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KL: What do you recall of the festivals or the bazaar? Can you describe, like, who would be there, how crowded it would be, what kind of foods?

WI: Well, first of all, yeah. You see your friends there, and the parents would give us a quarter. And a quarter went a long ways to play the concessions and win the goldfish in the thing, and just a lot of good times. And of course at that age, you're so impressionable that, god, everything just seems so grandeur. So that was a good experience. And, of course, when my grandmother would make the feast for oshogatsu, New Year's. Oh, that was really something, that was so beautifully decorated, and everything tasted so good. Then you go from different homes and they would have basically the same type of cuisine, but you know, the taste is different and everything. And because it's so shortly after Christmas, your friends had all their Christmas toys out there to play with. So all of this is like memories that just... boy, it's really coming back to me now during this interview.

KL: I'm glad. You would start off at your grandparents' house then, for New Year's?

WI: Well, we would have our own feast. You get up in the morning and you would have the traditional ozoni soup, which was a good luck soup with a mochi, the rice thing in there. And you would have that, and then you started, and all day long, you're kind of gorging yourself. [Laughs] And, of course, back then, there was no Rose Bowl game to watch. I guess people listened to it.

KL: You mean you had to talk to each other? [Laughs]

WI: Yeah, we had to talk, exactly. Another great memory was my father was a gadget freak, so I grew up having my home movies taken of me growing up. And so when... on a Saturday night, especially, he would go in the closet and bring out the projector, set it up, open up the big screen, and then run the home movies that he took. But he would always enhance it by buying a Mickey Mouse cartoon. And I grew up basically watching old black and white Mickey Mouse cartoons before I even remember seeing cartoons on the big screen in a movie theater. So I guess I always knew the art of animation.

KL: I wonder where he got those.

WI: Oh, you could commercially buy 'em, you know, go to the local Woolworth, five and dime store, and go to the photo section and they had newsreels, and they had comedy shorts and stuff, and of course, the array of Mickey Mouse cartoons. So we had a good collection of those things. So I was pretty much exposed to animated cartoons from a very early age.

KL: That's crazy that he had home videos of you guys.

WI: Yeah, well home movies.

KL: Yeah, yeah, sorry, film reels, yeah. Wow.

WI: Fortunately, too, they all survived. So when we came back from camp, we still had all of those in our closet.

KL: If you ever feel like you want to share them, it'd be great to see. That's really neat that you have those.

WI: Yeah. Unfortunately, I misplaced them recently. Well, not recently, but a few years ago. Now, I hate to say this, but I suspect that it was ripped off. Because when my wife had her surgery, we had a housekeeper or a care person come in and take care of her, then she would nap. I was at work at that time, so who knows? I mean, there are things we knew has been ripped off. But then recently I thought, "You know, Costco is offering where they would take film and transfer it, so I'd better do that." So I went where I thought I kept my film and projector, and it wasn't there. So I still have hopes that maybe I may have misplaced it, so I don't want to accuse anybody.

KL: Or loaned them to somebody?

WI: No, I never would have loaned it.

KL: Well, I hope they turn up, that's a great memory.

WI: Yeah, that would really make me sick if I knew for sure it was gone. Because other things are missing that we know was ripped off.

KL: You said your dad was a gadget freak and really into kind of technology and stuff. What sort of defined him as far as personality or interests?

WI: Well, now, he always loved making hobby planes, hobby ships, and hobby cars. He was always very good with his hands. So when we were in camp, one of the things that he started to do was local arts and crafts type of thing. Now, Topaz was a camp that was built on the old dried up Great Salt Lake. So you could just, you know, well, just dig down a few inches and you find shells that are bleached. And, well, sea things, fossils of old fish and all that. So one of the hobbies that many of the local Topaz people did was gather up these shells, match them in sizes, paint them with fingernail polish, red of whatever, and then make little floral brooches. And my father got to be so good at that that he was asked to instruct at a hobby class, which he did. And then they would take crepe paper, the long crepe paper, and then with a drill, put one in and tack it down, the other end, and then turn it, and it will turn into, like a string. And then he would take that and weave it and make a little basket, and then put the little floral brooch and all that. And he loved that type of intricate little things. In camp, he took up the trade of barbering.

KL: Let's actually, do you mind if we save that for a later part?

WI: Okay, sure.

KL: Was there anything that you, you know, that sort of defined your mom as far as her interests or personalities?

WI: My mom was very quiet. And she... how would I describe her? Of course, she was a wonderful mother and all that. And my friends used to describe my mother as the typical "Leave it to Beaver" mother, or "My Three Sons," with the little apron and the hair was always real nice, and always manicured. And I used to bring lunches to school that was just, all the other kids wanted to trade because my lunch was such. And so one of my real good friends in San Francisco described my mother as like the comic strip of that period, very popular, "Blondie." And in retrospect when I think about it, yeah, my mom was, she was impeccable, she loved to dress nice. One of the things she loved to do was walk from our home to downtown San Francisco and go shopping at the emporium. And all that walk, the hills and all, in high heels, and just dressed real nice. [Laughs] So that's one the memories I've had. But she was later, after we came back from camp, she became a real homebody, and used to love to just be at home. At one point she did want to go to beauty school and maybe become a beautician. At one point before the war, my dad says, "Why don't you open a little gift shop? Hallmark cards and little gifts?" And she was very interested in doing that, but then the war came and interrupted everything.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.