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TI: When you were at Walnut Grove, did you ever attend school, grammar school there?

HT: Kindergarten, yeah. Yeah, that's where I met my first girlfriend. [Laughs] Yeah, she was really nice.

TI: One of the things I heard when I was in Walnut Grove, I did some interviews there, their schools were segregated.

HT: Yes, everything was segregated, it seemed like, the whole town. We could go this part, they could go this part, we had different schools.

TI: Yeah, because you're right, there's a Japanese section, a Chinese section, and then across the other side is the white?

HT: Let's see. There's river, Japantown, Chinatown, railroad track, and farming area.

TI: And then on the other side of the river is the, is where the whites lived.

HT: I don't know who in the heck lived there.

TI: Yeah, the whites lived on that side.

HT: I assume they did, 'cause we never went over there because we just know where to stay. So we would stay in our town, play in our streets. It was ours. And there's a lot of ghost story going on to that town. It's a real strange town. Speaking of ghosts and all that.

TI: What would, what would be a ghost story? I didn't hear any ghost stories.

HT: Well, there's a couple of old warehouses that supposed, somebody died there or something before, and we used to go over there, and it's kind of spooky, the warehouses, two empty warehouses. I remember farmer throwing the dirt up in there, the dirt would fly through the air, and when he hits the two warehouses, it's starts swirling. It's, something was taking over, and it just disappears. Now I know why that happens, but to us it was a ghost. Obake, obake. Boy, we'd run like heck. [Laughs] My father, he just went along with it. He laughed, you know, and he said, "Yeah, you better stay away from there." I remember that. It's the little things that you really enjoyed, you remember.

TI: Yeah, I remember Walnut Grove, so where the Buddhist church was, behind there there was big fields...

HT: Oh, that's funny, too. My father, the Buddhist church, every time it was soushiki or kekkonshiki, whatever, everybody bring mochi, obutsudan, right? And we don't like to eat those things. So my father used to, after church he would put those in a box outside. And once in a while, my father and I, we'd go out there and get the old boxes, then they're hard as a rock. And we used to stand in back of the church and to the baseball park, I think it's maybe a hundred yards away, and we used to throw, see how far we could throw the manju. Manju, that's what it was. We used to throw these things over the hill. My father was a baseball player, too, and he could throw those things miles. And I used to throw, we used to throw these mochi over the baseball fence. And a couple time he forgot that there's going to be a baseball game next day, and my father and I couldn't, we go to baseball park, and we'd sit down, all of a sudden we'd see lot of white things all over the field. And I said, "Dad, what's those things." Said, "Don't..." I could see all the congregation going, "What the heck is all that?" [Laughs] They had to stop the game, clean all those things up. Oh, it was so funny.

TI: [Laughs] Maybe that's why he had go, too.

HT: Maybe he got kicked out of town. [Laughs]

TI: So your dad was not a traditional, it doesn't sound like he was a traditional Buddhist minister. He had a fun side to him.

HT: Well, yeah, we broke him into it. He had no choice. Me and my brother, we used to joke around with him a lot. In fact, we had twelve police dog as a pet.

TI: Twelve police dogs?

HT: Yeah.

TI: And this is in Walnut Grove?

HT: Yeah, in the backyard, we had a pretty big backyard, fenced. Saw a dog, we had to take care of it. Oh, my god. And he had an old beat up Cadillac four-door convertible, church car. Oh, that was fun. My brother and I, you crank that thing to get it started, putt-putt-putt. [Laughs] And Walnut Grove is kind of below the levee, my god, we had a hard time getting up that thing, putt-putt-putt. It was fun days. I still get in touch with those people, you know, those people that lived there. In fact, one lives in San Jose. Two families lived in San Jose from Walnut Grove. It brings back good memories, though, you know? You don't forget.

TI: Yeah, it's a nice town. I like it.

HT: I'd like to go there again.

TI: If you go there now, the town is still there. The old buildings are still there.

HT: Really?

TI: You would really enjoy going back there.

HT: God, I remember there was one hotel there, it was, I think, two story or three story, hotel right on the levee. But I never... we used to say all the rich people, rich people that lives there. Oh, lot of tragedy happens in a small town, you know, you see people drowning out there and committing suicide, I guess. My father, I guess he just got tired of all that.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.