Thang Nguyen 555

We slowly unravel one scientific mystery after another: from Archimedes to Alzheimer, from Pasteur to Pluto.

Then, bang, gone. Accumulated in a lifetime: memories, moments and misery, accidentally deleted.

What made us who we are triumph and trail of burned bridges. Gone. From then, we just vegetate from one day to the next. Every day is a new day, a 24-hour cycle with vague recollection ” what Omega 3 ?” “did I watch that movie?”

It would be like Brigitte Bardot and Alain Delon watching their own movies without recognizing the actors.

Bang! Welcome to the club of 6 million American (131 million worldwide) who are Alzheimer’s patients. The price tag keeps rising even as Medicare slashed Biogen expensive and unproductive treatment last June.

It is safe to say, to date, more clinical trials are failing than hitting the marks. Big ticket, big reward, big barrier to entry and big price to pay.

God is tossing his dice. Above 65? watch out for stroke, HIV etc… and of course this cosmic delete.

Neuro plasticity to neuro genesis…plaque or protein…. We’re studying and demystifying this disease.

Tough cookie!

Wish we could just swallow a pill. Like refreshing our computer.

Or the option to purchase more memory card. In the absence of real bull-eyes, we worked around the edges: disease awareness month, convention and booths, buttons and banners…while those clinical trials keep humming at the tune of billions.

For patients and care givers, the best hope is for additional stretch of life, quality of life.

I mourn for those lifetimes worth of experience and education.

Wisdom gained then lost.

Start sharing the snippets. You’ll never know. It could hit anyone, anywhere, anytime.

Then one day, your memory never benefits anyone. Your photos never get uploaded.

As if you have never existed in this Lonely Planet.

No wonder Kushner took an online writing class from Patterson (who incidentally has collaborated with Bill Clinton on some WH thrillers) after signing on for a 6-figure deal. The title has yet to be revealed, but I would venture to guess, it’s something to do with “surfing” (the waves of power and money).

The ultimate American oligarch and opportunist (the pardon broker for Eastman, Bannon, Clark and whole host of others). If DJT watched the insurrection from across the mall, his son-in-law watched it from thousands of feet above (always from his six).

A bird-eye view to secure his next residence in a Billionaire Bunker off the Miami coast (per Peter Baker) distancing and a step ahead of the carnage and mayhem of J6. Smart boys > Proud Boys i.e. connecting the dots… prepping for a comeback (re-branding) with boatload ill-gotten or blood money from the Middle East and future royalties. If it were just for the art of not giving a f**k, it would be worth it to learn from this guy and buy his book.

Unless he gets Alzheimer before finishing his manuscript. For the 6 million whose every day is a new day – self re-creation and plausible deniability (Reagan got this right at the time of testifying about the Iran-Contra affairs), it’s a blessing in disguise until death ends it all.

No memoirs there. No memory. All to waste: warp and wasted neuro links and hard-earned connected dots.

Go purple this September – Disease-awareness month. We’ve got thus far on marketing outreach, color-coordination, even clinical trials yet no cure.

I pray for a soonest breakthrough.

Whoops! I accidentally deleted what I have just written. No problems.

Just press the reverse arrow. Wish it were that easy in real life.

“To make a dent in the universe”….”would you live your life the same way, knowing you have one more week to live”…”stay hungry, stay curious”…By now, you should recognise those quotes.

So universally true. So simple yet profound. And worth-heeding since they came out of the mouth of our Next’s CEO. Next, next, next….that’s what your life and mine is, from one moment to the next, relentless and uncompromising.

Just like those waves that keep coming. Regardless. And no respects for anyone.

Whether you seek to blame others (for mistakes that were yours) or to claim credits (for the work of others), it doesn’t make a dent.

We exist, from one moment to the next, inadvertently build our brand: reputational currency, showing up and show biz (powder that nose, which gets longer as time goes on). Doesn’t make a dent.

Some attempts were flukes. Others hit the marks. We might inherit a loser’s streak or a winner’s portfolio, still doesn’t make a dent.

A few more weeks to live. Last week we mourned and celebrated the loss of PBS commentator, Mark Shields. The segment came across as positive and joyful, from the look of his daughter. Know when to hold, when to fold. Exit gracefully and gratefully.

Other versions of our life could be worse: covid, accident or assassination (as in Robert Kennedy whom Mark Shields worked for).

What to do when you know you don’t have much time to fool around?

• Time – limited time- dictates
• Quality in relationships, intra and inter (good with every bite, squeeze the hand that visited you, give each other plants and if possible, adopt a kid. More future, the better). Why should Fox news Murdoch get all the fun!
• Own your mistakes, past and present. make a list of negative people who dragged you down. Then burn it. Puff! Gone and forgotten. This way, we get to know our real self for the first time without the burden of self-defense
• It’s only human to deflect and defer to others e.g., circumstances, contexts and comrades (Uvalde Monday-morning quarterback shows there had been too many cooks in the kitchen). Yes, we are people of the system, but we are free agents capable of course-correction, to the minimum, like a version of an iPhone capable of downloading an update software
• write, instead of the “Art of the Start”, write the “Art of Adieu”. Sois heureuse. Avec, ce lui, qui ton coeur, a choisi. Let go. Fly out of Andrews Airforce base, and don’t look back
• When all said and done, Mark Shield’s and all the elections he covered made for a byline in history. That’s sad. Yet when building a brand, we succumb to self-delusion, a Shaman-like triumph at the Capitol Dias where minutes earlier, Mike Pence and his gavel had presided.

