Interview with Richard Johanson
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Northwest Public Television | Johanson_Richard
Camera man: Okay.
Laura Arata: Are you ready to go?
Camera man: Yeah.
Arata: Excellent. So if I could have you start by just saying your name and then spelling your last name.
Richard Johanson: My name is Richard E. Johanson. And the last name is spelled J-O-H-A-N-S-O-N.
Arata: Thank you. My name is Laura Arata. It is March 5, 2014. And we're conducting this interview on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. So Richard, I would like to start, if you could just tell us a little bit about how you came to Hanford and where you came from.
Johanson: Well, my folks moved to Benton County--actually it was Prosser--in about 1930, when I was about three years old. And a year later, we moved to Benton City where they resided ever since that time. And I went to school over in Benton City. And so I'm a real native around here.
Arata: Since you did have these kind of early experiences growing up here, from a fairly early time, I wonder if you could talk to me a little bit about what it was like going to school here at that time.
Johanson: Oh, it was fun. It's what you make it, you know. And I went to school in Benton City at Kiona-Benton. And I remember back in about 1943, when they were starting to build the Hanford project, a friend of mine, a schoolmate, who had been displaced from Hanford, and he was going to school in Benton City, also. And he says, you know, I've got a—what’s that--apple press, cider press. And he says, it is over where we used to live over at Hanford. So he said, get your car. And he said, let's go get that cider press. So we did. And they let you in over there to do that then, because we knew. It wasn't because we knew anybody. It was just the fact that, at that point, they didn't have it locked up. And you didn't have to have a badge to get in.
Arata: Do you have any memories, then, of Richland or White Bluffs or any of those communities?
Johanson: Oh yeah. In fact, I played basketball in the school building in White Bluffs. It's just a shell of a building now, I think. But we played basketball there and rode the bus from Benton City to White Bluffs. And we played at Hanford, because they had a separate high school. And it was all exciting for us. I remember stopping in at one of the stores getting stuff. We rode the bus out. And then earlier, it had to be in the late '30s, they used to have boat races over at Hanford, just down on the river. And they were outboard boats. The boats were the pumpkin seed-type race boats. And I remember going with my folks over to the races. And that had to have been probably in the early '30s. Because we went to the Horn Rapids and then the road continued on out as it does now. But I think then it was a gravel road out to Hanford.
Arata: Do you have any particular memories of the boat races? We hear references to them a lot. And I very rarely meet someone who actually witnessed them.
Johanson: Well, there were quite a few boats and probably 15 or 20 boats at least. And they had the old outboard Evinrude type engines on them. And they would go 60, 70 miles an hour. But it was exciting, especially for a nine-year-old.
Arata: I bet. And would they have concessions and things down there?
Johanson: Oh, yeah, they had the usual stuff, hamburgers and so on.
Arata: So that was a full day for you, obviously, the boat races.
Johanson: Oh yeah, it was a big day's trip.
Arata: I'm curious. We've heard a couple references to a circus actually coming to that area. Did you see that?
Johanson: I never saw a circus out there. But I remember going to a circus when I was small. And I think we went to Walla Walla to the circus. And that makes a big impression on young mind.
Arata: Hm. So many questions, where to go next? Could you talk a little bit about where you lived, your parents' property, for example, your housing situation while you were growing up?
Johanson: We didn't have any housing problem, because we lived on a farm. My dad had 70 acres. He was on the Benton County PUD board. And he was on the board of the WPPSS, which is now called Energy Northwest, and was instrumental in getting some of that stuff going.
Arata: So you had electricity then and that sort of thing in your house?
Johanson: Well, the first house we lived in, in Benton City, we didn't have electricity. We had a telephone but no electricity. We had a well. I remember, one time, my brother, older brother, Bob, was playing. He had some soap. And he put it in the old cook stove in the little holes were you lift the lid off. And it was boiling in there. And he thought that was a great funny deal. But it caught fire. And the fire spread, and it was going up the curtains. My dad came running in, and he grabbed a bucket of water that we kept there for drinking. And he threw it all over the fire and put it out. That was a little bit scary.
Arata: Lucky save for dad.
Johanson: Yeah.
