Densho Digital Archive - Clyde Tichenor Interview (denshovh-tclyde

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MH: Something I'd like to get on tape also is I want to go all the way back to the beginning of our interview today. You spoke of your mother but I never got her first name.

CT: Ella.

MH: Ella. You spoke of your brother, but I did not recall his name.

CT: Cliff. Clifford, actually, we called him Clifford.

MH: And did you have any other brothers and sisters?

CT: Well, there was one brother that died as an infant, and his name was Richard, but he was barely born I guess, or something.

MH: So you spoke often of your brother, so it was just the two of you.

CT: And my mother, yes. My mother was, her family, mother and father were, came from Germany, and so she was pretty much all German. And my father was Scotch Irish, so I'm kind of half German, half Scotch Irish.

MH: And though you spoke of him dying at a very young age for yourself, what was his first name?

CT: Verne.

MH: Verne.

CT: Verne, yeah, same as my nephew. Some nurse fell asleep at night and didn't call people when they needed to be called. By morning, why, he was too far... in those days they didn't have penicillin, so he was too far poisoned by what happened, and didn't survive.

MH: That's all the questions I have.

KL: Is there anything else you want to add, something we didn't ask about that you think is important?

CT: No, I think I managed to pretty much cover the fact that the people here were all peaceful. With the possible exception of Kenneth Kuniyuki, and I don't know that he was in this camp. He was in another camp, and he was the only Japanese I ever knew that nobody liked. Anyway, that's neither here nor there now.

KL: I'm curious about him now, I'm going to have to look into him more.

CT: I guess he and Jack must have got into a big fight at Jimmy Cagney's place. That would have been something to see.

KL: Well, thank you again, we have some papers and stuff to look at.

CT: Well, thank you both for inviting me, and I'm glad I'm, happy to take and fill in historical material for you, but more of a personal touch on it.

KL: Especially since it shows those connections from before the war that people had across nationalities and across races. I think that's an important part of the story.

CT: And the reason it's not more known and more popular is because the judo people have always played it down and not pushed it and commercialized it. And for that reason, it's unfortunate because it's much more a useful martial art than the others are. As a matter of fact, you can get yourself put in jail for striking people, and there's no law against the things you can do from judo, not unless you use the strangling.

KL: [Laughs] That wouldn't be very, I don't know, peaceful, responsive, non-aggressive.

MH: I just want to say that on behalf of the National Park Service, we really appreciate you coming here today and sharing your recollections. It'll really benefit our oral history project, so once again, thank you very much.

CT: The honor is mine.