One thing from my expressed wish, that I would be burned to ash, is the enemy cannot piss on my grave. I already know, at a nano level, what I am made of. Dust come to dust. Vanity is what it is.

No dent in the universe. Just you and me and the wave, then next wave, until we are worn out. What’s happened happened before. Yet no one can dispute the freshness of the morning light and the scent of a flower. And wonder what we have done to deserve that.

All those blame-seeking and not owning up to our imperfect self amounts to opportunity cost and loss, occasions that could have been converted into self-improvement and advancement. Wish I had own up at every chance.

Knowing you don’t have much to live, before you turn to ash (back to the beginning), what would you do differently? Let’s put on Clapton ” Bell-bottom blues”: one more chance, another dance…

Fathers’ Day gift to you.

Hearts touched with Fire, by David Gergen.

Indisputable on every page. Like a good meal for our hard head and soft heart.

Perhaps when it was rushed to print, Putin had not yet invaded Ukraine. Or else, we would have had a chapter on Zelensky.

But for now, as far as Leadership studies, this is it. A compendium of role models, check lists and advices for both old and young people: on changing reality…”for centuries, Americans kept a Bible by the side of their bed, now, we keep an iPhone”….to leadership models, Alicia Garza ” If there are many leaders, you can’t compromise a movement and you can’t kill it” as told to Charlotte Alter (pg 243)..

We have all seen Mr. Gergen on TV, heard him on PBS or CNN, often right after a Presidential debate or State of the Union address. After all, he has been just a few doors outside of the Oval Office since the Nixon administration on down.

We’re fortunate to have him where he has been (certainly not in that engine room of a ship).

But then, as he mentioned numerous times in the book, it’s crucible that made a man “strong steel are made from hot fires”. The inner journey converges with the outer journey, then have them integrated before product – us – gets to market.

He saw Nixon wave from the helicopter, Ford fumble – or choose the least-voted-on speech version, Alexander Haig’s sweat when Reagan had been shot and Clinton hold CA traffic for a $200 hair cut.

His red flag: beware of power and its lures ( “There’s always something…” to quote All the King’s Men).

Mr. Gergen exemplifies the best of Speech Communication. How words matter.

How words galvanise a nation into action: “Ask not….”

Mr. Gergen also urges readers to study History, to have a better grasp at the time frame and flow, a pre req for having better judgment (Kennedy and the Guns of August – his reference point during the Cuban Missiles Crisis).

When everything is tied into a knot, handed to you still hot like “Hearts touched with Fire”, you can’t help but saying: “Thank You”.

I will read it. Will put it next to my bed beside the iPhone. And promises kept. I finished it (partly because I bought it full price, partly because it was a Fathers’ Day gift to myself, with tomorrow deadline).

Mr. Gergen was true to form. He embodies his message, peppers it with anecdotes from Reagan televised magic marker mishap (and subsequent ad-lib) to a post-impeachment Clinton, subdued and deflated.

He touched on Speech primers i.e. Ethos, Logos and Pathos (first, get a feel for your audience before delivering your message, often times persuasion – then as often be the case, add some humor that disarms them). – which triggers my one-liner for Facebook: “to change the world, one wife at a time” (no visual aids here).

He, the author, could have taken shots at recent leadership in the WH, but he chose to accentuate only the positive instead of wasting his energy on duplicating the work of Jan 6 commission. Besides, history has a funny way to pick winners (Nelson Mandela, who was baptized by fire) and losers (Nixon, who resorts to the low arts of Leadership).

I want to close with what struck me. When Mother Teresa who started out her chosen path at age 18, was asked why Calcutta? Her reply:” Because I want to live a hard life”.

The path to Leadership often goes against headwind, through rough patches, down and through the valley of the shadow of death. But comes the other side, like in the morning of October 28th, 1962, with Northern Hemisphere still in one piece, thanks to our nation’s leader who himself was reading History and not trigger-happy.

Today’s future mass-shooters could take a lesson or two from “Hearts touched with Fire” e.g. volunteer a few years of your wasted life in the service of others, find meaning in suffering (from Lincoln to Bonhoeffer) before those inner/outer journey align with True North. The young Shultz who was the whistle blower at Theranos, said on TV right after the verdict that all he wanted was a sense of vindication.

When your inner journey and others’ all confluence into something like a Naval Echelon, chances are we find ourselves vindicated and live in a much better world than ours today.

Happy Fathers’ Day.

