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TI: Well in 1939, after our harvest, my parents decided that they would give me a trip to Japan. So my mother and my youngest brother, Hisao, he is the fifth boy, fifth son, the three of us went to Japan on a ship called the Hikawa Maru. And this was from Portland to Vancouver then to Yokohama, and the trip was two weeks on the ocean, and my poor mother was sick all the way over, but my brother and I, we had a great time. We stayed in Japan for two months, in July and August, and we met our relatives, and the other thing that I still remember is how hot it was. It was very humid. And my aunt, my mother's older sister, then took us to Korea. We went to Seoul because her husband had a large farm, so we were there for a few days. Then she took us into Manchuria, the three of us by train from Seoul to a city called Mukden which I believe was the capital at that time. I think Manchuria was still occupied by Japan. From Mukden, we took the train down to a port city called Dairen; I think now known as Port Arthur. Dairen had quite a history with the Russo-Japanese War. The Russian fleet was harbored at Dairen and during the war, they built quite a fort, fortress in this perimeter of this port. I went through all the concrete fortress. It was quite impressive; I can still remember. The port was quite a large bay with a very narrow inlet. And the history is that the Japanese fleet came in and sank a large vessel at the opening and bottled up the Russian fleet so that they could contend with the fleet that came from Europe. So it was quite an interesting bit of history that I'd learned.

When we came back to Japan, and I believe about September the 9th or 10th, we came back to the United States. And this was just when the war was starting in Europe, and we were fortunate on getting back here before the restriction of travel. In 1940, my parents wanted to build a house as they had purchased a tract of land just north of Hillsboro out on First Street which is now known as Glencoe Road, so I remained out of school and acted as a general contractor and hired a carpenter. His name was Vick Bachelor, and he had a younger assistant, and the two of them was our main builder. I obtained subcontractors. We had a five-acre plot; and initially, it was densely wooded, so we had to take, make a clearing for the house, and I can still remember taking down those trees and using a bucksaw if you know what this is. It's a hand saw that you, two people operate, pulling it back and forth. And so we made cord wood, many, many cords, and I can remember we sold the cord wood for ten dollars a cord.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.