Arata: Before I forget, do you have any particular memories of the store at White Bluffs, like what sorts of things you'd stop there and purchase?
Johanson: Well, I think it was a store and a service station, kind of like the convenience stores they have now. But it was just a normal, small grocery store. And that's about all I remember about that. But the bus would stop there. And the kids would go in and get pop and whatever.
Arata: So I understand you started working at Hanford. Could you talk a little bit about when you started working at Hanford?
Johanson: I went to work out there, actually, in '48. I was in the Navy. And I got out of the Navy in '46, 1946. And I worked a year helping my dad out on the ranch. And then I decided I would strike out and work at the big Hanford project, which was exciting for young guys. And I worked there several years. And I worked there as a radiation time keeper, in the tank farms, through '48, '49 and '50 and end of '51 and '52. And my job was to keep track of how much time the workers spent in a hot zone. I'd get the readings from the health instrument man and calculate how long they could spend at that job. Sometimes it was only 10 or 12 minutes before they got a full dose of the maximum radiation they were allowed. And at that time, we were opening up the tops of the tanks. And they were going to install pump pits. And then they were also putting in pipe trenches and stainless pipe, large 8, 10 inch diameter piping. And the idea, at that time, as I understood it, was for reprocessing, which they eventually decided not to do, under one of our presidents, decided not to do reprocessing. But that was in 1950, '51. And we had to use jackhammers to open up to the top of the tank. And the workers, with the jackhammers, had to have jackhammer bits that were about 18 feet long. Because that would let the operator of the jackhammer stay back away from the open pit. And he can work longer that way. And the same way when they'd jackhammer the concrete. And it fell down into the tanks, obviously. And then they had--of course, there was rebar in those, too. So they had put a cutting torch on the end of long pole, probably between 15 and 18 feet long, so they could cut the rebar to open the tanks up. And in cutting the rebar, it would fall down in there, too. So a lot of those chunks of concrete are probably still there. And that was 60 some years ago.
Arata: Did you have any other jobs at Hanford after that time?
Johanson: Well, I worked for a while in the cannery, where they canned the uranium. And I was in the 300 area, just north, not too far here, probably a half mile from here. And that entailed--they would bring their uranium in, in long rods, about an inch and half in diameter in boxcars. And then they would come into--lathe operators, operating a lathe. And they would turn down the outer part of the rod. And then they would come in certain lengths to be canned in aluminum cladding. And so we were working there at that job for a while. And it was interesting, the uranium shavings from the lathe would fall down, and they'd catch on fire, kind of like magnesium does. So they had to keep putting out the fires of the burning uranium shavings.
Arata: And how long did you work there at 300?
Johanson: Not very long. It was just a few weeks I think. We had to wear all kinds of protective clothing. And it was so hot in there, they had an air conditioning tube coming down to each worker. So I didn't care for that.
Arata: And what did you do after that?
Johanson: Pardon?
Arata: What did you do after that?
Johanson: Well, I got into ironworking for a while. And I worked out there as an ironworker and worked there about a year as an ironworker in the tank farm areas. And then I went down to McNary Dam and went to work down there for the final push on getting McNary Dam finished. And then in '53, I also worked on the missile bases out in the area and over in Wahluke Slope, across the river from Hanford. And it was the Nike missiles that we were installing at that time. And that was before I went to McNary. And then after that, then I bunched it all and went into the insurance business. [LAUGHTER] So I was in the insurance business for the next 20 years or more, with various--a couple of companies. I was a division manager in Wenatchee for a number of years. And then I was with the superintendent of agencies for a company out of Salem, Oregon. And after that, I went into the construction business in the '70s and had a construction company, built maybe 100-and-some houses around here.
Arata: So of your time working at Hanford, could you describe kind of a typical day or anything that stands out?