Film studies 101 often showed The Birth of a Nation to lay the foundation for what’s to become of Hollywood. First silent feature film. Historical and technological, the later much faster.

Visual impact with hoodies KKK’s riding into the sunset to rescue an America on the decline. “If you don’t fight like Hell, you wouldn’t have a country”…sounds familiar?

Long coat, cold air ” …tear down this wall”, except more Grifter than Gipper.

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/02/08/383279630/100-years-later-whats-the-legacy-of-birth-of-a-nation

Then, any film crew member would know better NOT to sit in that empty Director’s chair, no matter how long the shoot has been, and how tired grips have felt. It’s a sine qua non. Script, sight and sound all in sync, or magically altered back in the editing room.

Today’s films (or for that matter, digital books) could be produced anywhere in collaboration with an international crew, as long as they have an internet connection.

A convergence of opportunities. Unfortunately, creativity and content have yet to catch up with Moore’s Law.

We “amused ourselves to death” with the small screen, silver screen and social media screen. If we don’t see it appear on screen, we tend not to believe it (as opposed to “have it in writing” as in years past).

“zip code?”

” Remove your card”….

“Select the grade.”

Ouch!

Samsung is doing well with its screen technology. It will soon expand out here in Round Rock, Tx. There seems to be no turning back. Not with a digital native generation . The Jan 6 commission got this. It shows clips etc… as opposed to long Watergate summer.

Human acceptance of technology (adoption) tends to clip human acceptance of fellow human being. Take the Birth of a Nation as an example. Films have moved on from its 1915 original screening i.e., Black and White, hours long etc…

But we still struggle with BLM’s and George Floyd aftermath. The concept of equality resides still in the Ivory Tower never siphoned down to Main Street.

Back then, it’s Boston NAACP chapter that protested the film. Today, it’s still Boston that champions Climate Change initiatives, MIT with robotic technologies on Route 128. East-Coast education for a Confederate mind.

So we have culture wars. We face decline and division: class, gender, politics and religion. All stove pipes.

In Hurt’s Locker and Virgin Suicide, we found female directors worthy of Oscars.

50 years of rising to the challenge ( of equal opportunities for men and women).

Don’t sit on that chair, unless you are the one, and don’t say “Cut” or “Action” unless you are damn sure make-ups, script, grips, lighting, camera, sound and clapper are all set.

We, the film tribal people, all share a common heritage: action heroes, sidekicks, Bogart watching the plane take off, the Sicilian mandolin sound track of the Godfather, and the blow up of the Challenger on live TV.

All those sight and sound strike a responsive chord, carrying us back to The Way We Were. A sense of nostalgia and melancholy. Of selective memory and a glorious past (that can no longer be Make Great Again-able).

Many technologists of religion, gizmology, politics are in search of a legal theory (per Judge Carter) at a precinct level, unhooded.

But underneath lays a birthing and development of a Nation, still prejudiced at the core. Ask Vincent Chin’s mom whose son was beaten to death on his bachelor’s night in Detroit some 4 decades ago. Ask a Floridian mom how Zimmerman who killed her son yet got away scotch free. And now at Tops to top it all. 18-year-old out-of-towner rode into town to mow down his purportedly “replacement”.

Until we see the Death of a Nation ( as opposed to its current schizophrenia ), we won’t get a Phoenix-rising nation, beacon of the world and city on the Hill.

Cut. Cut. Cut. (BTW, did someone promise “I will march with you”, only to collect your credit card plus fees to the tune of a quarter of a billion-dollar. Hard to fathom the depth of mayhem, caused all by one man, still at 44% approval as of today’s poll).

No wonder, as long as money talks, it can buy experts in all sorts of domain, from legal experts (Eastman) to communication experts (Fox), from religion/philosophy (Bannon – who thought 2016 campaign had tanked after the rant tape with Bill Bush came out) to local election volunteers (NV and AZ). Heck, back in Luther’s 1517, it could get you a one-way ticket (indulgence) out of purgatory, or in Kushner 2021, a spot on the pardon list.

We live in fear, paranoid and anxiety. Yet our imaginary fear doesn’t reflect what’s out there in reality. Yet, through mass hysteria, manufactured consent and a conspiracy mindset (“the Other”) we end up on the same page (but not the same script) in a movie called a Rebirth of a Nation.

Not unlike its original version in Black and White. Just as long and despicable as its original, only this time, it’s in plain sight, unhooded for the world to see. After all, it’s digital age, where tweets, texts, emails, cursing, hoarding, killing and selfies are all out there in the cloud, retrievable for analysts to slow mo (NYTimes piece on the Proud Boys).

BTW, what’s that SVN flag was doing on top of the Capitol dome on that fateful day? Somehow, the guy, his son and their Southern flag – now charged with federal crimes- were beaten to the summit by nimbler and light-weight rice-paddy folks, however misled on the days led to it, the media echo chamber, run on ill-gotten money and disinformation.

Back in the editing room, many wish they had studied films 101, to edit out and sanitize sight and sound. In the cloud. Out in the open, cold air.

