<Begin Segment 16>

TI: And that's, so this is Poston. Before we go to Poston, or talk more about this, tell me a little bit more about Salinas. What was, what did you do during those several months you were there?

JS: Oh, usually they had, it's just like the regular camp. They had barracks and they had, you know, they made a kitchen, they had a place where you could take a shower, things like that, same thing. They had to build extra, see. And the only thing that keep us going was they had sports, baseball, basketball, things like that. Mostly people that was in Salinas was people from Santa Cruz County and San Bernardino County, that's Gilroy, Hollister and Watsonville and Santa Cruz. So... well, I don't know. That's where whatchacall, when we went to assembly, that's where I got my diploma in 1942, the diploma.

TI: Right, so you told about that earlier. So you mentioned doing lots of, maybe sports like baseball, and you earlier mentioned Mas Hashimoto.

JS: (Yes).

TI: He told me that one of his brothers...

JS: (Yes), I know the, I was right there. They were playing baseball, you know, just, I guess it was more or less a get-together. And he was, his brother was Norio, he's the older... there was, Mas is the youngest, then, and there was another one, (Masaru), and Norio was the third one. They had a lot of brothers, all boys, Hashimoto. And Norio was just watching the baseball, and then one of the, I don't want to say names, but he hit a fly ball and it happened to hit him on his head or something.

TI: Oh, so Norio was just, was watching. He wasn't playing, he was just watching.

JS: (Yes), he got hit, and I guess that killed him. So concussion, I don't know what happened anyway. Heck, he was pretty young yet. And that was in 1942, (yes).

TI: Now, so that must have been difficult for lots of the Watsonville people, because it was a pretty close community to go through something like that.

JS: (Yes). Of course, that was a tragedy, something like that happened.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Watsonville - Santa Cruz JACL. All Rights Reserved.