Johanson: Well, it depends whether it was a cold day or a warm day. Some days, we had a shack that we stayed in when we weren't out actually on the job. And our downtime, we would have to spend in the shack, because they didn't want you wandering around the project. So we would do that. And then we'd go out do the work we were doing. When I was working as an ironworker, I worked in construction of the pipe trenches and so and the tanks. And if it was cold weather, we really hung around the stove. And then we'd eat lunch in there also. And when we went in there and left, we had, what they called, I think, a fivefold counter. You'd put your hands in and your feet. And it would count to see if you had any radiation or contamination of any kind. And once in a while, you'd have some. And they had a shower there where they'd have to shower people down if they had quite a bit of contamination. And I know there were several instances where they got quite a bit on them, and they had to work with them for a long time to get all the radiation, the contamination off.
Arata: Were there any ways that sort of the security or secrecy at Hanford impacted your work?
Johanson: Well, we were always told to keep our mouths shut, which we didn't know what they were building out there in the '40s anyway. But some people, they didn't have any idea. They said, well, there's so much sand out there, they're making sandpaper. [LAUGHTER] And then another little kid said, well, he said, I think they're making toilet paper, because my dad brings a couple rolls home every night. [LAUGHTER] So nobody knew what they were making, so they had to imagine what it might be.
Arata: How, overall, was Hanford as a place to work? Was there anything particularly rewarding or particularly--
Johanson: Well, it was rewarding in the fact that it was extremely interesting. And it was a huge job, with 50,000 workers back in the middle '40s. And while that was going on, I was in the Navy over in the Pacific somewhere, there in the Philippines and Okinawa and Shanghai, China, and so on.
Arata: Sounds like maybe you could talk, just briefly, about having had that experience of being part of the war and the war effort against Japan. How did you feel when you found out it was our plutonium, from this area, that built that bomb?
Johanson: Well, everybody was extremely elated to find out that our project out there had helped end the war. And because it was in the first atomic explosion, in, well, New Mexico, I guess it was, wasn't it? Yeah, and it was also the Nagasaki atomic bomb. But you couldn't help but feel some real distress over the fact of how many people it killed. And it was a very sobering thought. On the other hand, if we hadn't of used them, they would have probably cost a million lives of the Japanese and the Americans, because they weren't going to give up. And that would've been the battle to the bitter end. So I was down in the South Pacific somewhere when they dropped the bombs. And so we were kind of thankful, because we were going to be heading up there to try and finish it off. The ship, you may remember hearing about it, who was the USS Indianapolis, a cruiser, and they had taken one of the atomic bombs to--was it Tinian, I think. And it was secret journey, naturally. And they got torpedoed and sunk. It wasn't probably about 500 miles from where we were in the South Pacific. And there was about, I think, 800 of them didn't survive. And they couldn't even get rescued, because they were on a secret journey, and nobody knew where they were, not many people. And it was pretty grim. And from there, we went up to Okinawa. We were up there for a while. And it was a pretty bad spot there. Most of the fighting was over. It was over then when I went up there. And I had a friend who was up to the mountains. I don't know what they were doing up there. But he was a corpsman in the Navy. But he was up there with some Marines. And they were living in tents up in the mountains, in the hills. And it sounds pretty gross, but they would go out, every day. And the war was over. It was actually over. They'd go out everyday and hunt Japs. And this guy, he told me, he says, it's just like hunting jackrabbits at home. [LAUGHTER] So it was pretty sobering also. Because they were--you know, the Japanese, a lot of them thought the war was still on. And they didn't know that it was over. And you couldn't blame them. They were trying to do their job. Oh, that was really a sad situation. And we were anchored out of a bay there. There was typhoon showed up. We put up out to sea, and we were three days. That typhoon kept going just for three days. In the daytime, it was almost like nighttime. And there were a couple hundred small craft that didn't make it, little mine sweepers and things. People talk about waves that are 100 feet high? There really are. But to get back to working out at Hanford, there were a lot of people. We had people that we let them put their trailers in our backyard, because they didn't have any place to stay. And they just had little camp trailers. Rather than stay in the big trailer court at out Hanford, they preferred to stay like where we had shade trees and so on. And their kids went to school there. And then the two fellows that stayed in our backyard, their names were Bill and George Gale. And they'd come out from Kansas. And they came out to work at the Hanford project. And they worked out there was as machinists and welders. And then they saved their money and not long after that initial construction, they opened up a car dealership. And then they eventually moved to Yakima and had a car dealership. And they had the White Bus dealership. White Trucks, that was a brand name. And they sold dozens and dozens of those buses to the Hanford project. And so if anybody, your folks or anybody, can remember working out there and riding the green buses, those all came from their shop, Bill and George Gale.