Inside, with heat on and remote control, sit in that director’s chair, we both know who it was that peppered the day with nudges and nuances, hoping against hope: “from the bottom of our heart, we love you”. Til next shoot.

Saw Sidney Poitier’s In the Heat of the Night while in the heat of the day.

He played a homicide detective from Philadelphia, on his way home with train connection through small town Sparta.

That’s where it all happened: from mistakenly jailed for murder to being slapped (and slapping right back) for the color of his skin.

We’re in the thick of the heat, and it’s not even officially summer yet.

Heat could kill as much as the cold. Long ago, I read about the elderly in Chicago apartment who died from heat strokes.

Every summer as it seems, we have something going on that was unlike the summer before: restlessness, hearings and anniversary (Jan 6 and Watergate 50th).

This summer however, it’s gas price and the Wall Street tumbling.

The grifters still enjoy their bounty. Cooling their heels in the French Riveria or else where. Got to spend away OPM (other people’s money), since it’s ill-gotten and might not last.

What moral arc? what karma?

Nobody believes in those ideals and concepts. If so, they wouldn’t have ventured into the dark side in the first place.

There was a segment on the Newshour about Somalia’s mothers, who had to migrate to find milk for their children. Of course I couldn’t bear watching it.

We have outlived our welcome on this Earth, as it seems.

When lies, cheat and steal seem to go unpunished, and poor people scrape the bottom of the barrel to get by. We do seem to have a problem.

Forget empathy. Forget charity. Just grant us justice and dignity.

Aren’t human lives worth-protecting? We grieved over Uvalde, before and after that incident.

We might soon have a bill to track and trace mental health trajectory (of young people who show signs of self-harm and community harm).

In the heat of the night! People confessed “I didn’t mean to kill him”.

Must be tough to get jailed, slapped and bullied yet all the while trying to help solve a case out of professional courtesy. “The measure of a man” is his memoir. BTW, I saw a WSJ headline on how a Jewish waiter helped Sidney out with his speech, after he had failed an audition.

When a man has strong command of his speech, he commands his body language as well (as actors should).

Practice, practice, practice.

The earlier in life, the better to rid off bad habits and acquire good ones.

Stack them, name them with details (calling out etc….) as Atomic Habits teaches us.

Over time, our life and in turn, larger society would benefit greatly.

Wealth and good habit accumulation. Keys to a fulfilled life. Self-leadership doesn’t come in a vacuum.

Its contour includes crucibles and valleys of death. On the other side, triumph over the still-animal self.

The dog-eats-dog nature, of getting something for nothing, of grifting and preying on others’ gullibility and herd instincts. If in “The measure of a man” we don’t find mutual uplifting, then it should in its next revision. We need each other to finish this unchosen race of life in dignity and grace.

It’s not what happened to us. It’s how we respond out of our inner values and strength.

Those reflexes are decades in the making. We started out in kindergarten with ABC’s then on that building block, arises our speech.

Control your thought and tongue, you control your lives. In real life, S Poitier, with help, articulated and rid off his Jamaican accents. On the screen, “in the Heat of the night”, he controlled his rightful temper.

Times will change. It’s us who would have to be ready to adapt, to new nuances and living conditions. Among which, as of late, grifters seem to rule the day….for a while. Until the moral arc righting itself. You’ll see. It happens every time. On time. Like a train that our protagonist was waiting for in Sparta , a 4:05 AM , with a stepping stool for passengers, no matter how many expected at that early hour.

Yours and my alibi for showing up and dressed up for the ride.

Summer 71 found me quarantined at home to nurse a broken arm. The injury happened right in my first month of practicing Hapkido. A lot of songs to pass the time. Summer breeze was hard to come about, in my small and S-shaped alley.

Summer 75? needless to say, I was going nowhere, except to the pristine beach and the mess hall of Wake Island. On the bus or on foot. But going nowhere.

Summer 76, I worked as a camp counselor in Mt Poconos.

A co-worker, teacher, from Philadelphia took me home on break. We watched the Bi-Centennial fireworks at the cradle of Democracy. Everyone seemed to be jubilant. The nation finally regained its footing, after Vietnam. Born on the Fourth nor not, we’re ready to kick the Vietnam syndrome.

A little bit of romance here, and there. But first, I must hit the book…from Speech class to TV production class, from PE to micro-economics…. just to check the list toward graduation.

Summer 79 was my graduation right after the Three-Misle-Island coverage. I struggled: to take the job or not take the job. Mom was waiting in D.C. without any children living with her. Jobs I could always find, but not another Mom.

Summer 80 in the backyard of a co-worker in Northern VA. The Children’s TV International crew outing. Guitar and singing in the outdoors.

Summer 81, I was setting up the sound system, test the mike in Hong Kong Jubilee camp, and while at it, might as well spark the set for the thousands of refugees there. My trapped audience, with no admission and no applause. Just curiosity and a break from their miserable quarantine.

