<Begin Segment 8>

TI: Start the second part and we're going to start talking about your life, your childhood memories. And you mentioned right before the war your mother and father bought a house. And do you remember that house?

JG: Oh, I do because I can even remember going to the hallway during the drills, how we were doing those, well, you wouldn't remember.

TI: So this was right after the bombing of Pearl Harbor there were drills or something?

JG: Yes.

TI: And so describe that. What kind of drills?

JG: Well, the sirens would ring, would blow, I mean, it's more horn like, I don't know how I can remember this but I do. And I remember you had to go to a place where there were no windows. So there was only one place in our house that had no windows and that was our tiny hallway and we had to make sure all the... no lights were on and we had to sit there until the air raid sirens would go off... or go on again.

TI: And do you remember what kind of feeling you had during these times?

JG: Well, it wasn't good. I mean, why are we in this hallway, you know.

TI: I mean like were you frightened or could you just pick up --

JG: All I know is that right now the way I remember it is that it was not "why are we here," you know, it was like, "I don't understand."

TI: It's amazing how much... 'cause you're only three and half years old at this point, you were born in 1938, yeah so it would be three and half years old.

JG: Yeah.

TI: So it's just how much you can pick up when these... I'm guessing your parents had a lot of anxiety perhaps or feelings during this time.

JG: I do remember, it's so funny, this is really weird. I can remember someone coming to the door and saying, I said, "Who are you?" And the person said, "I'm a G-man," and I said, "Are you the garbage man?" [Laughs]

TI: Wow. And why were you visited by a G-man... meaning FBI?

JG: Or government person. I don't know why I remember that story. I mean, I do not remember why I remember that but apparently they were visiting the neighborhood and visiting our neighbors too. But that's the only thing I remember because my mother remembers my saying, "Are you a garbage man? "[Laughs] But how would I know that because I was only really young. It might be postwar or it must have been postwar because how could a four or five year old know G-man? Although I think my mother would say I was pretty precocious because I had gone to... while my mother and father were working I went to this nursery school, preschool. And these were church friends, Mrs. Smith and her son later became a minister and we met in Chicago while he was going to Loyola, no DePaul and that was during time when I went to Chicago and I also went to school there later. But anyway this particular friends, it was an interesting time because he was doing the Selma marches that year too but that was in the '60s. That's another aside.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.