<Begin Segment 5>

RP: And when did you start working with models, Tom? When you were a kid?

TI: Yeah, the high school days.

RP: During the high school days?

TI: Oh, yeah.

RP: So you would make your own models out of balsa wood?

TI: Yeah, right, right.

RP: And paint them and everything else?

TI: Yeah, do the whole thing. Just a hobby.

KP: Were those balsa wood and tissue paper models?

TI: Right.

KP: And then lacquered or...

TI: Right, that's about it. But they were pretty good.

RP: Yeah?

KP: I used to build them, too.

TI: Huh?

KP: I built some, too.

TI: Really?

KP: Yeah. I made models.

RP: You also eventually got involved in, you know, repairing...

TI: Oh, that's kind of a funny story. When I went to high school, actually, I was thinking about going into the art business.

RP: Art?

TI: Art.

TI: And after I graduated, it was summertime, I got a job working in a market. And I made a few dollars, I think I was dragging in fifteen dollars a week, which was big money. And so I bought a used car, and when I lifted the hood up and looked in there, why, I thought, "By golly, I'm going to be a mechanic." So when fall came, I ended up going to a auto mechanic school in Los Angeles, and went there for two and a half years and became a mechanic, which is what I did the rest of my life.

RP: That started with that first car.

TI: Yeah, lifting the hood.

RP: Lifting the hood? And did you go to Santa Monica High School?

TI: No, no, University High School.

RP: Oh, University?

TI: Yeah, that's right up here.

RP: How far from here?

TI: Not very far, about a mile.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.