Summer 82 graduation at Wheaton Graduate School. Feature writing with Glenn Arnold. Write, write and write. Make sure to close the loop with the same anecdote.

Summer 83, once again, in Hongkong scattered islands, with doors slammed behind after my UNHCR visits to the many camps. Thousands were in semi-permanent detention. I knew for a fact, many would make it once they were out into to the four winds. All those trapped talent and raw humanity. No summer breeze there in those make-shift centers where violence was the norm, a reenactment of the Vietnam War.

Summer 86 I traveled to West Africa. On a goodwill free book tour. Seeing my grad-school classmate again. In Ghana, Cote D’Ivoire and Liberia. People living their normal lives e.g. long outdoor religious gatherings (with the exception of Liberia upheavals).

Summer 88 I made a pact to myself to have the best summer of my single life: on a bike, Martha Vineyard, Vietnam Memorial with an overnight stay on Mrs. Lodge’s property, widow of Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge. She used “divine” a lot.

Then many summers since, including back and forth to Vietnam. To rediscover what’s been missing the first time around. The same alley, same round-about. But I have changed from the inside.

I have acquired a wider context, met many different types of people, rode the corporate elevator. These internal eyes helped me see what’s been missing, what’s been shortchanged and what could have been: rule of law, scale and sophistication.

People live with blind fold and blind spot. Just like here in the US of late. Gun laws and abortion laws. Incidentally, Seals and Crofts had an album called “Unborn child”…., an anti-abortion theme. which made radio stations even the ones with payola puzzled.

Seals died last week. Leaving Crofts all alone. Both were born in Texas.

One would think the song evoke memories of the sea like in California and written by Californian.

“Saw the curtains hanging in the window… in the evening on a Friday night, … a light shinning through the window, lets me know everything is all right”.

Summer breeze makes me feel fine….

All those traveling was just to get it out of the system. The restlessness of a permanent nomad. In search of love and the truth. To come home and know the place for the first time.

Settling for nothing less than significance and eternality. Blood sweat and tears. No respite and no rest for the weary. Baptism by fire and water. Till ash return to ash. Because one cannot go home again. “My soul was anchored in the heavenlies…hence my heart grows restless”.

What’s left is just a fragment of those summer breeze, on the Island or on the beach. Often times, just to play out a wish on a whim.

Turns out it’s not the hardware of the soul that matters. Infact, it’s just the opposite: the software like summer breeze and sudden love, without numbers crunching or calculation. The later belongs in domain of data, of certainty and predictability. Math more than matters of the heart.

“Feel the arms that reach out to hold me”. Someday we’ll see face to face and it will be then time to “seal” that deal.

When Bonjour Tristesse came out, I was too young to grapple with its significance. But French youth, and by way of colonial extension, made its way to my upper classmen as well (Buon oi! ta xin chao mi).

A lot of suicide after the publication of the book, as I was told.

“My heart has no address…and letters I wrote, addressing to Tristesse – ” existential loneliness. What do you do when you already had everything, except your selective memory.

Can’t repeat last summer, that summer, sad summer.

Students enjoy a summer and a sabbath away from the school. It’s safer that way.

Until doors are re-enforced.

My kid and I talked about “living together and dying alone” (a 4th grader already contradicted me by saying ‘but sometimes people die at the same time’ – I then deflected by saying, it’s true, as in war – all the while, trying not to bring up Uvalde).

Sad summer days, high temperatures low morale.

If I had to keep one summer, it would be summer of 75 in Wake Island/Indiantown Gap, PA.

Half-and-half. Middle of nowhere and can’t wait to get somewhere.

Island and mainland.

Isolated and insulated but always inside an Army barracks.

All the way from “bombing halt” to 444 days of hostages, to holding out on Ukraine defense aid package. Somehow, America and its elections affected multiple countries throughout its short existence. I am thankful we’ve got a “Ford” and not a “Lincoln” during our “caravan” exodus.

Stagnation was rampant. Very much like this summer’s inflation.

Color kids went to Nam and came home in flag-draped caskets. White ivy-league students also died on campus and elsewhere (as human chain to stop the National Guard on May Day 71 “If the government doesn’t stop the war, we stop the government”, in banners and on buttons).

Summertime was supposed to be breezy with Seals and Crofts, not Bonjour Tristesse.

After many years of being apart, I now realize that summer was a blessing in disguise. When our families were together. Just sun, sand and some sadness. But together.

The only summer I can recall. First summer without my Dad (prelude again to next week’s Father’s Day).

We cherished what was lost, was behind and would never be put back: a sense of belonging to our origin, the contour of a city whose name got changed and the nuances of a culture of misery and mischievousness.

So mythical that years after the US came home, broken and defeated, it still studied and suffered “Vietnam syndrome” as President Bush put it.

We’re lucky to have our lives intersected with President Ford’s. Albeit clumsy, he was what we all needed during post-Watergate, post-Vietnam: good in character. Same way we love Chevy Chase who portrayed him. He controversially pardoned Nixon, then the hundred thousand defectors and draft dodgers (to Canada)

Today, if we were to do it again, we wouldn’t go beyond Subic Bay in the Philippines. Heck, the supply chain problems of world migration.

