Densho Digital Archive - Roy Murakami Interview (denshovh-mroy

<Begin Segment 11>

RP: Anything else that you can share with us about your growing up years in North Hollywood? First --

RM: We used to go climb the hills over there, climb into Universal's backyard. You had to go through the cow pastures first and then go up there, look around.

RP: So Universal Studios was already there when you were...

RM: Uh-huh. It was already there. I think it was in the '30s. We used to climb the hills over... up dirt hills on the back end of our house.

RP: Yeah, would you, would you watch them making movies or you saw any of that?

RM: No, no interest in it. We just went to see what, where Buck Rogers' spaceship was in the water that they make the battles of the ships, you know. They got it there. Big old tank. And it was interesting. A lot of fun. Then we'd go walking down the... it didn't have no channel now like it is a cement channel. So we used to walk down that all the way up to Colfax.

RP: Of the Los Angeles river?

RM: Uh-huh.

RP: Oh, before it was concreted.

RM: Uh-huh.

RP: What was that like?

RM: Oh, it's interesting. A lot of vegetation, frogs, and... you catch 'em, you know, let 'em go and stuff like that. It was something, four kids.

KP: Can I ask you something? What year were you born?

RM: '31.

KP: '31. So you wouldn't have remembered. There was a big flood in '33.

RM: '38.

KP: '38. Do you remember that?

RM: Yeah, we didn't go to school. [Laughs]

KP: But the L.A. River must have been...

RM: Yeah, it swept a bunch of houses. In fact, we heard that one of the Japanese families got swept out and we didn't, they didn't ever found 'em. They blocked the block and took out the bridge, weakened the bridge that's there, now at Universal. So you had to go down to Tujunga. There was a bridge there that you could cross, and so that's where we started going to school there. But it was really... took out everything. [Laughs]

RP: So normally, was there a flow of water in the river?

RM: Yeah, a little bit, trickle. Just enough, you know... you could, but fishing, want to fish but I don't know what the heck you could grab, something like that.

RP: Oh, so you tried to fish?

RM: Nah, you know, it's kids playing around.

RP: Uh-huh. It's sort of a place to get lost and...

RM: Yeah, yeah. To forget things. We used to climb up, or go up to Colfax and Burbank where about half a mile from our nursery there's, it was a Japanese farmer there that grew onions. And they had two boys and two girls. The girls were older. But the boys were just about our age. So we used to play with them for a while, go eat lunch with them. And then come, walk back.