<Begin Segment 8>

KL: What can you tell me about the schools that you guys attended growing up? What was its name, the elementary school?

ST: Half Moon Bay elementary school.

MS: The one and only.

KL: Are there any teachers or friends who stand out that you remember from school?

ST: Yeah, my first grade teacher. I really liked her.

MS: What was her name?

ST: Miss Angelini.

MS: Oh, okay.

ST: I used to dream about her. [Laughs]

MS: I didn't know that.

KL: Why did you like her?

ST: Oh, she was nice and pretty and young.

MS: Were they, it was part of the store owners, the Angelini grocery store?

ST: Yeah, yeah.

MS: See? I finally got all things...

KL: Yeah, was that the grocery store you usually went to?

ST: Oh, yeah.

MS: I think there was only two grocery stores in town, huh?

ST: Angelini and Cunha.

MS: Speaking of school, that reminds of the other story about Mickie.

ST: What's that?

MS: When we walked to school, that was again an argument with Anita, our neighbor. She wasn't in school yet, so she had to be... because we didn't have kindergarten, and Half Moon Bay started at six. So she must have been like five, five and a half. That makes me like three and a half. And we had gone down again to visit Anita and play, and then Mickie started in with, "We're gonna go to school today." And Anita says, "No, you can't go to school yet, 'cause you're too young." "Yes, I can," "No, you can't." "Yes, I can." Stubborn Mickie says, "Well, we're going," and she takes my hand, she says, "Come on, we're going to go to school." Well, school is, like, okay, one mile down to the highway.

ST: Over three miles from our home.

MS: Was it that far?

ST: Yeah.

MS: And then another mile and a half to school?

ST: What? I said to school was about three miles altogether. We used to walk it.

MS: Yeah, I'm talking about when we were three and five here. [Laughs] And stubborn Mickie, so she grabs my hand and we did walk. And we made one stop at this other girl's house on the way, and that was almost in town. And they had a ditch in front of their house, and then they had a walkway over. And clumsy me, I fell into the ditch, and it was wet, and so here I am all muddy. And after we got done visiting there, Mickie makes me get up and go with her again, and we ended up going to the school. This is when they had the old school, the two story. And she knew where the first grade class was. So here I am all muddy, and we're up at the window looking in like this. And I could still see Hattie's face, she saw us and she goes like this, you know. She went up and talked to the teacher, and the teacher sent someone upstairs to find Tsuki. And Tsuki comes down and says, "What are you doing here?" [Laughs] There we were. And Mickie won the argument, because we did go to school.

KL: Yeah, did Anita give up ever, trying to win?

MS: Well, she won the... well, I guess she did win both the contests, didn't she? I don't remember how we got home. I guess Tsuki must have called one of the boys and had us...

ST: Well, back then, they didn't have a car, you know.

MS: Well, I don't know how we got home, then.

ST: Walked.

MS: I don't remember walking back home again. They must have someone arranged to get someone to take us home.

KL: That was your first grade orientation, huh?

MS: Yeah.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2015 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.