<Begin Segment 14>

RP: The year that you played Manzanar High School, you were a junior at that point? Or what was your...

CT: If it was '44, I was a junior.

RP: Okay. And...

CT: 'Cause forty... let's see, that'd be, that'd be 1944 and I graduated in '47, so I, maybe a sophomore.

RP: Okay.

CT: I don't know.

RP: So did you remain part of the football team through the rest of your --

CT: Oh yeah.

RP: -- school years?

CT: Yes.

RP: Uh-huh. And how did the team do over the next few years?

CT: Oh, I don't know. It was just play as hard as you can. We won a few. Lost probably more than a few. But, there's no... just the idea of playing, the competition was a...

RP: Was a, was a high. A little rush.

CT: Yeah. Well, not the high. It was just the thing you had to do. Just like fishing. You don't go catch a little fish and get a little mad sometimes. Same thing. Just competition.

RP: How about academically? Were you, what type of student were you in high school?

CT: Fair. Nothin' spectacular. Passed all my courses. We had a science class. What's the stuff you put in the water that boils up and sort of explodes? Sodium? No.

KP: Sodium, I think.

CT: Sodium? You put it in water and poof. Well we knew this, this young science teacher. He was new to the place. We knew he always put the water down that sink. So we put some of that stuff in his drain, he turned on that sink, it went whoosh. Luckily nobody got hurt. But that's just something you can't forget. Somethin' like that. Nobody got in trouble 'cause knew who did it.

RP: Huh. Were there other little pranks that you liked to pull in high school, too?

CT: Oh yeah. We put a few stink bombs out in the hall from that class. We snuck in the girls' cooking class and hid all their stuff on the roof. Stuff like that. [Laughs] No big trouble.

RP: Nobody got hurt.

CT: Nobody got hurt. That teacher lucked out though.

RP: He's still wondering who did that.

CT: Pardon?

RP: I said that teacher's still wondering who did that.

CT: Probably. Everybody knew except him.

RP: [Laughs] Oh gol. Do you recall the, the day when the war ended, VJ Day?

CT: Yes, very much. I don't know if it was VJ Day or the European war, German war. But I think it was VJ Day. I think I was still in the service station workin' there. And everybody had a bottle out and everybody was givin' everybody a drink. And that was the first time I really drank any whisky that amounted to anything. I went home and passed out on our lawn. [Laughs] That, that sort of thing I remember about it mostly. And I don't remember which J Day it was. But that's what I do remember about it. You couldn't turn around without somebody shovin' a bottle into your face. That, you know, that's something where dances, or anything, everybody had a bottle in the back of their car. Everybody that went to the dance. Except the ones that stayed home, they probably didn't drink at all. But anyway, and that was if you go up to talk to 'em they'd offer you somethin' from... no matter if you... usually at the dances you was old enough to drink as far as anyone is concerned. But nobody really got sloppy. Hardly ever, you know, I don't, I don't remember anybody gettin' so drunk they couldn't walk or somethin', from that, from that. 'Course if the guys went out and sometimes you would. But...

RP: Did you, did you attend any events at Keough's Hot Springs or go out there regularly?

CT: Another interesting story if you want it. They were gonna hold... now this was after the guys came back from the service. And I could probably, I was a senior probably gettin' out of school. And they had gone to L.A. and some girls club they had told 'em where it was and I think they even paid some of their tuition to come up, I mean, bus fare to come up to Keough's and have nice outing. Well when they got up there they were all twelve, thirteen, fourteen year old. They was way too old, too young for the guys that just came out of the service. So all us guys, we've been waitin' around, we had a ball. They was all, you know, young girls that wanted to talk to us. But they didn't, they were too young for those other guys. So we took their girls out. [Laughs] That's my, well, Keough's was always a place to go swimming. Sometimes we'd go to Bishop, rent a horse, ride back there to Keough's. That's one time we did that, a bunch of us. Sometimes we'd walk. Not sometimes, but we have walked clear from Big Pine to Bishop just to go to the show. Just walk up there. Bunch of kinds and nice summer night, big moon.

RP: Do you remember your graduation?

CT: Do I remember my graduation? Not really. Probably bits and parts, but nothing special.

RP: Uh-huh. Do you remember the size of your graduating class?

CT: Pardon?

RP: The size of your graduating class in Big Pine?

CT: Yeah, it was larger than, than usual because of those two or three guys or four guys that came back from the service. So it was say seven or eight or nine maybe.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.