Densho Digital Archive - George Katagiri Interview (denshovh-kgeorge

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SG: Is there anything else you would like to talk about in terms of your time in Oregon with your family, with work?

GK: Well, Oregon is the place that I know. I'll always brag about Oregon, you know. It's... I'm biased. It's a good place for me. We can ski here. We can enjoy the beach, and we love the desert. And we love things like scorpions and rattlesnakes, and we've encountered them, you know. We used to go hunting for scorpions. And we had one experience where we would remove the rocks, and there would be a scorpion, and you'd just put your hand down on the ground, and it backs into your jar for you. You close the jar; you have a scorpion. We brought three of them home and put them in an aquarium with a lid on the top. And the next day, evidently, they were all female scorpions because we had about, oh, thirty or forty scorpions, you know. And the baby scorpions are exactly like the adults, but they climb on the adult's back when they're first born. And they, that's kind of exciting for little kids to grow up with. The other animal that we liked was the rubber boa. Most people don't know what rubber boas are, but they're in the boa constrictor family, and they're indigenous to Portland. The thing is they're brown snakes that are round at both ends with tiny eyes, tiny beady eyes that crawl next to the dirt, so this is why you never see them. They're not fast, and we had several of them during the days the boys were growing up and feeding them was a problem. And somehow, we got little tiny unborn mice that we froze, and we fed it to the boa every once in a while, and you can see the bulge in the snake, and, or sometimes we tried to stuff hamburger down their throat. That didn't work too well. But these were things that I think added, the boys remember, they remember well.

And one day or one time, we went down to the Steam's Mountain. And this is when the kids were in high school, and I had two of the boys with me, and so we all went fishing. And I wasn't doing too well, but the other two, I told them I'm going back to camp. And the other two said, "Well, we'll stay and we'll fish a while." And the one boy said that, "If I run across a rattlesnake, I'm going to bring it back, and we'll cook it for dinner," and he was serious. And I was hoping he wasn't serious, but he was serious. So I went back camp and was getting ready for dinner, the campfire and everything. I see them coming up the trail, and I looked at them through the binoculars. One boy is holding something in both hands. And as they got closer, they had some fish in one hand, and this guy, my middle son had a rattlesnake in the other hand. And so he comes back, and he's real proud. He got his rattlesnake. I says, "Well, how did you get it?" He says, "I stepped over this rock. I heard it rattle, so I took the pellet gun, and I shot it in the head, and the head just fell over, and so I just grabbed it by the neck, and I'm carrying it home." I says, "Well, you still going cook it and eat it?" He says, "Sure." And here all the while, he's carrying it. He could feel the muscles of the snake, in his hands, in his grip. And of course, the first thing he did was cut the head off and bury it, and he wanted the skin to put around his cowboy hat. He had a beautiful cowboy hat, and so he cut the head off, he slit the snake down the belly, and he took the meat out. And he could still feel the muscles moving in his hand. And by that time, he finally decided, well, maybe he won't eat it. [Laughs] He won't cook it and eat it, so we never did have rattlesnake meat. But he did go ahead and keep the skin. And today, he's got a beautiful rattlesnake skin around his cowboy hat with nine rattles sticking out to one side. But they, we did a lot of things like this. They went to Camp Calarmo. This is the OMSI camp in Central Oregon to look for fossils. We did a lot of skiing when they were in high school, so we had a lot of good times together. They kept telling me, when I took them skiing, they'd go out to the slope and ski, and I would stay in the lodge and read or something like that. And they kept saying, "Well, Dad, why don't you get out there and take a couple of lessons?" And you're sitting in the lodge, you know. You look around the lodge, watching all these young skiers there, beautiful skiers with their beautiful clothes on, and here I am an old fat stocky man. I thought, oh, that's not for me. This is for beautiful young people. And finally one day, I says, "Oh, to heck with it. I'll go out there and take a lesson." So I went out there and took a lesson. And all the old fogies are out there skiing, and all the beautiful people are in the lodge, looking at each other. So I learned to ski. And from that time on, we all had a good time except on the last run. On the last run, I had to drive the car all the way down to the, this town at the lower part of the ski run. And they were able to take this trail, Glade Trail, all the way down to the place. So Dad did the dirty work, and everybody else had the most fun. We had good times together, and we had a good life, and I wonder why the kids won't leave home, but they still come back today. One of the boys lives out of town, but he makes sure that he gets back on weekends to get a good meal. One boy moved in next door. [Laughs] Things were so great.

SG: That sounds like you've had a very interesting and memorable life.

GK: Well, yeah. It was an interesting and memorable and active. I have no regrets. Of course, my wife died in 1993, and you just wonder, well, what happens now. You're in your late sixties. But you have a couple daughter-in-laws that are bending over backwards to make sure that you always have something to eat or someplace to go. And that's nice, but it's something you can't rely on. And then I was, I had no plans or no aspirations or anything. And finally in '94, I met Michiko. And it's just, I don't know what I did to deserve the good things that have come my way, but they've come my way. Things are great. We've lived three or four lifetimes in the span of nine years. We're still enjoying it.

SG: That's wonderful. Is there anything else you would like to add?

GK: No. It's been a long life. I'm ready to go anytime. I'm, every day is a blessing. Every day is a blessing. My health is going downhill, but I've got prostate cancer, and we're fighting it all along the way. And so far, I'm on top of everything, but this is why every day is a blessing. I'm grateful for every day we have.

SG: Is there any message you would like to give to the next generations to come?

GK: Well, my favorite one is a saying that's hanging up over that, hung up over the office of my friend in Port Townsend. And it says, "Reach for the stars. And if you don't make it, fall back to the moon and rejoice."

SG: It's a nice saying. Well, thank you, Mr. Katagiri.