Faded Memories

Fifty years from now, people will not have the pleasure of going though old photographs at a flea market, garage sale or antique mall. There will be basically no hard copy photographs. All our photographs are now digitized and stored on hard drive or discs. You will not be able to rummage through a shoe box or album of photos. You will not experience the discovery of a unique image of a child and its pet or favorite toy. Vernacular photography will have become obsolete.

Existing photographs of generations before will have increased dramatically in price and be available to the few who can afford such an antique collection of 200-300 year old images. Hard copy images have become a thing of the past and rather than a personal collection, you will view them on specialty sites or order discs with enhanced images from the past. Today, family photos of relatives, vacations, fun time with the kids, are all in file on the iphones and pads. No more the bulky family albums we used to pull out of the bookcase and spread on the table to look at grandparents and childhood pictures. No longer the fuzzy, out of focus images with heads cut off and faded colors.

We lost something along the way to better technology. We lost the intimate social aspect of life. This is true in general as we see folks getting together for an event but spending more time on their phones texting and sharing. We share our happy times at the restaurant or bar but it is momentary as far as the images go for they will be erased to make room for the next event.

For years I have collected vintage images by going to estate and garage sales when families discard the portraits of family and relatives they no longer know or care about. I have on occasion gone back at the end of a sale to make an offer on the box of photos and albums no one wanted. I had been rewarded with most interesting images whose participants have no name or history other than they once existed and the black and white photo represents that moment in time when an experience was shared. I view these photographs not as someone I do not know, but rather a distant relative in the family of humankind whose name has been lost to me. A few images I have do have names so I can share that moment of time with Sarah, Thuy, Asako or “Uncle” Fred. and acknowledge their existence. We are all one family.

It is sad, at least to me, future generations will not have this privilege. Peace.

Hope in an Alley

Hope in an Alley

As a pre-teen, I walked down many an alley. I guess it was more interesting than walking on a sidewalk on the street. I saw things people threw out and, as I walked down the cinder strewn path, I was able to look into the back yards of some buildings and see swings and bushes and toys left out overnight. I saw open garbage cans filled with junk and rotting food; I saw rats scurrying out of the way, having their lunch disrupted by the scraping of gym shoes on the cinders, making a crunching sound as I walked past. But I also saw scribbling and writing on the backs of buildings and garage doors; sometimes a piece of crude artwork. I saw hearts with initials within and what appeared to be cryptic gang signs at times, marking the area and perhaps warning others they are in sacred territory.

The alley was a place where pre-teen and teens could hang out behind someones garage and smoke a cigarette and carve their initials on a telephone pole. It was a path you could walk and perhaps find something of value (one man’s trash is another man’s treasure). It was a place adults were rarely seen except when backing a car out of the garage.

As time went on, alleys were paved and garbage cleaned up. But they were still alleys and young folks still walked down them to school or store or just to hang out. Some became unsafe and threatening while others began to express a personality of the neighborhood. Shoes were seen dangling from overhead cables and, replacing scribbles and scrawls, carefully executed artwork began to appear. It was called grafitti, but much of it was beyond the typical defacement, and paid homage to people, places and things. The alleys began to express the desires, frustrations and hopes of a generation of young people.

Today, if you walk down the street, you will see murals, financially supported and produced by artists brought in from outside the area. They are mostly corporate murals designed to attract folks and upscale the community. But if you want to see the personality of the hood and hear the voices of the young folks who live there, then you have to walk down an alley.

Unsanctioned artwork, mostly by self-taught graffiti artists, reflecting disillusionment, injustice and inequality, produced by young people expressing their feelings in a society that offers them little hope of change, these artists pay homage to fallen local heroes, iconic role models who have passed away; victims of brutality and oppression, and they share their feelings and concerns with others who live in the hood. They unify their peers and tell their story on the back and side walls of the neighborhood. Yes, you can look but you also have to listen.

