<Begin Segment 21>

RP: And then eventually you relocated out of camp.

KO: Yes, I did. I finished high school and about a week after that, see, I was going to turn 18 in July, we graduated the end of May. So I told my mom I'm leaving. I don't know what made me do that. I chose Minneapolis, I don't know for what reason. But we did have a friend there, so two weeks after I graduated, I told my mom, "I'm leaving." She didn't believe me. I was going to leave on Monday, Saturday I started packing, what little I had. And I got on a bus and took a train to Minneapolis.

RP: What was that like for you? Leaving your family?

KO: Oh, it was kind of scary, tell you the truth. I didn't know what I was getting into. Very lonesome. I went all by myself. But they had a hostel there, they call it a hostel, nice house, this Mukai family volunteered to run the hostel. But he was an engineer for Westinghouse so he was pretty successful. But you were allowed to stay there so long, and I ended up in a boarding, rooming house, crowded, three guys in one bedroom with a sun porch, you know. That was better than nothing. Then we went out, and I remember when I first got there, I worked for a wholesale druggist. And I was filling orders with a bunch of other guys. I remember he said, "Hey, boy, you work hard, you do a good job, I'm going to give you a raise in two weeks." I waited a month and I asked him for a raise, and he told me, "You're lucky to have a job." [Laughs] Real nice guy. I walked out 'cause somebody else had a job available, he was getting drafted, at the American Legion Club, which was a very prominent club at that time, in Minneapolis. So I was hired there, and I waxed floors, mopped floors, waxed it, helped set up rooms for parties. Then late at night, I used to hang around with the bartender. When they would have poker games, the mayor and chief of police and them would have poker in the back rooms. They would ask me to stay, and I learned how to make drinks and how to serve them. And drinks in those days were 60 cents. I got a dollar for each drink. [Laughs] But they would play most of the night. I remember that very distinctly, Chief Hillner was the chief of police, and he was very nice to me.

RP: The chief of police of Minneapolis?

KO: Huh?

RP: Of the whole city, Minneapolis?

KO: Yeah, American Legion. Then the mayor, the funny part was after I went into the service and stuff, then I heard they were accused of corruption. [Laughs] But the whole thing was, he would send me down to the butcher shop, a nice butcher shop. I'd come back with two shopping bags full of meat, no food stamps. [Laughs] And I remember him packing steaks, the butcher and stuff. And I think that's the kind of thing he got... in fact, he would offer me, "Why don't you take the steak home?" I says, "Elmer, I can't cook steak in the rooming house." That's some of the more humorous... but the person was very nice to me and the American Legion Club, the manager was really nice to me, just really took care of me. He appreciated, I guess, what we did.

In fact, then I left that job 'cause I had a job at the American Bridge Company when I was eighteen and I was learning from, I think it was Eddie Pafco, became the star third baseman for the Chicago Cubs. He had just come up to majors, but he was a spot welder and we were working on portable carrier decks at American Bridge Company, part of U.S. Steel. They hired me, my job, he was trying to teach me how to spot weld, my job was to clean up the welds, the dirty work, you know. But he was very nice to me and it was a job that paid half decently. I did that 'til I was drafted.

RP: So you go from being put in an internment camp to working on aircraft carriers?

KO: Yeah, I remember that, cleaning up welds. I tell you, that was interesting.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2007 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.