Every administration has to deal with its own legacy and leaves behind its unfinished agenda.

Our lives are intertwined, from the French re-colonization of Indochina (Chennault Affair) to the MIA and Agent Orange lingering issues.

Although there no longer is a sense of urgency with the Vietnam Memorial casts a long shadow on the Mall (where people are marching today en masse for our lives), we still feel that unspoken sadness of summer 75, for us on Wake Island and part of it, in Indiantown Gap, PA where those “deer hunters” of old Pittsburg, PA. were later portrayed (ducking past his welcome home party).

“Do you know, where you’re going to, do you like the things that life is showing you.”

No, I don’t like it. Not one bit, when people are cruel and unkind. When kids have to take longer summers not because of the academic calendar, but because school is closed with “crime scene” tapes.

Long ago, we put the yellow ribbon on the oak tree (if you still want me to come home). Now it’s yellow cordoned tape so Federal Law Enforcement can examine to the teeth how damn door was locked and where the janitor was nowhere to be found.

Summer on Cote d’Azur, summer on the run, summer on lockdown. We’re always on the quest to be outside of the box, yet often times found ourselves in the box of our own making….”prisoners of our own devices”, like a line in Hotel California. No wonder, even at a young age, I was struck by the title of Francois Sagan’s book.

Just by touching deep on that subject, was enough to drag down a bunch of youth. Suicide. Die alone. Just don’t take people with you. Especially the younger ones, who like me at an impressionable age, were looking up and out onto the world, trying to figure out the shape of reality and whether people in general, were good or evil, kind or cruel, magnanimous or Monterious.

Glad we found in Ford, a president, a steady Ford, with character and forthrightness. Those qualities have been of late in short supply.

That summer, we had no address. Our hearts also had no address. Only letters written, addressing to sadness. And every morning, I now remember saying “Bonjour Tristesse” although not in French, but something very similar to it. Almost “buon oi, ta xin chao mi”.

Bid time return. Somewhere in time.

Wish we could. More so with our Superman (to avert that fateful horse-riding accident).

To make that left at the fork instead of a right. To come in full circle to live once again in centuries/decades past.

The older I get, the more I understand my Dad’s unspoken struggles. More than 4 decades apart, we’re not pals.

Just a father-son relationship, unlike many of my friends, who have dads to hang out and share activities with.

If I could go back in time. To 36 pho Back Kinh, Hai Duong. To the turn of 19th century. To live in a then-2-stories mansion, with two dozen people sharing lunch (as I was told). To experience aristocracy (small “a”). Just an extended family sharing blood line.

In Somewhere in Time, we’ve got Christopher Reeve and Christopher Plummer.

The multiple lives we could have again, only if.

More than often, we’ve been short-changed, partly due to self-sabotage.

In that movie, it’s the agent who intervened “for the good of the actress”.

In life, it’s always one actor or an incident that disrupts or deflects our trajectory (for a romance or a career).

Then by looking in the rear-view mirror, we wonder what became of some people we once endeared.

I wish them well.

People in and out of our lives. Some left great marks. Others, big holes.

We cherish those folks. Wish we could turn back the clock, to do it differently with different outcomes.

Somewhere in time. I wouldn’t want to come out of the womb.

I once peaked in my family album.

To the left, my Dad and brother. To the right, my Mom and sister.

No room for me, unless peeking out from the spine of the album.

Of course, I hadn’t been around then.

War, displacement and incongruence within and out. Why would they want me to join them. A desperate need for a sidekick? Like Joe Pesci in the back seat in Lethal Weapons?

To put me through torture and bombardment? Where the hell is Gulf of Tonkin, Laos, Guam/Wake/Bataan/and a bunch of SEA islands that were not in our Vietnamese lexicon (yet ended up housing us by the thousands).

Who would want to grow up in Uvlade just to be mowed down, unrecognisable.

I just want to rewind time in one swipe, back the other way, to land aboard the Ark, to hang out with my species-counterpart.

Let it flow (the flood). Thou shall not kill.

Shall not covet your neighbour’s Corvette.

Or the lawn that always looks greener on the other side.

Somewhere in time, how about just 50 years, so we would listen to Senator Sam Ervin at the Watergate hearing and not tonight, at the Jan 6 committee prime time Episode 1. What a carnage in our present time.

Let’s self-hypnotize. Go back in time. to cruise up and down Main Street.

No screens (except for outdoor movies). No twitter. Just chill. With Fonzie or Xanadu’s Magic.

The age of innocence. Before all the hate and vitriol out in the open, shamelessly.

Always in the name of a more noble cause and higher authority.

Give me the Black-and-White movies, the music of the time, and the spirits of the time.

People who touch the brim of their hats to greet neighbors. People who wear suits and shoes (not sweats after the lockdown).

When life is a box of chocolates.