If you want to see the soul of a neighborhood, forget about the butterflies and flowers lining the fronts of buildings on a busy street and take a walk, if you dare, down an alley where the artists are not paid and the subject matter does not need approval. But don’t take too long because the work may be whitewashed over, and another attempt at honest communication, thwarted by gentrification, erased by those who do not wish to see or hear what they are destroying.

My Little Soldier


John died at 19, two years younger than his father when I was drafted into the Army. I will never be able to sit at the table and have a beer with my son on Veteran’s Day and share my experiences in Viet Nam (distorted as they may have become over time) and he will never go off to a war someplace no one ever heard of until bombs and bullets gave it the dubious distinction of being recognized.

Even so, John, though he wore no uniform; though he was not in the military, was a soldier, an urban soldier, fighting against the injustice that permeates our society. His weapon was the microphone and his ammunition were his words, spit out faster than the rounds of a Thompson sub-machine gun, hitting the target dead center. His banner was Love and he practiced it; not the carnal or the meaningless façade of caring when you don’t. No, John was there, in the middle of the night to answer a phone call from a distraught teen, like himself, who had doubts and anxieties and needed someone to speak encouraging words. He was there to leave his bed and drive over to the house of someone who needed comfort because they were rejected or bullied. And, he would travel a hundred miles or more, at his expense, to deliver his message to anyone who asked, usually without any honorarium.

He left his mark in this world, from Chicago, Atlanta, California, Manchester, Minnesota (to name a few), in the hearts of those he touched, while others, even much older, left only a scar in their wake of ignorance and hate. For John, no one had to earn respect from him. They HAD his respect…everybody. He was a warrior fighting injustice, oppression, inequality, racism and, most important, reaching out to his fellow “hapas” who were of mixed descent, to inform them that they had a voice, were not inferior; that they had opportunity and that they could make a difference if they worked within the present culture while remembering and honoring their heritage, never forgetting where they came from and how they got here.

He spoke for and to the ones whose parents arrived as refugees, just barely able to speak English and who worked 10 to 12 hours a day in minimum wage (or less) labor so they might raise their children with opportunities they could not get in their homeland –the ability to break out of the cycle of poverty and oppression through education and personal commitment and recognizing and seizing opportunities. He gave awareness and hope. John was a warrior and a healer. He had water to give (as he said), water that refreshed and rejuvenated his peers. And it was water that ultimately, tragically, took his life.

So this Veterans day will be different for me as I pay my respects to a different type of soldier, but a soldier none the less, who fought in his own way for his country. This young man who was an instrument of peace in a war-torn urban setting; a young man who shared his canteen of water freely and attempted to bind the wounds of the injured. A young man, regardless of his being my son, is worthy of my deepest respect. He went by the name of John Vietnam. You can find his work on YouTube.

Sunday Funnies

My father was a warehouseman and mover as was his father before him. Because of his work, he became interested in flea market selling since one of hs jobs was clearing out discarded storage lockers and, at the time, little attention was paid to contents as long as the stuff was gotten rid of.

One of the benefits of his job was being able to take items deemed unimportant, considered toss-outs, by the owners. Beyond that, one day, he also found a treasure trove hidden against the back wall of the warehouse, among the stacks of accumulated old newspapers used for packing items before the days of bubble wrap. I remember looking around the old warehouse when my dad would take me with him on a Saturday afternoon when he had to clean up. I remembered those four foot high stacks of newspapers along the back wall which, later on, would reveal their secret.

In the 1970’s, long before internet access and Ebay, there were local antique shops who would buy items of interest, and flea markets where you could find just about anything and, in the early days, folks would even pack up their own discards and bring them out since the results were far better than a yard or garage sale and it only cost 20 dollars to set up your own space. Then, there were specialty dealers; one of the fastest growing was the vintage comic book industry, which I found interesting and would later, for a while, become a dealer in same.

One Chicago dealer in particular was advertising in the local paper for any old comics and comic papers pre-1950s. My father suddenly got a revelation. For decades, the movers in the warehouse were removing and replacing the stacks of newspapers along the back wall. In doing so, they never reached the bottom of the stacks as newer editions were placed on top of the old. My dad decided to investigate the piles after I mentioned to him that there might be some goodies down at the bottom.

