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LT: Let's go back to Hood River, because by 1950, you had joined the Dee fire department, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the American Legion. So you were becoming an active part of your community. Can you talk about your reasons and your joining of each of these organizations and others that helped...

SI: Well, once the VFW offered us to join, well, we joined. But it was shut for a while, 'til a lot of the modern wartime war veterans was running the American Legion or VFW. So they offered us to join, so we joined. But just to be joining, I guess, we joined.

LT: Did you have any reservations considering the actions they had taken in the past?

SI: No, we figured that the old timers are gone, so they weren't gonna be that bad.

LT: And what about the VFW?

SI: Well, VFW, there was a fellow named Jonsey, he was very active in helping the veterans. I think he was a veteran officer for the county for a while, so he got a lot of the Nisei to join the VFW. And American Legion, I don't know how many Nisei joined, but a few of them joined, but not too many, I don't think.

LT: What kind of feelings did you have about joining the American Legion?

SI: Well, I figure if they were accepting me, well, might as well join.

LT: Okay. You were also active in the Dee fire department.

SI: Yeah, that was something else. Being active at fire department, we had nothing to start with, and we had... when we were starting the fire department at Dee, the lumber mill was all gone, all liquidated out, so there was not much tax for the fire department to get, lumber mill. So it was just the farms. And then the fire department in those days, not much money to work with, so we had to... and I remember one time we had to, just to get firemen's boots and clothes, we had to raise some money. And we got a bunch of, all the women and men, much as would help, on the Dee flat to have a good old chow men dinner, had it so then all the fire departments, they would all participate and help us, too, so we had quite a social gathering.

LT: And who made the chow mein?

SI: Yeah, we had chow mein. My uncle was a pretty good cook, so he made the ingredients, so it was pretty tasty.

LT: That sounds great. You also were a volunteer with the Hood River Tsuruta City Program.

SI: Oh, yeah. In fact, I volunteered to go to, clear to Detroit, Michigan, and drive a truck chassis home so they could make it into a fire truck, and that was quite a chore. Here I flew to Detroit and drove clear across the country. [Laughs]

LT: Were you also active in Japanese American organizations?

SI: No, not as such.

LT: Any thoughts about that?

SI: No. JACL was pretty active for a while, but when all the... like when we had Kumeo Yoshinari and George Kinoshita and all those older generation were active in JACL, all they had was either community picnic or dances. I didn't go to any of those. We had community picnic, which was pretty good.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2013 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.