Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Osamu Mori Interview
Narrators: Osamu Mori
Interviewer: Richard Potashin
Location: Concord, California
Date: April 14, 2010
Densho ID: denshovh-mosamu-01-0012

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RP: Sam, did you work in camp at all, during your time there?

OM: Well, I didn't officially work. Well, officially I guess I did work for summer time for maybe around two months. I led a group of young kids, my age, stacking wood, in other words, for wood to be dried after they'd been cut so they wouldn't bend and this and that. You had to restack it and that was my job was kind of foreman, I was paid a great sum of nineteen dollars a month, which is equivalent... doctors were paid that kind of price. You know, I was acting as a foreman, but that lasted a couple of months. And then in Tule Lake I worked for my mother, in lieu of her, I worked and learned a little cooking skills. But other than that I didn't work, I was too young, you know.

RP: Was there a sawmill located outside of Jerome?

OM: You know, I'm not sure where it was located. I know the lumber that was stacked there was in camp, was in the camp. And it was kind of a, when you think about it, I think about it now, it's really kind of damp wood, I mean, the whole area was damp because when we used to go, not that I could swim, but we used to get in the river, creeks or whatever, and go swimming. Everything is just kind of wet and moss covered and things like that, it used to be but I understand that now, because it's been dredged, the U.S. Corps of Engineers... I remember when we were still there, they were setting dynamite to dredge the swamp. And I can still remember when they used to... whenever you hear the swamp being drained, a big bull... what they call, bull nosed catfish, they're big, they're like that now, like that, forty, fifty pounds, you know. And a lot of the local people used to come and with pitchforks in the holes where they set the dynamite, that's where the fish would come because that's the only water remaining, the rest had drained off. And they'd come with pitchforks and pick 'em up and take 'em home, you know. So that was kind of... and that's probably what happened, that's why today you see nothing but cotton farms, you know, all around there is cotton farms. And I guess it made the land valuable and it's all thanks to the Corps of Engineers, right?

RP: Did you have time in camp to fish at all?

OM: Excuse me?

RP: Did you fish at all?

OM: No, no, I didn't think catfish was edible myself. [Laughs]

RP: There was a fish called a gar that some folks remember.

OM: Oh, I don't know, see I don't know anything about fishing, you know.

RP: Like a barracuda like fish that some of the Isseis supposedly would mount on their walls sort of as a trophy?

OM: Oh, is that right?

RP: That was another story from Jerome.

OM: That's all I remember, catfish, those ones with the whiskers or something.

RP: So what else occupied your time at Jerome?

OM: Snake hunting, I remember we used to, you know, if we'd catch a snake, a nice big one, after we killed it or whatever, we'd hang it up, you know, on a trail like that. So unsuspecting people come and they... you know, whatever. Well, we did it because somebody did it to us, you know, we got caught in that same situation so we'd do it to the next guy that comes. But, you know, snakes were plentiful, I mean they had all kinds of poisonous snakes, cottonmouth, what else, rattlesnakes, I know, coral snakes, king snakes, all kinds of poisonous snakes. But fortunately we never did get, you know, attacked or bitten but a lot of close calls. People used to have what they call, they thought it was an exhibit, you know, they'd build a... they didn't have glass or plastic in those days, they used to use thin chicken wire like, you know, narrow ones so that you could see it and yet they can't get out. But that snake had to be big otherwise they could squeeze through these small... so if you had a small coral snake or something like that, you better not put it in there because it's going to disappear, you know. 'Cause I remember we had a gallon, you know, jar and we'd put a, I think it was a copperhead or something like that in it, and by god it was gone. In our unit. It was gone and now if somebody let it out or I don't know it got out because it can't get out... we had a lid on it with the holes in it, you can't get out of that I'm sure. It had to somehow get out, you know, but we searched high and low for that damn thing and never found it. But I assume it got away somewhere. I don't like snakes. [Laughs]

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.