That year, George had his first solo. Top of the chart. We got Hit Parade, which was the equivalent of my Farmer’s Almanac. Luckily, next door to us also lived a guitarist. So in love with Rock and Roll that I asked to be shown a few chords ( e.g. the guitar solo part of My Sweet Lord). It still resonates today, despite the album’s title: All Things Must Pass.
Vietnam War was at the time the elephant in the room. But for a 15-year old who loved all things American: peanut butter, blue jeans and music, the war was a catalyst and accelerant for life on the fast lane. Everyone was wearing bell-bottom blues and had hair down to their shoulders, so it seemed. The police was strict in Saigon, making us boys sitting both legs onto one side (like a modest girl wearing her skirt), for security reason??
The year after saw “decent intervals” per Nixon’s “Peace With Honor”. I was with a middle school team – all-boys school- assigned to visit neighboring schools to sell our annual student publication. In pressed uniforms, we approached each classroom and took turn to pitch our home-grown. My heart was pounding faster than usual, not only because of public speaking, but much more because this was a co-ed audience. Vo Nguyen, I later found out her name, was sitting way in the back, in tailored white ao-dai (Vietnamese modest traditional dress) and black underpants.
To this day, I still couldn’t figure out how my first and only date with her (no cell phone, no facebook, no nothing) came about.
I remember asking her name, and somehow, I found out where her cousin lived. It must have been through this intermediary that we established contact that led to our date. I put on my best striped orange/yellow short sleeves, while Vo Nguyen, still in her school uniform. She let me drive her mini-Lambretta, and off we went to the cinema. Who would remember the title of that movie after all these years. All I remember was I developed a class-consciousness, that her family own a furniture store, while mine subsisted on a meager teacher salary.
To this day, I still linked up the music of that coming-of-age year, my first public speaking experience (sales) and my first date (at least I learned how to close a deal/date).
All things must pass. But if there were exceptions, Vo Nguyen, my first date, stays up there on the pantheon of memories along with the Fall of Saigon (4 years later). I wish her the best life, and by chance, we ever run into each other again, on or off line, it would be a very exciting conversation, comparing notes from that time at our very own “Cinema Paradiso”.
Every profile on Linkedin tells me there are great human out there, struggling and striving to do and become their best. I cherish our student’s publication, just as I now do Facebook, Linkedin or other platforms. All future-forwarding, at the tip of our fingers. While the past is never dead, it’s not even past like mine, in 1971, with My Sweet Lord sound track still reverberating and echoing in my mind.
Thang Nguyen 555 