<Begin Segment 12>

RP: There was a... let's talk a little bit about recreation and what you did on your off time at Manzanar. You said there was a club in Independence that you used to frequent?

RD: Yeah, I would call it most of a hospitality house, more or less. They come there, they'd always have tables and chairs and stuff in there, and a little place to meet in there, and people get together. We got to know some girls down there, and there was a restaurant across the street, we'd go in there and have coffee and stuff. And we'd meet down there and horse around all night long, maybe have a few drinks, something like that. Then we went to town, usually liquor was rationed at that time, and then payday, we'd go to, into Lone Pine, the one liquor store there. And the whiskey was the one that was really rationed, and we'd buy them out the first day. And then the only thing you'd get after that was your rum, vodka, or gin. And usually I suppose most of our paycheck went that way, 'cause we got, what, forty-six, fifty a month. And besides, playing cards and losing a little bit here and there and going to town, there was always a shortage of cash there. We played a lot of jawbone poker. You know what jawbone poker is? You put this, mark it down what you owe, and this payday, you pay it off. Played a lot of pinochle, played that for money, too.

RP: The club that you mentioned in Independence, you said at the time you were there, that they were shooting a movie. You met a few people from the...

RD: Well, that would, that would be on the other end, not down in Independence.

RP: Lone Pine?

RD: They were in the Alabama Mountains, which was between camp Manzanar and Lone Pine. And I understand those were the oldest mountains in the United States, I guess. And a lot of the Westerns were there. I'm sure, I can't remember whether... I remember Hopalong Cassidy, Big Boy Williams was there, and I think one time Roy Rogers might have been up there, but I don't remember for sure. I know they had made several movies up there, and we always come out, like I told you, we always come out pretty good. We'd go into town, all the actors and stuff would be in there and they'd buy us drinks all night long. So we had a pretty good time. As far as meeting any of the stars or anything, I don't, didn't see any.

RP: Now, when we talked last time, you mentioned that you used to hitchhike to Bishop. And, but Bishop was off-limits to you?

RD: Yeah. And I can't remember why, but I started going on it, but we used to take off, and we went down to Keough's hot springs down there, and we'd go down there on a night and spend a couple hours, hitchhike down there and come back. And sometimes when we had some leave, we stayed overnight. A bunch of us got together and stayed in one little cabin there. And then they had an indoor pool there with warm water, and regular cold water, we'd fool around there a little bit. We only went into the town of Bishop, California, a few times. Most of the time, the reason we went down there is Johnny's wife was living there and they had a baby. And then we'd sneak down there and see her and the baby. And, but I can't remember why we were restricted there. We weren't restricted from anyplace else. Why it was, I don't know.

RP: Tell us about, a little bit about Johnny.

RD: Well, I don't know what to say. Him and I got along real... we were real close. And he was Norwegian or Swedish or something like that, and he was a tall, light-skinned guy. And him and Bob and I ran around most of the time and did crazy things. Oh, Johnny did, he went to the infantry with me, and he was in the 264th and I was in the 263rd. We tried to get together, so we'd try and visit each other, but we couldn't make it, couldn't make it too often. We were supposed to, at the time, hiking and training and everything.

RP: The other gentleman that you palled around with was a guy named Bob Soames?

RD: Yeah, Bob Soames ran around with us quite a bit, too, yeah. And he was from Des Moines, Iowa, and, that's right, Bobby and John and Bob Soames, there was one red-headed kid there that we got along fairly well with. The was a little bit... I can't remember his name, that I pointed out on the one jeep, on the jeep that one part back there, I thought that was him, but I can't remember his name. Like I said, if Bob was here, he probably would remember. And I remember... I can't remember... now, where I lived, in San Francisco, was on Chattanooga Street, and I don't what direction, where we're going, but going up over the hill, about six, seven blocks away was Castro Street, and that's where Bobby lived. And I remember seeing him, but I can't remember, it had to be after I got out of the service. I don't remember just exactly when I went and talked to Bob about that. And then, I don't know, I guess we kind of lost touch then after that, I don't know why.

RP: While you were at Manzanar, did you have any type of physical training? Did you go out on hikes or marches and things like that?

RD: Oh, yeah, we went out on some marches, we went out and I remember we'd take off in the trucks. Why we were going up to Whitney Portal, I have no idea what we were supposed to be doing going up there, but I can remember we stopped and picked up a six-pack or two and drank it on the way up there and had some fun. I can't remember what we were going up there for. But I know we traveled around. And we had to go to Muroc Air Base for our, see a doctor or get teeth taken care of. And that's where most of our laundry and everything went. If you sent it out, it used to take about a week to get back, and that was about 120 mile trip down there. Just out of Mojave there, about 20 miles out of Mojave was Muroc Air Base.

RP: Now called Edwards Air Base.

RD: Pardon?

RP: Now it's Edwards Air Force Base.

RD: Oh, Edwards, okay. I remember in the summertime it was really... in the afternoon, coming back in that truck was just like a sweatshop. I only made a couple trips down there to the dentist.

RP: Yeah, how did you take to the desert, Russell? Because, you know, you'd grown up in San Francisco, a totally different environment.

RD: Yeah, I really don't know. I know in Arizona it cooled down at nighttime, and also there at Manzanar, because you had the mountains up there, and there was snow, and it cooled down at nighttime. It was a little cool in the morning, got hot during the day, I don't remember it getting that hot, but like I said, I don't remember too much about it. And we used to do calisthenics and stuff like that, you know, we had to do that in the morning sometimes. But most of the time we would go on the towers, we go out four hours, then we had four hours of our own time. Lay down and nap, do whatever we wanted, and back on duty.

RP: Now, did you ever talk about the fact that you were in the 319th Military Police Escort Guard?

RD: Yeah.

RP: Did you do any type of escort duty at Manzanar taking Japanese Americans somewhere else?

RD: No, never did any of that. Never hauled anybody anyplace. And then, like I said, when we, when they broke up the outfit, I don't know who came and relieved us, but we traveled by truck all the way down to Riverside I guess it was. Yeah, Riverside, I guess it was.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.