<Begin Segment 4>

RP: So what, what brought the family to Big Pine?

CT: Well, my father had asthma and he had to, the Oregon he wasn't doing too well in that position and he had a brother lived in Big Pine. And I don't know if his brother asked him to come or he just came to, because his brother was there. But he found he had a job and he moved to Big Pine and we moved down later on afterwards. And then he came back to Oregon and got everything squared away. But with the asthma he was gone a lot of the time. 'Cause sometimes when there wasn't any work or he couldn't make a living doing what we were doing, he had to go get a job in a mill or something away from home. But that was expected.

RP: What were your, was Big Pine a little larger or smaller community than...

CT: Actually smaller.

RP: Uh-huh.

CT: But the people were all about the same, friendly, nice people. Lot of 'em were Indians, though. I had never seen an Indian before that either. I remember the first time my sister and I, we saw an Indian walking by, we hid underneath in the back seat of the car. We were scared. [Laughs] Well, we didn't know. Maybe they had arrows. We didn't know.

RP: Yeah. So some of the stereotypes dropped away.

CT: Oh yes, yes. In fact some of 'em, when I went to Big Pine High there's lots of Indians there. Lots of friends were Indians.

RP: Can you give us, share a few names with us?

CT: Lucille Cyrus, I can't off the top of my head I can't remember their name. But there's a whole bunch of 'em. I don't have anything with me to...

RP: It's okay.

CT: I just can't remember the names. They're plain as day. I can visualize them, but I can't get the names to say what they were, their names were.

RP: Uh-huh. So you started junior high school in Big Pine.

CT: Yes.

RP: And can you recall how many students, what was the enrollment of that school at that time?

CT: Well, the grammar school was downstairs and the high school was upstairs. But to me it was quite a few, but it was less than the Drain, quite a bit less. No, I can't answer that. Not very many. I think our graduation was a little bit, little bit heavier than usual because some of the guys had started coming back from the service, the ones that were wounded and everything. They're on that, that sheet from, we brought that. Let's see it. Lisa, hand that to me please?

Off Camera: That one?

CT: No, the regular, inside more. [Looks at a piece of paper.]

RP: Oh, a program.

CT: This is... well, our, our varsity, our big varsity high school team was one, two, three, five, seven, eight, nine, ten people. No, six, seven, eight, nine people, three substitutes and that was our total football team.

RP: That was your team?

CT: And two of those, at least I know one of 'em was guys that came back from the service. Maybe two guys came back from the service on the team.

RP: Hmm. Yeah, we'll talk about that in a little bit.

CT: Yeah, just, just you asked for size. That's about the...

RP: That's great. Yeah.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.