Vietnam

That obnoxious officiant clerk

/ wvfurandroot / 2 Comments

Longing for Budapest
I want to cruise the Danube
from Switzerland to the Black Sea
drifting from one fairytale to the next.

I’m more interested in Vienna than
Paris thought I certainly wouldn’t
turn up my nose at the Louvre
and afternoon coffee on the Seine.

An overwater bungalow with a thatched
roof in the Fiji appeals
more than Bali, though the terraced
rice paddies are really something.

Thailand would be lovely.
But Vietnam’s beckoning is stronger.
A train from north to south.
My family has a history there.

Speaking of which — Ireland.
But Edinburgh shouts louder.
It’s wilder, I think. A little rough around
the edges, like my chosen home.

I was in Guatemala on an aid trip
fifty years ago this year.
I’d like to see it with these eyes.
That 17-year-old’s were perhaps too young.

The choices are limitless and overwhelming.
When at most. I can choose one. Maybe two.
My finite bank account is an officious clerk
refusing to stamp my passport so I can move on.

My First Experience with Fine Dining

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Shamelessly Stolen from Vintage Hawaii on Facebook

I’m standing on the boardwalk between teahouses, looking down at the koi glistening in the Honolulu sunset.

I am so thin that everyone thinks they’re being original by calling me Twiggy. This evening, we are celebrating my 8th birthday at the Pagoda Restaurant.  August 3, 1967. We didn’t know it yet, but I would soon be diagnosed with a serious thyroid problem that was rare in kids. 

There were not enough calories to keep me unhungry.  I was never sated.  Never full. My metabolism was always on overdrive due to my hyperactive thyroid.

My father, a career Marine, had been transferred to the Marine base in Kaneohe.  We – my mother, brother, and I – joined him there in May.  We also didn’t know it yet, but my father would soon ship out for another year in Vietnam.  He had just gotten back from his first tour. By the time he left the Marine Corps, he had been through four combat tours.

But on the night of my 8th birthday, we stood on the boardwalk of the Floating Pagoda Restaurant waiting for a table to open.  I was entranced by the fish, but hungry.  As usual.

I think this was my first experience with fine dining. It’s the first one I can remember. The open-air restaurant was all white tablecloths, glistening china, and cold ice water in the first goblets I’d ever seen. The Asian waitresses wore exquisitely embroidered kimonos that gleamed in the light. 

My father was finally back, and we were all together again.  I was so very happy.  I was a Daddy’s girl until the day he died at 79.

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War is not healthy for children and other living things.

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Today is officially Veteran’s Day. We observed it yesterday so working folk could have their paid day off, but today is actually the day. It was originally Armistice Day – the ceasefire on November 11, 1918 that officially ended World War I or what was then known as the Great War. 

Veteran’s Day was always a happy holiday for me. It was the day after the Marine Corps Ball and my dad had the day off after a night of celebrating his calling in life. He was a Marine through and through until the day he died. 

I was a Daddy’s girl through and through, but four tours of Vietnam took a toll.  For more than four years between my ages of 7 and 14, he was away from home at war. In the in-between years, he was home and I was the apple of his eye. When he was finally done with Vietnam, my dad spent his energy keeping his PTSD from annihilating him.  He had no more energy for me.  When my son came along and put the light back in my dad’s eyes, I was both grateful and jealous.  But he had something to live for once again.  The two of them had an epic love story.   

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Beartown State Park

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Walter didn’t walk.  He ambled.  Today, though, he had a destination.

Walter wasn’t much of a planner, preferring to be spontaneous or, as he put it, just going with the flow.  But the flow today, required some preparation.  He had packed a lunch:  cheese sandwich, apple, Hostess pink Sno Balls and a bottle of Gatorade.  Green. 

He had seen the photo in a magazine.  Beartown.  He was even intrigued by the name.  A Vietnam memorial to a lost son deep in the heart of the West Virginia high mountains.  A series of boardwalks and large rocks, verdant and mysterious.  A sanctuary, sacred and oozing peace.  The perfect place to soothe a soul or lift a spirit.

Somewhere he could amble, but he had to get there first. 

Not yet dawn and the day was drizzly.  He threw a poncho in the backpack with his lunch and DSLR. Yup, he’d pulled out the big guns for Beartown.  It looked like a photographer’s dream location – moody yet tranquil.  He wondered if there were really bear up there on that part of Droop Mountain.  Droop Mountain, for sure, but in this state park?  He didn’t know.

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