They may walk the dog or they may not. But a smile is certain. And the sky, always blue, despite V8 engines (not too many choices, besides model T’s in Black).

My Dad used to comb his hair using “brilliantine”, put on his shoes that I had shined the night before. After putting on his belt he hit the noon sun for a route of collection and customer success. Paying his due. To bear any burden.

Somewhere in time. I might find myself smiling at those rejection, the toughness of a sales career and the demand at home. I might lash out when things did not come my way. Or I might not, with hindsight and vantage point of 2022 and 2021 the year of Mass Shooting and Mass Insurrection.

My Dad and I live in different times yet shared the same struggle and stimuli. Of lacking adequate resources for compound families’ demand.

I’ll take Watergate Summer any day over what I will be watching tonight. What a sad affair and commentary of our times. Legislature stops dead, while the will of the people and parents in Uvalde ignored. ????

If I could go back in time, I would destroy the artifacts that allow me to return to the present (that pocket watch and those antique clothes, in Reeve’s case).

Even if living back in time, with trade offs like giving up on longevity, a modern luxury afforded by science and vaccination.

It’s the ethos and ethics that I long for…Yesterday….for Today, those qualities come in short supply, as if the concept of “half-life” in science is also applied to social sciences i.e. people are less and less decent and kind as the years go by.

In short, the evolution to reclaim the better angel of our nature somehow regresses as time progresses.

Christopher Reeve and Christopher Plummer both are no longer with us. Somewhere in time, I can hear them lament about our current state of affairs. Still waiting for Superman, who as of now, is still lounging somewhere at the Grand Hotel.

I often wonder how publishers manage those tedious spell checking and painstaking editing tasks before automation. To know who were involved in the process of birthing, you just need to flip to the Acknowledgement page.

At times, it’s in the beginning pages. Other times, near the end.

What if our lives were books? How long would our Acknowledgement section be? Where do we put it?

My father was tall and handsome by his countrymen standard. Son of a regional Senator (so privy that his oldest brother got into opium, while his younger brother, died a martyr – he was into anti-colonial Revolution after studying in France), he however just drifted as an outside sales after a stint in the Army. Post-army life found him lashed out when frustration boiled up. His hybrid nature of a warrior-poet – physical strength and emotional vulnerability – never measured up to our grandfather and his cousins’ standard. (plus “torn between two lovers” did not help).

Through him, I heard about Maugham, pre-war moonlight serenade and “Golden Music” (including some French).

That is my first person to be acknowledged.

Watching him ready for work, or taking siestas, and interacting with war-time larger society gave me a sense of proper conduct.

Always courteous, giving others the benefit of the doubt, and be strong if need be (neighborhood thieves and bullies all stayed away after a few shots).

My Mom, on the other hand, was quiet, graceful and “endured all things” (including sharing my Dad with another woman, who courted him while my Mom was seeking a teaching job in Hanoi, away from home).

Long time passing. Before my time.

But I want to acknowledge their guidance and guardrails. My well being depended on the sweats of their eyebrows. How they wiped the slate clean after domestic perfect storm.

Both taught me to put others first. Polite and kind. Considerate and compassionate.

And how could I not mention my two siblings, two decades my senior. They showed me what hustle was all about: college, P/T jobs, career, family and raising kids.

It’s hard enough to survive during the Great Starvation (45) then the Partition/migration (54), then evacuation (75) and of late, as widow and widower. Must be superman and woman for them to hit the ground running (despite stagflation and resignation of Nixon and Ford’s lost election 76).

So I acknowledge their direct and indirect contribution.

Even the ones who were cruel to me e.g. accusing me of stealing her bible or trying to steal my girl i.e. inadvertently turning me into a pimp; for through these worse-nature of our angels, I am reminded of life’s mixed blessings. And that not everyone loves you as your Mom would (ask George Floyd).

I also acknowledge neighborhood food vendors, who day in and day out, showed up with a smile on their faces (despite a war that was raging on).

From co-workers at Child Welfare in Indiantown Gap, to the Sycamore Community at Penn State, from my janitorial first job to the ABC news photographer internship.

I remember the school of journalism. How young and eager faces picked a tough field as their major in college. Must be because “All the President’s Men”….All seek after “the best obtainable version of the truth” as Carl Bernstein put it.

I thank Doug Mc Bee who showed me how to cold call (selling the whole PBX and voicemail system). Brian Fisher at MCI who saw my leadership potential. I could have joined the Episcopal Priest in Orange County to service our fellow countrymen. But then, I know deep down, I could not be confined into just a sub-group, living out my parochial life: back and forth in same ethnic cluster on short leash (and collar).

I thank those who showed me an alternative way of living, like that blind man in my Survival in the Wilderness class. Heck, he was not afraid of the dark ( even took part in going solo, fasting and meditation on top of then snowy White Mountain of NH). He was living in it his whole life. Or my Ghanaian classmate Joe who took me home to show me around. “Just call everyone ‘Chief'”.