For years, the movers would take bunches of old newspapers to pack items in apartments and houses whose contents were being relocated. Sure enough, after shifting tons of newspapers, he reached the undisturbed bottom of the piles where he found, to his delight, newspapers from the 1940s, and 1950s. He proceeded to remove the comic sections from all the Sunday papers. Back in those days, the Sunday paper weighed about 20 pounds and contained two sections of color comics. Dad brought home quite a few containing the old strips like Gasoline Alley, Buck Rogers, Dick Tracy, The Gumps, Katzenjammer Kids and many more.

Once a week, until the cache ran out, he would take them to the comic book guy who was delighted to purchase the near mint condition funny pages. As I have said many times about my own business, it paid for the cigarettes and beer.

I suppose my father should have brought home the complete issues, even the weekly papers, considering their age, but for the most part, back then, they wouldn’t be worth the effort. Only the color funnies sections were worth a good dollar, and so he stuck to what was most profitable at the time.

The warehouse is still there and sometimes I wonder if the old stacks of newspapers still remain. If so, they might contain editions from the 1960s and 1970s. And, unless someone else figured it out, the color funnies sections from the Sunday edition.

But nowadays, they have bubble wrap.

Memorial Day Reflections

When I was a kid, many years ago, in the 1950’s, you could purchase a bag of 100 rubber soldiers for a dollar. The thing I remember was that they were all green – and all male. Ten years later, when I was in the army for real, our drill instructor informed us that the only color there was in the army was green. It was his way of saying we were all going to be treated the same. And, in Basic Training, it was true, but it was far from the reality that existed and still exists today in civilian life as well as the military.

It was not until 1948 when then president Harry Truman issued an executive order (since Congress wasn’t up to enact such a bill) integrating the military, and, it was not until 1954 that the last all-Black unit was disbanded.

It was not until 1997 when then president Bill Clinton presented the Congressional Medal of Honor to 7 Black recipients who had been overlooked in their heroic deeds since World War Two. Only one was still alive to be present at the event.

During this time, Congress reviewed the backgrounds of certain non-White veterans who also appeared to have been overlooked, and, on March 18, 2014, 24 WW2, Korean and Vietnam War veterans were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by President Barack Obama. Only three were still alive to personally receive this highest recognition. It had been determined that these brave individuals were somehow passed over due to their ethnological profiles.

This was going on, while each year on Memorial Day, we honor all veterans who sacrificed their lives for this country, including those who received this nations highest military honor bestowed since the Civil War.

It is interesting, and important, to note that of those 3,467 whose outstanding bravery was recognized, 700 recipients of our Nation’s highest military honor were first generation immigrants; 29 were Native American, 60 were Hispanic, 89 were Black and 27 were Jews.

I think that says a lot. It says a lot about all the millions who served and are serving this country in uniform. That there is ethnic and cultural diversity in our nation’s fabric which cannot be downplayed by the current racist leadership of this country.

Today, with the re-emergence of tolerated, condoned and even encouraged, racial and religious hatred permeating our society, we desperately need to combat these unacceptable and vile forms of behavior through education, protest and public involvement.

If we are going to use this one day to honor our veterans who gave their lives for this Country, then we must honor them all. We must honor the Black soldier who defended our right to be racist, the Chicano soldier who defended our right to close our borders, the Native American soldier who defended our right to sell off their sacred land, the Gay soldier who defended our right to deny them a wedding cake, the Jewish and Muslim soldiers who defended our right to ridicule and attack other religions.

To clarify my point, we owe our veterans, specifically the ones I mentioned, more than just a day of recognition. Perhaps this Nation owes them and their families the daily freedom, respect, liberty, justice and pursuit of happiness that they fought and died for.

Anomaly of War Pt.4

One of my experiences during the Viet Nam War. Conclusion.