Arata: How many people would you say camped out there at any one time?
Johanson: In our backyard?
Arata: Mm-hm.
Johanson: Them and they had families, the two of them, their wives and children. And then one of them's father and his wife and a younger sister of them lived out there also. And we enjoyed having them. I was in high school at that time before I left to go to the Navy. And they were good mechanics, so they helped me keep my car running. I had a Ford Roadster—
Arata: Nice.
Johanson: --back then. In fact, I still have a Ford Roadster. I belong to the Old Car Club of the Tri-Cities. And I have four, old cars.
Arata: Wonderful.
Johanson: A '32 Ford Roadster and a 1931 Model A Coupe, they both have rumble seats, and then a '63 Thunderbird Landau and 1954 Kaiser Manhattan.
Arata: Wow. We've heard a couple stories of people going out and actually finding cars on the Hanford site.
Johanson: Oh, yeah, back then, they'd find cars out there that people had left. And of course, now they'd be a treasure trove. But there were a lot of cars out there that people just abandoned when they got kicked off their property, evicted. That was a tough deal for a lot of people. Some of them spent their whole lives out there. And they had farms and orchards and families and, of course, the schools. And they were just plain evicted. And they didn't have much time. So a lot of them moved to Richland and Benton City and Kennewick and Pasco. And it was an exciting time, and it was a sad time at the same time. But it was pretty exciting for a guy that was 15, 16 years old.
Arata: I wonder if you can maybe just talk a little bit about some of the changes when people started pouring in to this area to start building this site.
Johanson: Oh, it was pretty grim at times, because you had so many people coming in, and they were out in the men's barracks and so on. And they'd have murders. And I remember my mother was on the federal jury in Yakima, had a couple of murder cases. You know, you get that many men in one spot, some of them aren't going to get along. We had a lot of gambling and throwing the dice and card games. It was like a den of iniquity. [LAUGHTER]
Arata: Now, did you ever come to Richland, as maybe a teenager, and witness any of these changes?
Johanson: Well, yeah, over two or three, four years, you can remember the construction and the building of the houses, all the alphabet houses and the prefabs. Of course, all the prefabs were built without foundations. And there was a lot of work in the later years of contractors putting in foundations on the prefabs that hadn't had any. And the prefabs were heated with a portable 220 volt heater, about 2,000 or 2,500 watts. In fact, I have one in my shop from way back in the '40s. And it still works, the 220 volt heater. And you could buy them, but I doubt if you could find them nowadays. We had the movie theater, out here, at Hanford, here, not far from where we’re at right now. In fact, it was just up the road here, south of here. And they had gigantic mess halls. And I worked out there as a teamster for a while, too, as a truck driver and swamper. So you worked in a warehouse. And we had plenty of off time. We'd throw dice. It was always fun to gamble a little bit. We couldn't go out to Toppenish, to the Legends Casino then. [LAUGHTER] Oh, yeah.
Arata: Is there anything else that stands out to you about the community life in Richland during that time?
Johanson: What? Pardon?
Arata: Is there anything else that stands out about community events or community life in Richland?
Johanson: Yeah, they used to have a Richland celebration. I forget what it was called, Frontier Days or something, I believe.
Arata: Atomic Frontier Days.
Johanson: Yeah. And we come down and watch the parade. And it was interesting, very interesting and a lot of fun. And we'd also, up where the Lutheran church is, on the corner of Van Giesen and-- what is that other street that runs north and south? Anyhow, where the Lutheran church is now, there used to be a grange building. It was an old wooden building. And they held grange meetings there. And we used to go there. And they'd have dances in the old building. I don't believe it was a church at that time. Van Giesen was how you came from Benton City to get into Richland. And you'd turn right there and go down that street. And it was all alfalfa fields around here then. So that building was out in the middle of nowhere then, on the corner of Van Giesen. And they had fairs. And people would bring their canned goods and have it judged. My dad's two older brothers were bachelors, John and Charlie Johanson. And they lived in Benton City. And those two old bachelors, they canned stuff and beautiful products that they'd put out. And they'd go down and win prizes and ribbons at the fair, little fair they'd have there at the old dance hall. That was probably before Hanford. And as it spread out and started building houses for the project, then all those alfalfa fields became developments. I've had a lot of friends that lived in the alphabet houses. They were there well-built buildings. They're still standing. And a lot of them are overhauled and remodeled, but there's still a lot of fine houses that are still here from the old days.
