But we children did have fun in the winter with the icicles that hung off the barrack eaves. We’d knock them off and have sword fights with them.
Someone built a large ice rink in a big empty field. They built up a low berm all around this field and then filled it with water, then let it freeze. We had fun learning to ice skate. I couldn’t afford to buy my own skates, but my friend Yae Kami had a pair of beautiful high white ones which she lent me.
About the contributor: Grace Mori Saito Tom grew up in Chinatown in Oakland, CA. She was 11 and attending Lincoln Elementary School when Pearl Harbor was attacked. The family was sent to Tanforan and later, Topaz. After the War, Grace’s family was among the last to leave Topaz, having nowhere to go. They returned to the San Francisco Bay Area, where the family lived in one room at a church hostel. Grace wrote her memoir in 1999 and passed away the same year.
Copyright 1999, Grace Mori Saito Tom. All rights reserved.