<Begin Segment 9>

RP: What did you remember about the first, recall, other than getting sick, what do you remember about your first weeks or months at Manzanar?

JO: Well, the first week I remember when I got out we were lookin' and goin' from mess hall to mess hall, find out where the best food was. But you know... 'cause every mess hall was, whoever the cook was, would, they did what they wanted with the food. So the people would be talking and you would go and you would hear and that's where you would go and the food was good. And then if the food was bad, they wouldn't go. They did change that. After a while they said you can't do that. Even though some people were doing it anyway, but there wasn't as many. They were getting after people.

RP: How was the food in Block 15?

JO: Well it, after a while, because most of these, I guess, they were all men cooking and things, a lot of 'em have probably never cooked before, something like that. But eventually all of them were, all the food was getting pretty good. 'Cause most of the time the guy that was in charge knew about food. So, the thing I didn't like about it was that, going through the line with the tray and stuff all the time. And some of the food that you would get you didn't want it, but you'd get stuck with it anyway. And so... yeah, it was quite an experience going to the different mess halls. It was fun at the time to do those things. Because you weren't eating with your family. You were just a bunch a guys get together or whatever and they go all together. And it never got to a point... I don't think the family ate that much together all the time we were there. My father was cooking up there, too

RP: Oh, he was?

JO: Yeah.

RP: That's the first time he had cooked. Had he cooked before?

JO: I don't know. I don't... he didn't cook at home because I remember before my sister did a lot of cooking. She was the oldest and my mom did the cooking then. The only thing he used to do is to make shochu. You know what shochu is? Out of melon and stuff like that.

RP: Huh. You guys have a bath back on the farm too? An ofuro?

JO: Let's see. We had a, not the Japanese style. It was a regular, the bathtub. Had the regular bath. Most of the homes at that time all had bathtubs. But on the farm, the particular one, you had to go in the outhouse. They had the bath but they didn't have the toilet, so you had to go outside and around the back. And there's a hole in the ground. And... every so often they had to move it and be digging a new hole.

RP: So, school didn't start at Manzanar 'til roughly like the fall of 1942. So you had, you had the summer and part of the spring months off. What did you do during that time to occupy yourself?

JO: Well, we would look around and check it out and all that other stuff that... I couldn't do a heck of a lot. You could go out and play... they had some kids there in the block I lived in. They were two or three years younger than I was. I would play ball with them or something like that. They were learning. And, anything that... go look around. There wasn't really too much to do because they still didn't have, have a lot of the recreation things set up.

RP: You worked at the camouflage net factory for a while.

JO: Yeah, that was later on though. You know, not that first year. It was later on because... I'm trying to remember now. I think that summer of '43 or thereabouts or somewhere and while I was doing the net factory, I might have been going school and doing that after school or something, I don't remember. The, cause the summer of '43 is when I did all that cement work. Because I left in the summer of '44. I was gone. But I remember that I'm pretty sure sometime during '44 I worked in there. I also did the delivering oil in the winter of '43 and, yeah, mostly it was the winter of '43. I don't know whether I did it in '42 or not. I don't, don't recall right now.

RP: So your brother was in charge of oil distribution in the camp. And then you ended up... well, did you, were you responsible for bringing oil to the whole block or just to a...

JO: Half. Half the block. It takes quite a while to deliver that much because you got seven barracks and each barrack had at least four apartments in there, or four heaters in each. And the heaters roughly held two and a half gallons, I think. I don't know. Do you got a heater in this one they're building up there now? 'Cause you could look.

RP: Yeah, we'll get one sometime.

JO: Yeah, it's not a... I know it's bigger than a gallon.

RP: So tell us what, what would you... you'd go up to the oil tank and...

JO: Yeah. I had the key to the lock. I always had it because otherwise open that and fill the five gallon, I think it was five gallons, carry that five gallon. You could carry two of them. You know, carry them down and after you do it for a while, they get pretty light. At the beginning they're heavy. And like I said, the neighbor that's across the street, they had a baby in there and the little girl, I think she was premature baby and things like that. And she had to keep it pretty warm so I used to, got an extra container so they can keep the heat up.

RP: So were there any problems with people stealing oil because you kept that thing locked up?

JO: No, I didn't have any problem at all.

RP: So were you the only person who had keys to that?

JO: No, the person that, the regular person who did it all the time, he had a key too. He was a grown person though, you know. And if I wasn't there, I couldn't do it, he would do the whole thing. That was a regular job with him and he had to take care of all that.

RP: So you knocked on the doors and went in and...

JO: Oh yeah. Well, people did have locks to put on their doors, that's why, if they wanted. But with all the people -- what are you going to steal? People didn't have anything more than what you had. So... you never know I guess. But I did knock on the doors and then most of 'em always home. Where else would they go?

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.