Arata: Yeah. So was there a fairly substantial influx of students to your school then?
Johanson: Back before Hanford, Benton City School used to play Richland, because they were in the same league then. Because Richland was only about 300 people. And they had the families--I remember some of their names, the Van Dynes, they had a big family. And they played. We used to play them in basketball, against the Van Dyne brothers. And there were several others. I can't remember their names now. A lot of good athletes came out of Richland even during that time. And as they got bigger and bigger, larger, Richland High became a real force in the sports competition.
Arata: So J.F.K. visited Hanford in 1963. Were you around for that?
Johanson: In '63? No, that's when I lived in Wenatchee. I was division manager for Prudential Insurance Company up there.
Arata: Okay. So you worked at Hanford until about 1954? Do I have that correct?
Johanson: I worked until 1953.
Arata: ’53.
Johanson: A lot of places now, that were places I remember then, were like the corner by where the post office is now. And across the street, there's some offices on the west side of Jadwin. And that used to be a huge, big drugstore. And a lot of people would just hang out there, because they had a soda fountain. And it was an interesting place to be, meet all the young folks around there.
Arata: I imagine it must've been exciting meeting people from all different places.
Johanson: It was, because you'd meet people from all over the United States. People would come up from the South, the Midwest, as far as Florida. It would really broaden your scope, a lot more than being just raised in a little, dinky town, and then meeting all the people from the big cities and the eastern part of the United States. And they were different, the same but different. And when Bill and George Gale, they'd got to our place and parked their trailers under the trees, their dad was going to come out. And of course, they had accents. From Kansas to us, they had an accent. And George, he called, talked to his dad. We had an old telephone that was on the wall. You know, you had to crank it. He talked to dad back in Kansas. And he said, "wull," he says, dad, he says, if you have "tar" trouble, "wor" us. If you have tire trouble, wire us. [LAUGHTER] That was the way they talked. To us, it was humorous, but that's, you know, that's the way they were.
Arata: You sounded a little funny to them, too.
Johanson: They were wonderful people, too. Wonderful people.
Arata: Now how did that come about that they came to camp on your property?
Johanson: Well, they didn't want to stay out on the huge trailer camp out in Hanford. And they'd rather drive back and forth and have their kids go to the school, local school. And then it was kind of a paradise compared to some places, with great big shade trees. And the trailers were in the shade. It was good, a lot better place than being out in the desert.
Arata: So they just happened to run into your dad somewhere?
Johanson: I don't know. I think what they did was they were traveling around, scouting around, and they saw our place. And there weren't many places to stay at all. So they were extremely happy to find a place in order to park. And they were there about two years, I think.
Arata: So they would pay your dad some sort of rent?
Johanson: He charged them some rent. But it was really low, like $15 a month or something like that. Of course, wages weren't high then, either, because they were about--they were under $2 an hour at that time. I did a stint of--when I was ironworking, we went up to Coulee Dam. And I worked up there for a while and started out at $1.85 an hour and doing hard work. Now, the minimum wage is going over $10 an hour. We'd have thought we'd died and gone to heaven if we could get $6 an hour.
Arata: Right. So were wages at Hanford comparatively better to what you?
Johanson: Oh, they were better then. Because there, on the farm, we'd hire people to pick potatoes in sacks. And they'd get maybe like $0.02 or $0.03 a sack for picking them. If they were good, they'd make $2 or $3 a day. And the wages were like $0.25 an hour back in the '30s and into the time the project started. And then all the wages started going up to where you could make $75 a week. Even as an ironworker, I'd make about $75 a week. And then that work on down at McNary Dam, I was a foreman down there. And I got $2.25 an hour, so really cashing in. [LAUGHTER]
Arata: So I wonder--most of my students do not remember the Cold War. It's like a foreign time period for them.
