner, and on the same block with the Buddhist church. I guess you've seen that. But, and then, as I remember, even when I was a little, first, running around, they call it Chinatown. But let's see, we had a tennis court, the one Christian church had a tennis court, and the Buddhist church had a tennis court. Well, we had just about everything. We had a playground, real large, I mean... and then the kids used to play football or, like I was telling my, during my party, I was telling... well, let me see. [Laughs]

JS: So did you play sports?

SK: Oh, yes. I mean, that's what the kids all did.

JS: Uh-huh, ran around.

SK: And we want to, let's say, people want to be sports athletes. And then I'll tell you a funny incident before I start. Let's see. I was telling how good athlete my grandchildrens are. They were excellent -- they still are -- ballplayers, softball and ballplayers. And my friend said, he says they may be good athletes, but I didn't have anything to do with it, he says. That's how it started. He said he didn't know where their talents come from, but it sure didn't come from me. That was how it started. He said, I was one of the worst athlete he'd ever known. Absolutely worst. And he emphasized it, of course, too. But at that...

TI: But it sounded like sports was a big part. And I've looked at the, where the Buddhist church was, and then where the Christian church was, and then they have those big fields in the back. Were there competitions between the Christians and the Buddhists, like, ball games and things like that?

SK: No, no. They had their own thing. There were enough, almost all the kids were Buddhist, anyway. And we played football, we had a big, big yard to play in, and we had enough kids running around. We played among ourselves, and they, like Japanese school, Nihongakkou, below the Buddhist church, there's classrooms, and that's where we went after school. And the Christian church had a separate, separate church or school ground, I guess, in, oh, about half a block or a block away. And that's where they were. Don't know if they had their Japanese school there or not. We used to play with each other, but, you know, I can't remember if they went to, whether they had their own Japanese school. But, let me see now...

TI: Well, going back to the sports, were there organized sports leagues, like a baseball league where people would have teams and then they would play, like a schedule, something like that?

SK: No. We just played among ourselves, usually before Japanese school started. We would leave grammar school possibly at three o'clock, then we go to, we have about an hour or two before went to classes. And then after class, during the springtime, we just played 'til we all went home.

JS: So you were out all day until it got dark?

SK: Or the kids were out.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2010 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.