I acknowledge the contribution women before and after ERA e.g. shared a bike ride, in restless summer. or brief romance which often ended up in disaster. Or short-lived matrimonies (it’s funny, that after we matriculated in school, we sought out its continuance in matrimony, another form of short-term matriculation).

The tie that binds. Unspoken agreement, through thick and thin; that we stay on and fight for our survival and happiness. My Dad doesn’t seem to understand compromises, not as much as my Mom, who was the one with stronger maternal instincts. Both lived on until their early 90’s, on separate nursing home arrangement.

And last of all, I acknowledge the loyalty of friendship. People who I can just say “hey, I am broke” ( often having lived out that streak of creative destruction on trips overseas, first as a volunteer, then an expat- as if, when summer comes around, the road is calling; stimulus – response ; repeat the pattern of that fateful and restless summer 75 on the run).

Good friends are hard to come about. We live many lives and carry many burdens. The journey is long, and often times, we barely scrape life’s surface. I if not for those good company would never have experienced fulfillment. They know me, and I them.

Despite decades apart, still we fit like a glove. Hard to see ahead and around the bend. But they are there. Always rooting for me, and I them. They know I was into the spectacular not mundane. Go for broke. In short, I am my own problem. And I myself am the solution. Good friends stay to the side, give you the space to be and grow to become your best self in your timetable.

This acknowledgment is for non-judgmental friends over the years who understood that one size doesn’t fit all. For them, I am forever grateful. One time, we’re just playing over and over Steely Dan’s “Do it again” on an Akai tape recorder to pass the time.

Hope to do it again one day soon. I acknowledge those whom I shared the road and to those who paved the road.

This acknowledgement is to be placed where it’s hard to miss even when the book has yet been finished. It’s my life. It’s also yours. From cradle to the grave, sandwiches and coffee in between. Those kind “might I refill your cup?” from the Corner Room of Penn State.

My book would not pretend to tell the whole truth (I am taking the fifth). But I promise the “best obtainable version of the truth” about my life as it unfolds.

Life as book. Evolved. Edited. Page per page, day after day, ever continuous.

At least for now the Acknowledgement section is out of the way.

We’ll have to take a commercial break.

Be right back after this. Please don’t “Skip Ads”.

Your choice. Make it early.

Beyond the binary options, we still have Missing In Action, a designation by the War Department (DoD now) when soldiers, dead or alive, were unaccounted for.

Last week, my cousin was laid to rest. Her husband, a Ranger Major, had been a MIA for 47 years. My cousin was accounted for i.e. I can someday day make a pilgrim to South VN to pay my respects. Her husband? A big question mark.

In What Remains, the author lists stats and data to show there has been no closures for the thousands from both sides of the conflict (Vietnam or American War, depends).

Last week, in Uvalde, TX ; parents were to give their DNA’s for a match with their missing children’s (by the time the shooter was done with them, they were unrecognizable….even with School Photos on records).

What remains.

Then and now.

Buried or burned.

We’re worth more than what’s left of us. Not just in the memory of our loved ones.

All children are worth fighting for. From Gerber icon on up. Then they reach 18, or become an adult, we separate the wheat from the chaff: you, Syrian refugee, over there, you, productive Jews, over here…you, Corinthian College enrollees over here (…debt forgiveness) you white supremacist “not guilty” plead…etc.

The binary forced choice.

I once visited a town near the Cambodia border. Mass execution took place there by the Khmer Rouge. Out in the open-air museum one finds Empty eye sockets. Cheek bones protruded and of course, unidentifiable.

What remains.

The saddest thing was people stoically waiting for their turn, as if the longer in line, the longer they got to live. Then decades later, we, visitors, rinse and repeat: lining up for our turn to look at both theirs and our future fate.

What morbid existence! What else to say! (the Khemer I knew in Bataan phase II back in 83 were quite kind and soft-mannered, always with the sarong and bow).

Back to our options: buried or burned, missing or memorialized, DNA match or un-match.

We’re to make Heaven or Hell out of our short stint, all is up to us.

Be happy. Don’t forget to breathe. Don’t be like those who are peddling their snake oil in the aftermath of Uvalde (sideshow): free flashlights, easy guns or photoshops (vs what AR-15s can do by the time they are finished with your child).

What a tragedy we make of our lives. From Alamos on down to Antonio. From South St Philadelphia to South Vietnam. Beautiful country….GOOOOOOOOOOD Morning Vietnam. ” what a wonderful world…..oh yes….what a wonderful world”….

Please put on Armstrong’s cut on, to once again appreciate the lush-green beauty, all grew back after all the bombs (from all the wars put together) to “defoliate” and deprive the enemies of their sanctuary…. the secret bombing of Cambodia, the killing field of Cambodia, and everything in between (like MIA’s).

What they call Hell I call Home (Rambo). Still MIA and Maya Lin’s Vietnam Wall list is still growing. She herself has moved on: from the V-memorial to the museum of Chinese American history.

Meanwhile the unaccounted-for tilts heavily on just one side McNamara’s ledger. No closures. No burial nor burned. The weight of war.