MANZANAR….THE WAY IT WAS

MANZANAR…..THOUSANDS OF NAMES

Before coming to Lone Pine the word Manzanar didn’t mean anything to us.  In fact, the first time we ran across the name was on a roadside sign a couple days ago north of Lone Pine.  We had missed a left turn in town while looking for the Tuttle campground & ended up driving a few miles north of town.  A Government type sign said Manzanar National Historic Site half a mile ahead.  We used the turn to get ourselves back on track for Lone Pine.  I remember glancing to my right & seeing a bunch of cars in a parking lot outside a large building that looked like an Airplane hanger.  No idea what it was all about then, but by the end of today we knew very well what it was all about.

We pulled into the large parking of the MANZANAR HISTORICAL SITE about 11:35 this morning & headed for a large building.  I noticed the wide concrete sidewalks seemed fairly new & attention had been paid to disabled parking & a concrete ramp into the building.  We just made it in time to see a 25 minute film about what happened to the thousands of Japanese American people after America entered into war with Japan following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor December 7th, 1941.  Kelly & I were the only one’s in the theater.

I won’t go into the history of this historic site because you can get all that from the Manzanar link.  But, I can tell you a bit about the interpretive center itself.

 

Upon entering the original large Auditorium built by internees in 1944 I was immediately aware of voices.  Couldn’t quite pinpoint the voices but I could hear muffled voices like people talking.  I could hear the sound of children coming from somewhere.  I figured a bus tour was in progress somewhere ahead of me amongst the many exhibits.  Yet, as I walked further into the center I did not see anyone.  But, there just seemed to be many voices in the air. 

Took me a few minutes to realize that it was the many voices of recorded people coming from the various displays themselves.  It was the sound of the Japanese people talking of their experiences before, during, & after their internment in the camp.  Stories of sadness & frustration.  Stories of hope & determination.

This is a well laid out interpretive center with many photographs & artifacts.  And it is all laid out on the old Auditorium floor complete with the original stage at one end of the building.  I particularly noticed the lighting on the exhibits.  Having worked in an Art Gallery in Stratford Ontario back in the early nineties I have a wee bit of lighting experience under my belt so I always notice how exhibits are set up & lit.

I especially liked the large panels suspended from the ceiling in one section with all the names of people who once lived in America’s largest Japanese/American internment camp.   Upwards of 120,000 people crammed in long wooden buildings on just 814 acres of dry land…..& they had to call it home.

 

We spent over an hour in the interpretive center & then spent another hour on a driving tour of the grounds.  At first glance there isn’t much to see where the camp once stood.  Not much that is until you start looking closer.  A cement slab here, an old bent water pipe jutting out of the ground there & a lot of curious square cement blocks.  Wooden sign posts along the way said Block 12 or 21 or 2.  These are the locations of close to a thousand buildings long since been dismantled & taken away.  But, we did see two buildings under construction to replicate the original buildings that housed the people.  And, we think there is a third cookhouse type building being constructed as well.

THIS STONE WALKWAY ONCE LED TO THE CAMP’S HOSPITAL

Noticed in the film we watched the Japanese people had tended gardens, planted an apple orchard & built about a dozen beautiful Japanese flower & water gardens.  We found some of those gardens today.  As with so many things in history there wasn’t much left of the once beautiful gardens.  All the plants, flowers & trees are long gone but the rock lined concrete ponds, spillways & tiny waterfalls still remain.  But, no water has flowed over those dusty rocks since the last of the Japanese people left at the end of the war.  Always sad to see crumbling ruins where there once was life & laughter.

 

THESE WERE ONCE THE HOSPITAL’S JAPANESE GARDENS

More wooden signs told us where the Apple Orchard was, the hospital, nurses quarters, the laundry & heating building.  And then we saw a sign that said Cemetery.    Only a few remains are left here but it is a Sacred Place for the Japanese people.  The Cemetery was actually located just outside of the camp because the Japanese people did not want their remains interred within the camp boundaries itself.

We stopped & looked at a large slab of broken cement where a building once stood that housed weaving machines.  Camp residents worked here making camouflage netting for the war effort.  Just  beyond that we passed out of the camp’s old stone gates, said good-bye to the spirits of Manzanar & headed ourselves home.

 

We had planned to do the ‘Movie Road’ tour today but Kelly knew she would have a lot of Deer Park Lodge work waiting for her so we headed back to the rig & called it a day.  Just another fine one alongside the snow capped Sierra Nevada Mountains.

 

GROANER’S CORNER:((  Be careful never to let a blonde have a long coffee break... It takes too long to retrain her afterwards!

--------------------------------------------------------------
EMAIL THE BAYFIELD BUNCH:))
stargeezerguy@gmail.com

 
BISBEE PHOTO ALBUM
http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/BISBEEARIZONAAFEWFINEPHOTOMEMORIES
 
Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.

BLOGGER WEBSITE http://thebayfieldbunch.com/
OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/
 
The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails -William Arthur Ward
 
The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...... AL.

Technorati Tags: Manzanar