<Begin Segment 15>

MR: We are nearing the end of the interview, but we're here in this library in Philomath, and I just want to mention that you told me that this was built entirely by volunteer labor.

MB: Yes.

MR: And that you were one of those volunteers. Would you like to talk about that?

MB: They bought the land about 1990. I don't know exactly when, and then they cleared the land, and they decided to build this library. The library that they had already was in the back of the police station, and it wasn't a very, it wasn't really a room for a library. They had made it into a library, and it was getting really crowded, and they need, and someone decide it would be nice if we had a new library, and so all the people got together. They cleaned out, they cleaned the, there was a house on here, I suppose, and brush, bushes, and they cleared all that. And then they, some people couldn't volunteer labor, so they volunteered like cement people that work with cement donated concrete for foundation, and other people bought lumber. Some people gave money for the windows, fixtures, you know, everything, and people volunteered their time building the library. I didn't get in on the building until in 1992, no, 1991. My, one of my neighbors was, he wasn't the contractor for the building, but he was one of the contractors, and I asked him one day how the library building was going, and he said, "I don't know whether it's because they don't want to or because they can't." He says the library is not being built. It wasn't, you know, not because there weren't too many people doing the work. And so I says, well, I asked when did they work and he told me, and I says, "I'll see you on Saturday," and so I started working here. Well, I was already retired, so I could work here. They worked Saturday, and I could work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, whenever. I worked Monday, I was doing volunteer work already. Tuesday and Thursday, I did volunteer work. I worked at the high school. I worked in the office of the high school, and so I could work here Monday and Wednesday, and then I worked here on Saturday. And wintertime, my husband and I spent our winters down south, so we'd be gone from about three months out of the year.

But with all the extra time I could put in, it wound up that I put in, I volunteered the most time in building this library, and so I was honored. And how did they honor me? It was all a secret. They got, my coworkers got together. I was to play basketball with the Portland Trail Blazers. I mean, we're going to form a team, and here I was. Let's see, there was going to be five, ten teams to take, play the Trail Blazers, I mean they were to play ten or fifteen minutes, and then a different team would take over. And here I was the only female and all the men, and so I wouldn't feel lonely or something, they brought in two other women to play too. And what they didn't tell me, I had never played basketball in high school, and so I had to learn. So since I worked at the high school, I asked the coach, and he taught me how to play. And then I rented the high school gymnasium, as they rented, I mean people could use the place for free, but just to be on the safe side, they charged me one dollar, and I got to practice there for two whole months for just one dollar. Anyway, and after I finished working there, I worked two days a week, four or five hours every morning, and then I'd practice in the afternoon or whenever the gymnasium wasn't in use. When they had classes there, I couldn't, but they told me what hours I could play, and so I'd practice there. And during those two months, I had lots of bruises to show it. If you looked at me, I'd be black and, or green and yellow, you know, where I'd fallen. And students and teachers alike would show me. They didn't tell me what needed to be done. They had to get out there and show me what to do, where to stand to get the best shots and everything, and I spent that two months learning how to play the game. After the game, I found out I wouldn't have had to learn the game at all. The game was rigged. The Trail Blazers helped me make the baskets. [Laughs] I was the star of the, you know, playing the basketball, and no one knew that the game was rigged. All these other basketball teams around, you know, Corvallis and other places used to want to play with my team, and of course, I didn't. But whereas I had, if I only had ten friends before the basketball game, I had a hundred friends. Everybody wanted to be my friend. And I told my doctor about this, and he said, "People want to be in the limelight. You're in the limelight. They're your friends now because by associating with you, they'd be in the limelight too." And in that way, I found, because I had a lot of people didn't like me. I was treated badly here in Philomath, and people hated me. They didn't like, they openly snubbed me. And after the basketball game, everybody, all these people that were bad to me were my friends, and that's why the doctor told me that some people were my friends only because of that. But after the ball game, I was real popular. The best thing about it was when I worked at the, when I was working at the high school, my coworkers became my friends, and they remained my friends. Before, if I was out in public, I was just out in public, no one knew me. When I was working at the high school, my coworkers or any of them saw me, they had the time of day to stop and talk with me, and it was same way here at the library. My coworkers, even now, are my friends. If they see me, they'll come over and talk with me. That was what almost ten years ago, eight years ago, and it makes me feel good, they're still my friends.

MR: Well, I think it shows what a good citizen you are to contribute so much to your community, and I want to thank you for contributing to this project as well.

MB: Well, I thank you for asking me, and I hope I didn't make a fool of myself or say things that I wasn't supposed to or whatever, and I think it was an honor that you did ask me. I thank you.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.