I don’t know why, but the Christmas season with Hanh and Son is very foggy in my mind. I know we spent time at the bar. She was traditional, and, since I had not met her parents, she would not go outside the bar with me on a date. I remember she asked me, through one of her friends, if I would be in town during the upcoming TET holiday, which is the Asian New Year celebration. She wanted to invite me to be with her during the holiday. I told her, with the help of another waitress, I would arrange time off and we would work out something on my next visit.

Now this was just a week or two after Christmas, and, unknown to me, this would be the last time I would see either of them. I had my camera with and took a picture of both Hanh and Son. Hanh and I sat together inside a little while longer and talked while Son was out front playing with his parachute which I had given him for Christmas. I don’t recall what I gave Hanh.

It was time to leave. I remember Son walking away tossing his parachute in the air, and Hanh, standing there and throwing me a kiss and wave as I jumped onto the Lambretta and took off down the street. I was so happy. That last image of Hanh in that white ao-dai, the skirt of it blowing like tall grass in a gentle breeze; her smile that could make you forget where you were, and the thought of being able to see her again soon and hold my hands around her waist with my fingers practically touching in the back, haunt me to this day. I was unable to get into town to see her before TET, and was worried that she would not be working when I was able to get there for the holiday.

Then all hell broke loose …

The Viet Cong attacked. After several days of fear, fighting and worry, I managed to get a pass from my Captain. I won’t go into the details of the TET offensive around Long Binh-Bien Hoa, other than to say it was devastating to a lot of people. I was at a loss as far as what I could do to reach my “family”. I got a three quarter ton truck and, with a friend of mine driving, we went to Bien Hoa. I was anxious and my emotions running wild. Somehow , I felt that Hanh had been somewhere else and that she had escaped becoming a victim of the attack. And yet, deep down, I knew. Hope of finding her faded the closer I came to where she was supposed to be.

The rubber plantation was just about gone. In fact, there was so much difference from the last trip, we really had to watch the road to know where we were. Before we left on the run, someone had said the Viet Cong had held up in the rubber plantation between Bien Hoa and Long Binh. This one group of V.C. had come into Bien Hoa and were making their way to Long Binh (or the P.O.W. camp) when they got trapped in the trees. On the outskirts of Bien Hoa there was a refugee center and orphanage which was also hit. I had a photograph of the church with kids running around outside that I had sent my parents a few months before. When I got home they showed me a photo of the same church as it appeared in a local newspaper after TET. Only this photograph had soldiers running around.

I cannot describe the destruction I saw that day. I did have a camera with me that I borrowed from a buddy and I started taking pictures of what I saw. Unfortunately, there were only three shots left in the camera (which was probably for the better). We made the turn in the center of town and headed toward the bar. I noticed most of the little buildings were crumbled or full of holes from assorted rounds. We stopped where the bar should have been. There was nothing but rubble. The walls were blown outward – a direct hit.

I jumped out of the truck and stood there in disbelief. Around me, on the street, Vietnamese were wandering around in shock, looking for something or someone but saying nothing. The owner of the bar was in the wreckage, bending over, and, I guess, looking for something to salvage. I went over to him and, as I approached, he stood erect and looked at me with a vacant stare as though he were looking right through me.

I looked downward as I asked: “Hanh?” He turned his head side-wards and said: “Gone.” “Gone home?” I asked. He turned with eyes lowered: “Gone. Die.” I asked: “Son?” Abruptly he stated: “No see. Maybe die.” I asked no more questions.

I must have stood there for a long while. I don’t remember. I watched him squatting down in the ruins and shifting the broken concrete and rubbish. I slowly walked toward the back where Hanh and I used to sit. I gazed down and skimmed the debris at my feet. I saw broken bottles, paper shreds, and parts of the bar interior. Then I saw a lady’s shoe. I can’t say it was hers. Probably not. There were quite a few girls who worked there. I didn’t pick the shoe up. I just turned away and went back into the truck.

I never went back to the town of Bien Hoa. I went home the end of March. I had been planning to extend my tour because of my feelings for Hanh, but now…now I just wanted to leave this place and forget. Pretend it never happened. I was twenty-two when I met Hanh and twenty-two when she died. I survived; others did not. I still ask why.