Johanson: Right.
Arata: Do you have any thoughts that you think it's important for the next generation to know about what America's role was during that time?
Johanson: Well, the main role of keeping the peace and balancing the competition with Russia. It wasn't just Russia then. It was their whole group of countries that are separate countries now. And we know about, with the Ukraine and so on, what's going on right now. But it was a pretty scary at times. I remember where there was a time when everybody was putting in bomb shelters. And they were teaching kids to duck and cover in the schools. Get next to a concrete wall and cover your head as if that would have done any good. But we didn't have much else, much other choice. And a lot of people did put in bomb shelters. But I think in the end, it was not backing down. I think all of our Presidents have been outstanding, not just one or two, but from Roosevelt on up, through the start of World War II, and people like Harry Truman. It took a lot of guts to order them to drop the bombs on those poor people over there in Japan. And then continuing on, they were all good Presidents, I think. And they all played a role, whether they were Republicans or Democrats. You got to be good to get to be President. You have to have something on the ball. I won't get in to any politics.
Arata: You can if you want to. [LAUGHTER] I’m curious, if you could talk for just a moment. It's kind of a side note to working at Hanford. But do you recall where you were when Pearl Harbor was bombed?
Johanson: Yeah. It was in school time. School wasn't out. And the next day, we had an assembly. They had an assembly in the large auditorium at the school there in Benton City. They had the radio on. And we were listening to President Roosevelt with his famous speech. And that was quite a--really, the kids were scared. Everybody was scared that they were going to be coming here, bombing us, too. And they probably could have. And they probably would have except for the Japanese admiral that warned them not to. He said because, if you get over there and try to invade the United States, he said, there will be a gun behind every blade of grass. So he says, don't do it. That was probably a slight exaggeration, but he got his point across. [LAUGHTER] There was probably a gun behind every two blades of grass. Every blade of asparagus. [LAUGHTER]
Arata: That's the end of my questions. Is there anything that I haven't asked you about that you'd like to talk about, any other stories that stand out to you?
Johanson: Mm. I remember a story about when they completed the N Reactor. It was a dual-purpose reactor. It produced uranium, for the war effort, for the military and also electricity. And I have a program from when President Kennedy came out and gave a speech and turned on the reactor. If I can find it here. And I would like to--if you guys would like to have it—
Arata: We’d love to—
Johanson:--for your work, I'd like to donate it.
Arata: Oh, really?
Johanson: It shows President Kennedy on the front. Let's see. All the official program and the story behind it, the atomic wand that he used. The atomic wand, it shows him using the wand to start the reactor and pictures of notables here. There are pictures up here. My dad, he was on the board of Washington Public Power Supply System at that time. And they were instrumental in getting the N Reactor going. And he was out there. His name is in there, Robert. His name was Robert Johanson.
Arata: So your father was there. Did you get to witness this?
Johanson: No.
Arata: But your father did?
Johanson: Yeah, he was out there, allegedly, one of the dignitaries.
Arata: So did your father get to meet President Kennedy?
Johanson: Oh yeah, they all got to meet him.
Arata: Are there any stories about that day that he ever told you?
Johanson: Like everybody else, they were all agog at getting to meet the president, President Kennewick—Kennedy. And so that was an exciting time for them. And literally thousands of people went out to the event.
Arata: I've never seen an actual program.
Johanson: Oh, that's one of the original ones that they got. And I think it would be maybe useful in your teaching.
Arata: Yes, we would love to digitize this and make it available on our project website.
Johanson: I was instrumental in starting an insurance company here, too. And there's a picture.
Arata: So this is your--is this you or your father? This is you.
Johanson: That's me. Yeah. Then also there's a big deal. Here's an old newspaper. This is Friday, February 18, 1966. That was the Tri-City Herald. And there's yours truly, right there.
Arata: These are great.
Johanson: And we employed people. And we sold stock all over the State of Washington.
Arata: Wow, we would love to take some images of this. And we're happy to get it back to you.
Johanson: Okay, sure.
