<Begin Segment 16>

RP: Did you... going back a little ways, before you left to go into military service, did you or any members of your family go to Manzanar to purchase any buildings or materials?

CT: No.

RP: Anything during the time the camp was being dismantled?

CT: No.

RP: Uh-huh. Do you know of any buildings or items from the camp that ended up in the Big Pine area?

CT: No, I don't.

RP: Okay.

CT: I think when I left it was still going wasn't it? No, no, it was gone then.

RP: You left at forty...

CT: '47.

RP: Seven.

CT: '49. It was gone then right?

RP: So when was your next visit back to Manzanar? You had played the football game.

CT: And I never did go back. Just by it. Just drove by it. It's right on the road, 395. My dad -- you asked if there was any mining -- my dad did, my dad and his brother had a talc mine on, not a big one, just a two man. They made a living there for a while. You go to Lone Pine, you turn left like you're goin' around the valley. And it's off to the left up there above the salt, above the lake. But he sold it, sold it later on.

RP: Did he have a name for that mine?

CT: Talc mine, I don't know.

RP: Just a talc mine? [Laughs] So you've never, you've never been into the interpretive center at Manzanar?

CT: No.

RP: Oh, I thought you had.

CT: Just saw it on TV a couple times. Always interested, but no, I've never been there. Why would I go?

RP: Maybe to go back and re-live those...

CT: That football game?

RP: That football game.

CT: Whoever wants to go back and relive a thirty somethin' to nothin' football game? Not me.

RP: a few more questions about the game. You did wear pads for your uniform?

CT: Oh, yeah, yeah, such as they were. The helmet was just, I don't even know if it was a hard helmet or not. I guess it was.

RP: And, it was, from what I've been told, a kind of a firebreak area in the camp. Just pretty much hard dirt.

CT: Probably was. Nothin', that was semi-normal.

RP: It was? How did it...

CT: Yeah. Well like that Trona, that's all they had. They'd been there a hundred years.

RP: Might, might have even been a little better than Trona, huh?

CT: Oh, I think so, yes.

RP: You didn't have those big rocks.

CT: No, they did have rocks in that, yeah.

RP: But you felt it. After the game did you feel kind of beat up or...

CT: I don't know, I don't remember it.

RP: The other thing that I was told was that I guess there was a barbecue after the game where both teams...

CT: I sort of vaguely remember the food but not, nothin' exceptional.

RP: Okay, uh-huh. Kirk, do you have any questions? Uh-huh. Clyde, do you have any other stories that you'd like to share related to the game or anything else in terms of your life in Big Pine, high school...

CT: No, not really.

RP: So, I have one last question. You know, sixty... this game was played sixty-five years ago. So how do you look back on that experience today?

CT: Oh, I'm glad that we went. There's nothing bad about it. And now that we're talking, I can, some of the personalities sort of ease through the conversation. But nothin' exceptional. I'm just glad that it happened. Then I could say that I played the Japanese in nineteen forty-somethin' I guess. But I never knew why. It just was another game, you know. It wasn't, there wasn't a big thing to me, to any of the team. I just hoped they don't have any kamikaze pilots there or somethin' like that. But no, it was just a game.

RP: Well, on behalf of the National Park Service and Kirk and myself, thank you so much for --

CT: Oh, you're very welcome.

RP: -- coming down here and sharing your stories about the game and everything else.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.