<Begin Segment 13>

RP: This is tape two of a continuing interview with Clyde Taylor. And Clyde, you were, we are just sharing a story about your hunting adventures. And you graduated from Big Pine High School in 1947?

CT: Yup.

RP: And you and a friend hit the road on a little adventure. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

CT: You're gettin' a long ways away from this game.

RP: That's all right. It's all...

CT: Okay. The day after we got out of school, I think it was the day after, I had an old car, '35 Plymouth I think, coupe, so Leon Lay and I had thirty some dollars, and he had just a little bit less than that. So we took off. And had no idea where we were going. We just went. So my sister and her husband worked at Herlong. He worked in the head of house there. So we stopped there for a couple days. Then we got a job at the igloos where they, where they put the shells and stuff for protection. They'd put it in an igloo and then they'd put lots of dirt over the top of it. I guess it's an igloo, you'd call it. Quonset hut.

RP: Oh.

CT: Sort of like a Quonset hut. Half of 'em underground and then they'd... so we got a job there and we stayed a couple days and then that was enough so we still had money left so we didn't even get our paycheck. We told 'em to send it home. So then we went up on 395, had a pretty good trip. Fishing in a fishing stream. Caught a couple fish for supper. We got up to Pendleton. We was gonna start lookin' for a job but we just, I don't know, we didn't like it too much so we started towards the Columbia River. We got to the Columbia River and then the, it was a ferry across to Washington. I wanted to go to Washington, I don't know why. But Leon didn't want to go. He was about broke. So we flipped a coin and I won. So we went to Washington. And we were so broke we stopped in a farm place to see if we could find a job where they hired out of the farm bureau or whatever, I don't know. And the guy come in, pickin' people, "You, you, you, and you come with me." So we went with him and we went clear up into Wenatchee, way up. Beautiful place. Up the Wenatchee River, up through the river, the lake, almost to Canada I think. And they had a job thinning apples. You know how to thin apples?

RP: No.

CT: When they're small you hold the apple and you hold the stem and then flip the apple off. Okay, I learned that. That's about all I learned. So then... we quit there. We was tired. I wasn't tired. I would have stayed longer but Leon didn't want to do it anymore. So we went down the Columbia to Portland and down from Portland to Drain. And of course I knew some of the kids from high school there. That was just a party. Big, not a big party, but a pretty good party. We got a job in a motel. We'd clean up the yard and they'd give us a room. But it was only a dollar a night for the room, but we'd clean up the, whatever, the weeds and stuff. So the lady gave us a room. And then we left there and came back home. Oh, and then we got down to Lee Vining. And we ran out of gas and ran out of money. And I had a carton of twenty-two shells that we had taken along just for fun, and an old single shot twenty-two. We'd never use it or anything but we still had the carton of shells. We stopped in a service station to see if we could trade the shells for some gas. And while we was in there talking to the man, lo and behold, our team, our town team, was playing Lee Vining, baseball I believe. And his parents were coming down and they saw us and they pulled in there and bought us a tank of gas, tinkered with our car a little bit, and got us home. And we had the thirty bucks left from our job when we got home. So that was our month-long excursion.

RP: Great adventure.

CT: Slept in the car, except for that place at Drain where the lady gave us room for a buck. Oh, an interesting part of that trip was coming over Tioga Pass, goin' east. It's a pretty steep hill up there.

RP: Right.

CT: I don't know if it still is or not but...

RP: That was a dirt road at that time wasn't it?

CT: No, it was, it was almost, real narrow, pot holes, real almost dirt. My old car wouldn't pull it over that hill. So, I'd slip the clutch and rev it up and Leon'd get out there and push and we got up the top finally and then it was all downhill. Made it home. [Laughs]

RP: So what were you driving?

CT: I think it was a '35 Plymouth Coupe.

RP: Huh. That was your car?

CT: Yeah, it was mine. Hundred dollars from Tiny Gates. My dad was so mad at me for buying that. He could spit, but he didn't. It was all right.

RP: We were talking earlier about some of the other ethnic groups or I should say ethnic individuals and in, in Big Pine, you mentioned a gentleman by, a Chinese guy, by the name of Wing Fu?

CT: Yeah.

RP: Yeah, what do you remember about Wing Fu?

CT: Just a nice guy, different, looked different, acted different, stayed by himself. That's all I know. But nobody bothered him. He didn't bother anybody and he was just part of the town. And he was just, his personality is, was different from the rest. Nobody thought anything of it.

RP: Do you recall if he ran a store or a restaurant?

CT: I don't know where he worked or how he worked. I just don't know and I don't remember if I ever knew. Rowland Fansler I think bought a lot or something from his, I think. He mentioned it when I was workin' and coming by through the town one time there.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.