Arata: We have a big scanner. We can get a full scan of the whole thing.
Johanson: Oh, great, yeah. It's kind of a yellowed newspaper after--how long has that been now?--50 years.
Arata: A while. Wow. Yes, we would love to make this available.
Johanson: And we had people, we had people on our board of directors that were like Sam Volpentest. He was a big name here, you know. He was a mover and a shaker. This was a brochure we had. It shows all of the board of directors and so on.
Woman off screen: Sam Volpentest was really instrumental in keeping the money come out here for further development out in the area. So the economy kept going on here. Along with what's his name? Who was the representative? Skip? It was Skip something. Is that the right guy? There was a legislator who did a lot of good work for us too. But Sam Volpentest, there's lots of stuff named after him now. He was a big guy.
Arata: There you go. I just learned something.
Johanson: Pardon?
Arata: I just learned something important.
Johanson: Oh. Yeah, if I could have those back when you're finished.
Woman: Of course. In fact, I can take them.
Arata: We can, actually.
Woman: If we're finished up, I can take them right down and bring them back. Is there anything else?
Arata: Can you do that? Yeah, is there any other stories you'd like to share with us, anything else?
Johanson: I'll probably think of a lot when I get home.
Woman: That's usually how it works.
Johanson: Well, the one about going out and getting the cider press. I think we were going to make some hooch or something.
Arata: [LAUGHTER]
Johanson: Hard cider.
Arata: And did you?
Johanson: I think so. Yeah. But we used to--you know, Hanford and White Bluffs were our opposing teams, because they were in the same league. And Richland was in the same league then. I think Prosser and Grand View, I think they were playing football. We had football. Benton City had never had football until I was a senior in high school there. And then we had football. We lost almost every game, because none of us had played football before. But by then, Hanford and White Bluffs, they didn't have football either. Kennewick and Pasco did and Prosser and Grand View. And our quarterback broke his arm, so he played the rest of the season with his arm, left arm in a cast.
Arata: With a cast on and kept playing? [LAUGHTER]
Johanson: Yeah, he kept playing, believe it or not. [LAUGHTER] Trying to think of some other things associated with Hanford. It was a big part of our lives, because that was the big deal. And the towns and Richland jumped from 300 people to several thousand almost overnight. And even out at the Richland Y, there were a lot of businesses out there at that time. Originally, there was only one business there. When you went from like Kiona to Kennewick, you would go through the Richland Y. And there was a service station there, and that's all there was there at that time. And eventually, there got to be several stores and restaurants and so on there, too. But there were a lot of people, they'd go to work, and there'd be a termination wind, a good old Tri-City windstorm with the dust blowing. And there would just be a line of them heading back home to where they came from, whether it be Kansas or Oklahoma or whatever. But they came out here, and a lot of them stayed, because it was still better than where they'd come from. Because a lot of them came right out of the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma. If you've ever seen the movie Tobacco Road, that's an old movie, it's good to get it and watch it. It gives you an idea of what things were like back then. Those were the people. And they'd come into town with old cars, old Model A Fords and so on. And they'd have suitcases and trunks up on top, tied down with ropes, and old trucks and everything. It looked like an evacuation of a war zone. And a lot them would just camp along the road, between the Y and Kennewick. Of course, the road went down where the park is now. And there were farms along there. A lot of the people coming into town to work would stop and camp along there, along the way, because they probably camped along the way, all the way up from wherever they came from, the Midwest. And then you had a lot of more sophisticated people, like the scientists, too, that came out. But they were the ones who got the plumb housing.
Arata: Hey.
Johanson: And you had the top-notch people, like Fermi and people like that that were the fathers of the atomic era. They lived here, too, some of them. Some of them just came out from Chicago and places like that to work. So like I said, I'll probably think of a lot more things when I get home.
Arata: Always. Well, I want to thank you so much for coming in and spending this time with us and sharing your memories.
Johanson: That's okay. At my age, you have a lot of time on your hands.
Arata: It was wonderful.
Johanson: Time on your hands! [LAUGHTER]
Arata: Lots of stuff we hadn't heard before, so it was really great.
Johanson: Pardon?
Arata: You had lots of stuff.
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