<Begin Segment 17>

RP: You mentioned about having a horizontal bar?

SK: Yes.

RP: In your block?

SK: Yes.

RP: Where was that located, do you...

SK: And that was located right next to the bathroom. It was, I mean, away from it but it was right there. They had, I remember they had a, a pretty high one and a lower one. They had two. And we, most of us kids all started learning when we were pretty young. Learn how to do the horizontal bars. I got to the point where I was doing quite a bit of things. The only thing I couldn't do was what they call a fly-away or the giant. Right, I couldn't do the giant or I couldn't do the fly-away, but I could do most of the other things. Yeah, the kips and pullovers and...

RP: So did you have sort of a mentor or teacher who was sharing this with you or you just...

SK: No, the only mentors we had were the older kids. I mean, they would go out there and they would be working out on 'em so we'd just watch 'em and learn from that. And when they did the fly-away, they did have somebody spotting them. But I just never learned that. And I never did learn, like I said, the giant.

RP: That must have been really amazing to, to watch somebody doing giants and fly-aways at Manzanar.

SK: Yeah.

RP: You just...

SK: Yeah, yeah.

RP: It's all these barracks around and sort of a...

SK: I guess it was a way of releasing, if you want to call it, tension or what or having a good time. I mean that's, that's how people spent their time having fun. And I think you were saying something about... well, there was a basketball court. I remember that, on the end of the block. I mean, it, not the... yeah, the end of the block toward the firebreak. And I think the older kids used that. And I do remember that they had a baseball diamond in the firebreak. 'Cause that's, that's where I remember Dad playing baseball.

RP: In the firebreak.

SK: Right. They had it on one corner of the firebreak.

RP: So, he was on a, a block team? Would have been a block team?

SK: I'm gonna say yes but... that's what I would gather.

RP: And later on they had a formal baseball diamond between Block 25 and Block 19.

SK: Yeah, I don't know. They may have had.

RP: But your dad played baseball pretty regularly there?

SK: Yes.

RP: So that was a way of him kind of coping with things a little better.

SK: Right. Right.

RP: Did you also, there were groups of kids that got into weightlifting too.

SK: Yeah you know I, there may have been but I don't remember where they had that or who did it. Because I never did get into weightlifting. I didn't do... God, when, when did I... I don't, I didn't get into weightlifting until later on.

RP: Were there any other items that you wandered around camp collecting? Some kids collected arrowheads, some stones. Anything that caught your interest during the time you were...

SK: Hmm.

RP: ...in camp. Well you collected marbles.

SK: Yeah. I don't, I don't remember any other interesting things, I mean collection items. I don't remember.

RP: You said that you were, you became a master slingshot artist.

SK: No, not a master but I was pretty good at it.

RP: What kind of birds did you, did you actually...

SK: No they were like... you brought up the point of magpies and things like that and there used to be this... one of the birds that I remember specifically was the night... wait a minute. Was it called the night owl?

RP: Or was it night hawk?

SK: Night hawk?

RP: Yes, there are...

SK: Gray, kind of a gray thing that... yeah. I don't know why we picked on them. But I remember, I remember one that I hit but I kept him as a pet because I broke its wing so I kept him for a pretty long time.

RP: Was that a night hawk?

SK: Yeah. And they eat worms and things, you know, the earthworms. They're, I guess they were like meat eaters.

RP: So you had to go collect worms?

SK: Yeah.

RP: Where was the best place to get worms in camp?

SK: Well you had to go into those woods area and dig in the soft spots. You couldn't find it in the, near the barracks.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.