<Begin Segment 7>

RP: Your father was fortunate in the fact that he was allowed to leave the camp supposedly for a trip down to his nursery to collect stock and maybe those cherry trees, too. Can you tell us what you recall about the circumstances of that?

MN: I really don't know a whole lot about that. All I know is that, is what my brother told me, my older brother, what Francis told me. But they went, they were going and they were stopped in... I don't know if it was Lone Pine or Independence or one of those small towns around there. And my father had forgotten his papers. I guess they were papers for passage. And they threw him in jail. And my brother didn't want him to spend the night there alone so he, you know, went in with him. But I don't know how it was resolved. They must have... well, they must have, they must have had guards with them, I don't know. Because I don't think they would have been allowed to go out by themselves.

RP: But to your recollection it might have, he might have been taken in in Lone Pine?

MN: I think so. I'm really not sure.

RP: Maybe he was able to go back to Manzanar and get his papers.

MN: Maybe, maybe. Or else maybe they had guards. But I'm thinking that what you suggested. That they, they must have guards or something with them, somebody with them. I don't know. But to my own recollection, I don't recall it myself. It's just what my brother had told me, yeah.

RP: Do you recall him bringing back plants and...

MN: No. No, I have no recollection of that.

RP: Too busy going to high school.

MN: Yeah. I know. That's it, we were just... I mean camp in general, you know how so many people were affected, is like we were just there having fun, you know. We were at the age when we were, you know, middle, early, middle teens, and we didn't know a lot of the serious stuff that was going on.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.