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RP: This is a continuation of an oral history interview with Celeste Teodor and this is tape two. And Celeste, you were just about ready to share with us your experiences with some of the hobos that you visited.

CT: Yes. It was a hobo camp, but these hobos, they were well-read. They were educated people who fell on hard luck, I guess, after the Depression era, but they were still living there in hobo camp. But they were nice, used to tell us stories and, and when I say us, I was with, usually with my girlfriends who also ran away to visit the hobo camp. And --

RP: From the same home that you were in?

CT: No, no, no. Girls from the private homes.

RP: Oh.

CT: 'Cause we, I had girlfriends other than the home, and so we would go down there and visit them and... a lot of them were alcoholics, though, but they would tell us interesting stories about life and they wanted to make sure that we didn't, trying to teach us, 'cause we were young and, and to teach us not to go their path and things like that. And they never, we were not afraid of them. They were very, very nice. Of course, we, when you're young you do a lot of stupid things and one of them was going to a hobo camp unchaperoned. [Laughs] And so, but that was just one of our experiences in running all over L.A. Going to Hollywood, the [inaudible]. We had no money, but we could at least visit the outside. And just one adventure after another. We, we enjoyed that. We enjoyed the freedom. Freedom to me was more important than anything else, not being restricted to be at home at a certain time. But that, now that was in junior high school, at Jessie M. Bloom's house. That's before I moved out to the country at the Japanese family.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.