Thang Nguyen 555

While sitting among Julie and friends – all 1st graders, I remembered my Ecole L’Aurore early years.

Yes, I walked to school with Pierre. Pierre was a French bastard (100 years of French colonial rule – naturellement – produced a bunch to be expected).

He would discuss Kennedy’s assassination. Then all of a sudden, he turned around and turned off the intersection control box. My oh my. Traffic was jammed up in one direction for miles (the police must have walked away for bathroom or coffee break).

One night, I woke up to the sound of break-in. The thief was in the process of “fishing” out my mom’s purse (laid carelessly in the middle of our dinner table) with his long pole commonly seen in flea market with which the shop vendor can unhook a dangling dress on high.

I was scared witless. Then all of a sudden, my shinning knight came to the rescue: my Dad emerged from the back of the house, throwing a knife which flew right by where my divan was (I slept alone on the first floor). Needless to say, the pole was tossed, and the thief ran away fast and furious.

The same Dad who threw his knife when trespassed would roll down the steps when he missed his footing on one occasion. I thought with that stiff angle, he would be paralyzed for life. I screamed really loud “Daddddd” just to find him roll with the punch and emerged unscathed.

Growing up in war-time refugee shanty town helped me appreciate the love and lust for life. People sing and dance, at times, uninvited. Knowing that death was nearby, everyone seemed to ignore it and go about the business of living. I heard more music in my times than the sound of artillery. Yet on that last month in Saigon, I could not ignore the sounds fleeing C-130’s that carried those privileged visa-holders to Guam, then, our sanctuary island.

Temporary shelters and tents were erected. Nobody complained about the arrangement. Once again, we went about the business of living and hoping. And hope we did, until this day, and onto the next generation(s). I guess you can call us dreamers and doers. Both. Once in a while, while lunching with next-gen 1st-graders, I recall those early moments, some of which unpleasant, while others unclassifiable. Like Pierre and his prank, like the thief’s tool that ended up in our house. I am in possession of those memories for as long as I live free: breathe free and think free until death comes “like the thief in the night”.