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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.