<Begin Segment 9>

TI: So after Alviso, where did you go?

LH: We went to Fruitdale Avenue, Fruitdale Avenue just off of Santa Clara County Hospital, and like I said, the people that lived there were good friends of ours and they went back to Japan. They had two daughters and a son, and they went back to Japan and we moved into the house, and the owners lived right next door. And so they had raspberries. It was not very much; it was a small acreage, but it was enough to keep my mother and father busy. And then I went to Campbell grammar school and graduated, and then I started Campbell High School, which is brand new 'cause they tore it down while we were going to the grammar school. They tore down the old Campbell High School and they rebuilt at kitty corner, away from there. Anyway, so we lived there two, three, four years? I can't remember. But anyway -- twelve, thirteen, fourteen, maybe three years -- and behind the berry ranch was this big open pit, and I don't know if people knew it, but there was a brick yard back there and Bill Dare was the superintendent. His daughter and I were the same age, so we became very good friends. And so I used to play in that pit a lot, and then through the brick yard, we used to go through all, all through where the kilns are and see how the, they fed the coal and how the brick was fired and how they made the clay to make the brick. And you know, the clay was dug out from the pit, and then even with making brick you have seconds. They were called clinkers, 'cause they didn't come out rectangular. They had lumps in it or something, so those were called clinkers and they were set aside, but it was, it was interesting because it's like this and on the top, you could walk around back there, they had these lids and that's where they'd feed the coal into this round cavern. And the bricks are loaded by pallets, section by section, and then they fire it. As they are cured over here they get cold and they take 'em out, and the new ones are put, so it goes around in a circle 'cause it covers a lot of territory where they fire the bricks. And I remember Mr. Nagata used to live there, too, and he used to make his pot of spaghetti sauce and put it in that round thing and it'd cook all day. You know where the fire is not as intense? In those days people used to cook things for hours and that's why there was the flavor, but I remember Mr. Nagata doing that.

TI: Well, this brick yard, how big a operation, like how many workers were, were there?

LH: I don't know, because they had to, the bricks all came in a, they come out on a form and they're, and I remember the belt where the dirt, there's a big thing digging the dirt and then it goes up a conveyor belt. And I remember walking all across and, and it's mixed.

TI: And how many Japanese worked at the brick yard? Very...

LH: None. Nobody.

TI: No one?

LH: Mr. Nagata just lived there in the house back there.

TI: And took advantage of all the heating, or the, the oven there.

LH: Yeah. And Mr. Dare was of German extraction and he was very good to us, he and... yeah, all, I guess I remember them all my life. They're both gone. And the daughter got polio and she passed away from polio. But that was another experience, going through, playing in the brick yard. My brother had a friend that had a pony, so they used to ride up and down, all the way down there. Because we didn't harm anybody or get in anybody's way, so it was a good place to play, for kids. It was just myself, my brother and Mr. Nagata's son, and the one that owned the horse. Other people didn't go down there. It was just us. And the other thing was in the spring after the rain, they used to have mushrooms. You know the field mushrooms? I remember gathering field mushrooms. The reason we, I knew what mushrooms were was because Japanese lived in clusters. There was a whole bunch of Japanese that lived on Trimble Road, and the Kanemotos that we went to Utah with, they lived on Trimble Road and behind their house was this big pasture and every winter, after the rain we'd go out, gather mushrooms, so I knew what good mushrooms were versus bad ones. And the other kind of mushrooms that, since we're discussing mushrooms, they called it yanagi naba, and yanagi means willow and so where there's an old willow tree or a dead willow tree stump you'll find these yanagi naba. I think they're what you call the oyster mushrooms, but they used to grow huge. Do you know what they are? I haven't seen 'em since, but, and they're very meaty, very good. The flavor is so good. And the only other place I've seen that was in Utah. Where we lived there was a dead poplar tree and it used to grow out of there, so I remember my father watering it so it'll produce as long as it could. But I haven't seen that. Sometimes when we're driving around I look around, I think, oh gosh, I wonder if they still, they still are in existence, but it was the Japanese that ate them. There was prune naba that used to grow by the prune tree, but I never could distinguish a good one or a bad one, but they used to grow in clusters by the prune tree, the root of the prune tree.

TI: And the Isseis would know, they would know which ones were good?

LH: They knew.

TI: And, and was it because similar mushrooms grew in Japan and they knew from there?

LH: You know, I don't know. I think maybe it's something they discovered here. I never thought of it, about connecting Japan and here with mushrooms, but Japan does have a good variety, as we do, too. So looking back, you could live on natural things that are growing wild if you had to. And they do in Japan, in the mountains. They have a lot of things growing wild that they could use.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.