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RP: Can you describe your parents to us and what you remember most about them in terms of their qualities and their personalities?

CT: Just hard-working, common people. I think my dad went to the fourth grade. My mom graduated from a Catholic school in Missouri. But they got married anyway, so... in fact, he's a Methodist and my daughter and I are both Methodist too. All sort of a coincidence.

RP: We're at the Methodist church.

CT: Yeah.

RP: You said that you used to go out and hunt. What did, what did you hunt? Deer?

CT: Anything that moved almost, that was small enough to shoot. There was no, no license. Nobody... if you heard a shot, they just figured somebody just shot something. Just a free, free-wheeling community. The nearest neighbor was way down the road, probably a quarter of a mile. No neighbors the other way. So I had miles and miles of forest to hunt in.

RP: Do you, you mentioned the Depression years that you moved from California to Drain, Oregon, during the Depression. Do you, do you remember any experiences or what it was like to go through that time?

CT: Well, there wasn't any money for the kids especially. If they went to town and got a nickel, that was quite a bit. I think my dad got ten cents a post for cedar posts. And then maybe a dollar, dollar and a half for a tier of wood that he'd cut and haul in. So it was just a... the Depression to me didn't mean... I didn't know what a Depression was. I was having a good time even though I had to do my chores and stuff. But, no, it wasn't a bad time for me. I didn't remember it as a depression at all except from what they told me later on.

RP: What about, did you have a social life? Would you go into town occasionally?

CT: Oh yeah. My dad would haul the wood and he'd take me in and not much of it. And they had the, their quilting things that they're, I don't know what they call it, at a community center I think. I don't think they called it a community center but that's about what it was. And then the school had their different programs and the parents were always there.

RP: Where did you go to school, Clyde?

CT: Where? In Oregon I got through the seventh grade in Scott's Valley, it's in a little valley in between the Yoncalla and Drain. And I graduated from Drain Grammar School in Drain. And then from there?

RP: Well, let's stop right there and can you tell me what kind of student were you in school?

CT: Oh, pretty good, not bad. School always was important to me.

RP: You had this tremendous degree of freedom growing up there. Did you, did you ever get into any trouble with, with your parents? Wandering around or...

CT: No, no, no.

RP: No?

CT: No. It was the only place you wandered was out in the bushes. You didn't wander in town. Except from the eighth grade. Then into town, I got the little bit of the town fever. Once in a while we'd pick up a cigarette butt and get enough to roll a cigarette, you know, but yeah that's about it. Snuck into the movie theater once in a while. Cost us a dime to get in but we didn't have a dime. [Laughs] First job was a dime an hour.

RP: Where was that?

CT: In Drain. First real job. Getting wood stuff ready for a, for the motel. They built the fires, so I'd have to get the wood and the kindling and put it in the stove for the fire. It was a dime an hour. Cheapest job in town. That's probably why I got it.

RP: Who was your best friend growing up in Oregon?

CT: I couldn't answer that. I didn't bum around with anybody, I mean strictly a one on one. I got in a fight, the first day I got into the Oregon and the day before school started, into Drain, the town, was going to go. Got a big black eye and I had to go to school with a big black eye. [Laughs] That was a little embarrassing.

RP: What was the, if you can recall, what was the ethnic makeup of Drain and that area there?

CT: I couldn't say. It was... what do you mean by ethnic?

RP: Did you grow up with any Asian folks?

CT: No. One hundred percent white.

RP: Okay.

CT: And not even hardly any Indians in that part of the country. Just white, white all over. I don't think I saw my first black person 'til we took a trip from Big Pine to... no, from L.A. back East when I was real small. This is sort of a funny story. My sister and I were not very nice in the back seat of this old Chevy that my mom and her sister were driving back to Saint Louis to see their folks. And I was acting I guess not very good and they happened to see a black guy on the side of the road and my aunt says, "If you don't" -- my mother said this I think -- "If you don't be good you're gonna turn black just like that man over there." And that was my first impression of a black man. But, she didn't mean it in any derogatory manner. It was just trying to get me to be quiet and I think it worked. I told that to a friend, a black person workin' around our yard, and I told him, "Don't get mad at me. This is the way it happened." He laughed just as hard as I did. So, it wasn't bad.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.