<Begin Segment 21>

RP: Another location in the camp that's of importance to us right now is the Merritt Park area, used to be called Pleasure Park, there were large gardens and ponds in the camp, and you have a couple of photos in your albums about that. I was wondering if you -- I don't know if, Nancy, you would remember this location -- but Kiyo and...

AF: I remember, vaguely remember their camp, their garden, Japanese garden.

KT: I vaguely remember, too. It was near the hospital, wasn't it?

RP: It was near the hospital, right. And we're working on excavating that hospital right now.

AF: Oh, really?

KT: Oh, are you? How interesting.

RP: I saw a picture in your book of Harry Tashima.

AF: Yes, uh-huh.

NN: There's a sheet with about three other photos of the garden.

RP: Did you guy know Harry?

AF: Oh, yes.

NN: He lives in the west Los Angeles area.

AF: He was our coach, I remember, our baseball coach.

RP: Was he your baseball coach?

AF: He was our baseball coach. We had a little group of girls.

RP: He was a, of course, being a tall Nisei...

AF: Yeah.

RP: Everybody wanted him on his basketball team. But he was also a great, a great pitcher in camp.

AF: Yes, he's very athletic.

KT: Didn't he sing, too, a little bit?

AF: Yeah, he used to sing.

KT: 'Cause I remember accompanying him.

RP: Oh, you accompanied him?

KT: Yeah, that's right.

AF: Did you play piano for him?

KT: Just accompanied him.

AF: Oh, accompanied him? There weren't too many piano players, so she knows all the musicians.

RP: You got quite a bit of service there, between the Jive Bombers and the Sierra Stars and accompanying Mary.

AF: Yeah, there weren't too many piano players in camp.

NN: Did you play the piano -- there was two brothers, I don't know if they were twins, but they used to live in the west Los Angeles area, they used to tap dance.

KT: Oh, yeah, yeah.

NN: Did you ever play music for them or was it just a recording?

AF: Yeah, I remember them.

KT: Used to tap dance?

AF: Yeah, uh-huh.

KT: That I don't remember.

KT: [Addressing someone off camera.] Do you remember?

Off camera voice: [inaudible].

AF: Yeah, uh-huh.

KT: Do you remember any fellows that, males that --

NN: Was it Larry or...

KT: -- tap danced?

NN: It's after camp that they went to west L.A., but I don't know if they went before there or not.

AF: I remember them.

NN: Lane Nakano and his brother, too.

RP: Oh, yeah, Lyle.

Off camera voice: I know that group.

AF: That's right.

RP: Did you know them in camp?

KT: They weren't from Manzanar --

Off camera voice: They were in Poston.

RP: Oh, they were in Poston.

NN: Oh, they were in Poston.

RP: So Aya, were you taking lessons in Manzanar, too? Were you playing the piano?

AF: No, it stopped. I'm so glad. [Laughs] I was happy, I didn't like piano anyway, but my mother says, "You're going to learn piano today, so stick around." And I made it a point never to stick around. And to this day, I really regret it. 'Cause I wish, I wish I had stuck around to learn how to play like my sisters.

RP: Kiyo, did continue playing piano or accordion after you left camp?

KT: Oh, I don't remember.

AF: I don't think you did.

KT: I don't think I did.

NN: Well, you did teach Nancy Ozaki. You were teaching her the piano, you were giving her lessons after camp.

AF: Oh, that was right after the war, huh?

KT: That was just for a short while.

AF: My mother bought the accordion for me, but I didn't know piano, so my teacher said, "No, you gotta learn piano first," so I started to take piano just when the war started. And I said, "Oh, thank goodness, saved by the war." [Laughs] But I regret it to this day now, I wish I had learned a little bit.

NN: I was gonna say, when I was younger, when we got there, not too long after that, I came down with measles. And so I had to be put into the hospital, that was closer to, toward the high school area, I think, was it not? The first hospital. And I remember being isolated there for a while. And then later, there was, I injured myself on a stump of a tree, which was freshly cut. And so I was taken to the new hospital. I got initiated to two hospitals.

AF: Oh, I remember, yeah.

NN: But I don't know if you guys had any experience.

AF: No, not in the hospital, but I remember the hospital, it was Block 2 or 3 or 1 or something.

KT: Three, I think it was.

AF: And then went up to 12 or 6, way up there in the hills, the new hospital.

NN: But that's near that Merritt Park, did you say?

RP: Right, just across from Block 34. Most of the hospital workers lived in those two blocks, the Satos lived in, I think, 34.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.