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RP: And talk a little bit about your Manzanar experiences. I know you were there for just a short time, but you did get, have employment there. You worked at the reservoir, is that correct?
TI: Yes, I worked for the reservoir.
RP: And did they assign you to that job or is that something you asked to do?
TI: Oh, no, I volunteered for it. Mainly because I figured I could do a little fishing. [Laughs] So the money I got, what is it, fifteen dollars a month, I think it was, was peanuts, actually. But I figured I can sneak in some fishing, so that was good.
RP: And you did.
TI: I sure did.
RP: And tell me a little bit about your fishing background. You're right here by the ocean, did you fish the ocean or did you...
TI: Oh, I used to go ocean fishing, but I did a lot of trout fishing, too, though.
RP: Where is that?
TI: Up in the Fresno area, Sequoia.
RP: Sequoia National Park?
TI: Yeah, on the outskirts.
RP: And did you, you made a few trips up to the Eastern Sierra as an assistant scoutmaster.
TI: Oh, yes. I became, I was assistant scoutmaster for a couple years, but then they talked me into becoming a scoutmaster. So I became a scoutmaster, so I had to take these guys on their summer camp trip somewhere. So I figured I'd been up to the Eastern Sierra before, so I thought I'd take 'em up there. So we ended up going up there, up in the... I can't recall what it was called anymore.
RP: Was it the Mammoth area?
TI: Oh, yes, it was behind Mammoth.
RP: Oh, Horseshoe Lake?
TI: Horseshoe Lake, right. That's where I took 'em. There was a campground there where we spent the next ten years, I guess, going up there.
RP: And this was a week-long trip that you would take?
TI: Yeah, one week long. It was considered kind of a summer vacation for us and my family.
RP: You also spent some time with the scouts at Mount, on the Mount Whitney trail.
TI: Oh, yeah, that was back in Lone Pine.
RP: Lone Pine.
TI: Yeah. Mount Whitney, went up there three times. That's quite a long, nice long trip, but it was good.
RP: And was that a one-day trip that you took all the way to the top and back?
TI: Three day.
RP: Three days?
TI: Yeah. We only spent, well, one day up and then one day down.
RP: Oh, so you camped up at the, at one of the campgrounds?
TI: Oh, yeah, base of the camp, base of the mountain in a campground there.
RP: How many kids would you have?
TI: We had about fifty, fifty-eight kids, I think, in the troop. But not that many made that trip there. I guess about twenty-something, roughly twenty.
RP: What did it feel like to be out of the city and up there?
TI: Oh, it was great. Really nice up there at that time, especially. Today, a lot of people go there, but not those days.
RP: Yeah, that was before the war, too.
TI: No, after the war.
RP: Oh, after the war you were taking trips up there?
TI: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, before the war, I was too busy working.
RP: And I know you've talked to Corey about the fishing stories a little bit, but did you, did you bring equipment up to Manzanar with you, or did you just order it?
TI: No, in Manzanar, when I first started fishing, you had to use whatever you can do, so you'd go and cut yourself a piece of willow tree and tie a string on it, and fish that way. But then in about a few weeks, a months' time, we started getting stuff from Sears-Roebuck. And we'd get regular fishing lines and hooks and stuff like that. So it was altogether different then. Good thing we had Sears-Roebuck.
RP: It is. And did you, did you fish Shepherd Creek or all the creeks?
TI: Mainly Shepherd's Creek. Because that's where the water coming from, the camp. And lot of fish in there, too.
RP: And you caught fish.
TI: Oh, yeah. Yeah, we caught a lot of fish.
RP: You brought 'em back, brought 'em back into camp?
TI: Back into camp and give 'em to friends that were in the block.
RP: Mess hall?
TI: Yeah. Yeah, we couldn't sell 'em. [Laughs] So we just gave 'em away.
<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.