Densho Digital Archive
Oregon Nikkei Endowment Collection
Title: Paul Saito Interview
Narrator: Paul Saito
Interviewer: Alton Chung
Location: Ontario, Oregon
Date: December 4, 2004
Densho ID: denshovh-spaul-01-0002

<Begin Segment 2>

PS: Anyway... it was a different agriculture over here. Back over on the Clackamas River, why, the place we farmed, it would flood in the wintertime. So the following spring, we'd have to haul the driftwood and stuff, and logs out of the field where they shouldn't be. But over here it was completely different. I remember going to high school. I guess I was more interested in playing around on the farm than going into sports. I can remember driving a team of horses, and brother Joe driving another team of horses. We hooked up in parallel, pulling a float across the ground to get it ready for planting fall lettuce, that kind of thing. Remember... I guess I was maybe a freshman in high school, or... oh, boy. I thought I was really becoming a farmer when my dad wanted me to cultivate some spuds. And so we had, back then it was just a team of horses and a one-row cultivator. I remember, I thought I was going pretty good, and I turned around one time at the end, had the horses back up a little bit to get squared away, and went too far, and broke the tongue. I thought my dad would blow his stack.

Growing up experience... oh, in 1937, I think, the fall of 1937. Let's see, '36, the farm made some money. And so in the fall, I think maybe in the fall of '36, I bought a little tractor, a little John Deere tractor, all on iron wheels, that was called skeleton wheels, and we got it with a set of rubber tires, too. And I just couldn't wait to get my hands on that thing, and act like a farmer. But I'd get home from school and didn't have lights or starters back in those days. And so we'd hang an automotive battery on the side to have one headlight to see where you're going. Hope everything behind you was all right. That was such an advancement from using a team of horses.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.