<Begin Segment 28>

RP: Did you know of any people that, that went out of camp to fish on the creeks?

MI: Well...

RP: Did you hear any stories about that?

MI: Dr. Kikuchi, who was head of the dental, used to tell us that, "You see the base of that mountain?" He says, "I used to always drive by here and said one day when I retire, I'm going up there and fish." I'm pretty sure he did. And I think some people did go up there to fish. Too bad, 'cause that trout would have tasted pretty good compared to what we were getting.

RP: Especially, yeah, that would really...

MI: Wouldn't that have been great? God.

RP: A lot better than the smelt. Yeah.

MI: Better than anything else.

RP: Also you mentioned about spending time at Bairs Creek, you know, swimming or wading.

MI: Not swimming, wading.

RP: Wading. Did you also have picnics there? Do you remember some very, very good times?

MI: Yeah, that was really good times where people seemed to be so free. And Japanese have a thing called taking bento, rice balls, and I don't know why, but rice balls always taste so good in places like that. You know, so where, if somebody was able to, they made rice balls and they would take it over. But that was about it because you couldn't buy anything else. Unless something good came in on the commissary and you'd buy that on your own. Or the, you bring some leftover from the kitchen. Oh, and the other things that were really funny, I'll tell you, but I don't know if it was funny but it was kind of tragic. When you first went to camp, we went to the mess hall. And they issued these aluminum plates with, or these darned handles that, you know, if you didn't put it in there properly, and most people did not, it'd tip over and all your food goes out. We had more accidents on that. That was an army issue. I remember that, thinking, "Gee this is ridiculous." And they'd just pile everything on top of it.

RP: And people were used to it.

KP: And then they would collapse.

MI: And then they'd collapse. Because somehow that little thing goes.

<End Segment 28> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.