<Begin Segment 6>

LT: I'm also wondering about things that your family did together when you were growing up as a kid.

SA: Well, we used to, we used to have a picnic, you know, community picnic in Mosier once a year. Of course, that place was inundated after the Bonneville Dam went in.

LT: And so was this your family or was it the Oak Grove?

SA: No, just Japanese, there's a whole... people who wanted to come, you know.

LT: So can you tell me a little bit about the picnic site and what happened at the Mosier picnic with the Japanese American community?

SA: Well, it was all Japanese, the annual Mosier picnic. But it was fun. We used to have a sack race with your right leg and a partner's left leg in a gunnysack, you race, things like that. But it had a nice beach before the dam was built. It had a nice beach, and they used to raise, like lots of asparagus and vegetables.

LT: So getting back to the picnic, you had gunnysack races, were there other races?

SA: Oh, yeah.

LT: What other races did they have?

SA: Oh, I think they had races for older, not older, but housewives. They used to have a paper, like a paper plate, and put an orange or something on it, they had to race without losing the orange off the side.

LT: Did your mother compete?

SA: Huh?

LT: Did your mother compete?

SA: Yeah.

LT: And what about the men? Did they have races, too?

SA: I don't remember. I don't remember men's race. Must have been.

LT: Okay. So we've talked about fun things that you and your family and the Japanese American community had. You also had a big farm and you talked about your father and your mother working hard. Did you work on the farm, too?

SA: Oh, yeah. Yeah, we used to work on a farm. I mean, when we were young, too young to work, we used to still go out, pick up brush or something, you know. And in those days, you didn't... what do you call it where you shred the limbs all up, you know. We never had anything like that. We used to burn it, find an open spot in the orchard, and we'd gather these brushes, little bundles, and toss it in the fire. But I remember putting potatoes in there. We used to find some volunteer potatoes in the orchard, and we'd put it by the edge of the fire, you know, on the hot coals. They used to be good. [Laughs]

LT: So the brush, can you talk about where this brush came from?

SA: Hmm?

LT: Where did the brush come from?

SA: From the trees. They prune it. I shouldn't call it brush, I guess.

LT: But that's what we called it, I remember, too. I think others might not understand what we mean when we say we're going to be pruning, or we're going to pick our brush, but I certainly remember that. So how did you like working on the farm?

SA: Oh, never did like working. I always wanted to play baseball or something. But it's something everybody did, you know, they had to do it.

LT: Let's... the Japanese community had a hall downtown in Hood River. Did you go up to the community hall?

SA: Oh, yes. We used to go there... used to have Sunday school there, I've been there a few times. And we used to have Japanese school there twice a month or something like that.

LT: And can you talk about Japanese school, what it was, why it was, and what happened there?

SA: Well, we had a book, a Japanese book, like first grader, second grader. This teacher, he was a Methodist minister, Reverend Inouye was the instructor. But we used to rebel because it was usually on weekends, you know, our time off from school, wanted to be home playing baseball or something.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2013 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.