Densho Digital Archive - George H. Morishita Interview (denshovh-mgeorge

<Begin Segment 9>

GM: And I think when I was in the fifth grade, I wanted a bike so bad. And my mom took me to a friend's hotel down Wall Street, you know, Wino Junction today, and that hotel there, and I still remember this lady who happened to be one of my sister's piano teacher. She's a Nisei lady, too, and she was telling me, "This one old man, he was a drunk, he stayed here one night, and some kid must have sold this to him, stole the bike and sold it to him. It's probably a stolen bike, so if a police stops you, you found it, okay?" I said, oh, I wanted it so bad, "Of course, of course." And then I painted it, and I didn't realize, I just painted the whole thing black. And then the war started already, so I must have been ten. And I went to the Hollenbeck police station on First Street to get a license. And I remember the cop told me, "Come back Wednesday." And my mom would always ask me if I left the neighborhood, "Where did you go?" When I came home, I said, "I went to the police station. I have to go back Wednesday." She said, "You don't have to go back." And she was trying to explain to me that where we were going, you don't need that. She meant going to the camp. I said, see, I grew up thinking you keep a promise, some older people know, you never break a promise and all, you never stool on your friends and all that. And so I went back there with my young friend. And I'll never forget, this guy scrapes off where the ID number, he goes out in the hallway, whole bunch of clothes in plainclothes come in, I'm ready to faint. [Laughs] They're going through the motions, "Yeah, wow," and all that. And I'm petrified, and then this one plainclothesman, older cop, takes me and my friend into a, like an elevator shaft, but there's no elevator. A bench on one side where two people sit, he sat there, and we're here, and my friend started crying, so then he let him go. And I remember, mainly that's what I remember. This woman that gave me the police... I told the truth. I didn't say I found it. And I remember she was talking to the police sergeant or whatever, explaining, so that was okay. And then when I went back to school, Mrs. Parker said, "Where were you?" And I still remember just blurting out, "Police station," and she looked kind of shocked. So I didn't have a bike.

KL: How long did you have it? Not very long?

GM: I can't remember, but it was great. It was great while I had it.