<Begin Segment 6>

TI: There are a couple of events that happened in Bellevue that I just wanted to ask about. One is the annual strawberry festival. Bellevue is known for their strawberry festival, and I was wondering if you recalled the strawberry festival?

GY: No, I don't. All I know, they sold strawberries there, and they had parades and stuff like that. But I don't remember too much of it now.

TI: Okay, so that wasn't a big deal for you. How about another big event before the war, you talked about taking the ferry from Medina to Leschi or Yesler. And then right before the war, they opened up the floating bridge. Do you recall going across the floating bridge?

GY: No, because we didn't have no mobile transportation. Those are people that have their own cars, they crossed over. But us guys doesn't have any automobile or anything, we just took the ferry, that's all. That was all right.

TI: So even with the bridge, people still took the ferry?

GY: For a while, yes. For a while, yeah.

TI: And that's because of the streetcars and everything.

GY: Yeah. When they discontinued that, I don't know what year they discontinued it, to tell you the truth

TI: Now, did you have a sense that in those really early years when they opened up the floating bridge, did Bellevue change at all with the floating bridge?

GY: Well, I suppose it did. But to what extent, I couldn't tell you that. But it did save transportation going back and forth on the ferry, otherwise you could drive over there by yourself, you know. So it was all right.

TI: Any other childhood memories of Bellevue? It's such a, kind of interesting place to grow up, there was the lake and the woods, you have the farms, do you have any fond memories?

GY: As far as memories go, there isn't too much to talk about. We used to go to a place called -- at least I did, a place called Midlakes neighborhood. There was a lake there, so we used to build our own raft and push ourselves out there and fish a little bit. That's about it. Aside from that, we just stuck around home.

TI: So let's talk about your parents a little bit. Did they do very much socializing?

GY: No, they didn't. They didn't do too much. I don't think anybody did too much socializing. Maybe New Year's Day or something they'll go to different homes and stuff like that. What you call mochitsuki, couple of families get together and make those rice cakes.

TI: Well, so how would they do that? For the... I'm guessing they pounded it, but like the usu...

GY: Oh, yeah, the usu was made of a trunk of a tree. One time my dad carved one out and they had the wood mallets with a handle on it, bang, bang, bang.

TI: Now, when your dad carved out a tree trunk kind of thing, how would he do that? Because I'm always amazed at how smooth things are.

GY: To tell you the truth, that part I don't know. But I know he did it because it was our stuff. [Laughs]

TI: And when you did the mochi pounding, you mentioned like other families would join in?

GY: Yeah. And they had these, the steamer, you know, they put the rice in the steamer and steam it up. And after that, they started pounding it. It was a chore, they make those mochi.

TI: Okay, good.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright ©2009 Densho and the Twin Cities JACL. All Rights Reserved.