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RP: You mentioned your other three sisters. You also had a brother.

MN: I had a brother. He was next to me in, age wise, 'cause I'm the bottom of the barrel there. And he kind of, when I went to school he kind of looked after me. For a short time we were both in elementary school real close by here, and he would see to it that I got to school, 'cause you know, and he would put me on his bike and take me down to school. I'd get grease on my dresses. [Laughs] And so there were times when, if Grandma didn't have time to make my lunch or something, well, he would go around to the corner there, and there was apparently a small short order place where they would have hamburgers, and he would leave the grounds and go buy a hamburger and then wait for me to get out for lunchtime and bring it to me. But I remember, even if, when he was learning, he had a car, as we grew older he still saw that I got to school okay. And then after school, well, then my mother had one of her drivers come down and pick me up. And as I got older I got to walk home. [Laughs]

RP: Now, something else to mention about your brother is he got involved in race cars.

MN: My brother, yes.

RP: How did that all come about?

MN: How did I, well, I guess when he was in his, maybe his high school days, he used to like to, and he had friends that liked to take cars apart. They didn't, no one bought new cars. They'd take cars and they'd, everyone had their own little specialty that they did, and he had friends that were in the garage business too. In fact, I believe there's some that, we just learned recently, I think Shari said it was at Santa Monica, there's a few of the garages down there that they used to have, help build up the cars and things, racing cars. But he, I don't know how he got to know, because in school, when he went to school he used to do beautiful work. He did, like, they used to teach woodshop and things. It was like cooking and sewing for the girls. Well, he made some beautiful tables and things, and I think Sumi has some around here that he made. We still -- the solid wood, nothing of this plastic or artificial. But he got to, he had friends that worked on cars and they built up cars, and how he got to racing, I really don't know. But they all used to go up to, was that Muroc Dry Lakes?

RP: Did you ever go out there and see him race?

MN: No. Apparently if you, apparently it was a hard day drive. You leave like, real late at night, like ten o'clock or midnight, because it was so hot, and then apparently they raced early in the morning. But he, as far as I know, he had like two cars, not at the same time, though. Gradually, as you work up you get one basic car, and then you get rid of that one and you get another one. And then the final car he had, apparently you have a picture of it. That one was, he told, and my mother used to tell him, this was after had graduated and everything and she said, "You know..." in those days, if you're in, if you're about eighteen, nineteen, you better grow up. [Laughs] So she said that, she says, "You're old enough now," she said, "to take on a little more responsibility." He helped at the shop and did things like that, driver, and he did the delivery too. But so he said, "Grandma," he said, he kept winning these trophies, and at the time I thought, "Oh, that's nice." But being a teenager, it didn't really mean that much to me, 'cause all the fellows would come by and they'd come in their jeans and things and they'd be talking about car things or they'd be taking one car apart in the back. So anyway, so it didn't mean -- but now, I mean, as you think about it, he told her he was racing and he was getting these trophies all the time. Many of the trophies, we still have them. We still have them. But there's a car sitting on top, all these beautiful trophies with his name engraved, and I think the last one I remember was like a big plaque or something with a car on it. But he said, "Grandma, if -- Mom," he says, "if I win this one more race," he says, "then I promise you I'll settle down." [Laughs] He did win one of the big ones, though, up in Muroc, and they used to go to Salt Lake City. Apparently there's some salt flats up there. They used to go up there too, drive like all night. But I know Muroc Dry Lakes, and so to me, I don't know, that seems, there's a meaning to that place for us. And no ice chest, I don't know, they used to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and take it to the water. But he built the cars and so even, I don't even, I don't think he took his own regular car apart. He did the racing cars, fixed 'em up really shiny, shiny. Did a lot of the work himself. And it's amazing, there's probably several people yet that, in his era, are still living. And Shari took me to a, one of these car shows, not just the new cars, these were for the racing, in Pomona not too long ago, and I was so impressed. I was so happy to be able to go 'cause these are some of the people that he had worked with, and they mentioned his name. In fact, they even gave us a representative saying that part of Dan -- his name was Dan too, Daniel -- but, "Dan's family is here and they wanted us to let them know who we were," and it was really, it was quite an honor. But all these years, and these men are up in their eighties, I'd say late eighties maybe and some are in their early nineties, and some are still, they're able to remember things and talk about old times.

RP: Unfortunately Danny met a untimely death.

MN: He met an unfortunate accident right after this, the last race he won was, I think it was like a hundred and twenty miles an hour or something. Anyway, he won that race and it was just about a month or so after that. He'd just turned twenty-one too, and a motorcycle accident. And our family never, well, what was told to my mother was he was up in the area here, which is called Forestland Drive, but it was called, I think, Mulholland Drive at the time. It's the street in the back of the hills here, of Griffith Park, and apparently, I don't know what he was doing, racing or what, boys are boys, and he had gotten a -- 'cause he didn't have a motorcycle; my mother never said too much, but she was against motorcycles, you know? [Laughs] And so apparently he was on the motorcycle and went over, around this curve, and they said that the sun blinded him and he hit a telephone pole in this big open space, went around the corner and apparently gravel or something and he skidded up. It was... so this is, this is what they told her, that he had died on the spot. So we never got to really see the, you know. That road is, it's now called Forestland Drive, but it gives you a funny feeling when you go there, knowing that it's the spot. But unfortunately, that's what happened.

RP: Yeah, like Dead Man's Curve.

MN: Yeah, so he never made that final, final race that he told her. And she wondered, "Why are you so intent on going on this one race that you think, you've gotten all these trophies?" He said, "They're offering a television." And that's when television was apparently brand new, and there's this young fellow named Tommy Lee, he has, I understand there's a radio station or something near the Hollywood sign up here. Anyway, apparently he was doing the sponsoring of that and gonna donate, and he said, "That's what I'm gonna get for you, Mom." But that never happened. But, and just recently -- this is, what, seventy years ago -- there's so many people, his name pops up in some of these magazines, hot rod magazines. It's interesting. In fact, I met a friend -- I used to take, I used to go ballroom dancing -- and we were talking and then this fellow said to me, out of the clear blue sky he said, he was living in New York at the time and he said, "You know," he said, "there used to be a --" and he was Japanese; this group we danced with were Hawaiians, Japanese, mostly Orientals -- and he said, "There's this young fellow," he says, "When I was in New York, I read in this hot rod magazine about this young fellow." And he said, "It's too bad that he had to die so young." And I said, "What was his name?" So he, and he told me. He said, "His name is Dan Sakai." Well, of course my name is different, it was Nagai, so, and I said, "Oh, that was my brother." And he says, "You're kidding." And I said, "Yes, that was my brother." And he said, "Oh," he said, "I'll be doggone," he says. [Laughs] Well or course, he's the fellow that was interested in cars because he had a garage or service station or something in New York, and so he, anything with cars, he was interested in. It's interesting how many people...

RP: Still remember him.

MN: Yeah, remember.

RP: Thank you. That's a great story.

MN: But it was, he, I guess he died of fast, he had a fast life, young life.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.