It was eight weeks later as I stood near the runway waiting, with others, for the flight that would take me home. Suddenly, a gust of wind blew a cloud of sand and dirt into the group. Road dust, I thought to myself…cat bui.

Epilogue

In 1989, I asked a Vietnamese friend of mine to translate the words that Hanh had written on the back of her photograph. She wrote: ” My Dear Joe, I give you this photograph to remember me when we are no longer together. Keep it with you always.”

And that I have done.

end

Anomaly of War Pt.3

One of my experiences during the Viet Nam War. Continued.

I think we fell in love. Well, I say that with reservations. Perhaps it was just two people finding each other in a maze of confusion, fear and uncertainty, and, in our youth, clinging to the affection we showed each other. I wish we could have understood each other much better, but, sometimes, just holding hands and looking into each others’ eyes, says it all. I would look forward just to go on a courier run and spend a little time with my makeshift family in Bien Hoa.

She was Buddhist and I was Catholic. And, I knew that would cause a problem with our families if we ever decided to marry! I think what really impressed Hanh one day was that she saw a square little bulge in my shirt pocket, and shaking her finger at me, said: “You numba ten Ba Muoi Lam!” which means I fooled around a lot with women. I realized she thought I had a condom in my pocket, so I reached in and showed her it was a small religious figure in a protective pouch (given to me by my mother). She smiled and came over and kissed me on the cheek.

As far as I remember, she was always there in the afternoons that I came by. And, working at the bar, she made good money to help support her family and school expenses. She evidently came right from school which would explain the white ao-dai and pageboy hairstyle. Although her job was to fraternize and hustle drinks, I noticed if a guy got too familiar with her she would leave him sitting there and move to another. She began to sit with me whenever she could, when it was slow, not requiring me to buy her any tea. This upset the owner, so I started bringing him a bottle of something whenever I came which kept him happy ( a side note is that we learned to tear the label off the bottles so the owners could not refill them with moonshine). It got to the point that Hanh would basically stop working when I arrived and just sit with me. I would walk into the bar, and the other waitresses, seeing me, would smile, welcome me, and call for Hanh. She would come over, gently grab my hands, and we would sit down together. Those times became so precious to me that this beautiful girl, this Vietnamese girl, actually enjoyed being with me, a young man brought thousands of miles to her country to fight in a war. It started me wondering about fate, and how we become involved in other peoples’ lives through a series of unplanned events. We never had the opportunity to be together intimately.

As far as I remember, I was the only guy in my company who was seeing a Vietnamese girl on a regular basis. I had mentioned it to a few of my buddies with mixed reactions. Of course, the biggest drawback was that even if you fell in love with a National, which the army frowned upon, your tour of duty was one year and then you were shipped out. It was extremely difficult to process papers that would allow you to be married, and almost impossible to bring the girl home with you. I decided, since I had eight months left, to begin the procedure necessary to see if I could bring my “family” home with me. I wrote my parents.

Needless to say, it was pathetic. My parents were against the idea. My Captain and the chaplain tried to discourage me by telling me that it was simply an emotional experience due to being far from home and lonely; missing my family and friends, and, if I would forget the idea, once I got home and resumed my normal life, I would see how doing this would have been a mistake. I was told the girl, and boy, would have a difficult time adjusting to American society, that they would be subject to racism, feel disconnected from their culture, and would, eventually, become disenchanted with their new lifestyle. I was told to wait.

Being refused, I sought advise from my buddies. They told me since Hanh was Buddhist, that I could arrange a “limited time” marriage. It seems that some Vietnamese families would allow their daughter to marry a soldier for a period of one year- His tour of duty. This allowed the family to keep its’ status, and the girl, to keep her “honor” intact. This was allowed (but not recognized by the military) since most everyone knew it would be difficult to carry on a relationship after the soldier returned home, and even more difficult to send for the girl at a later date. Or, I could, as one friend suggested, just enjoy the moment; don’t worry, be happy. Well, I wasn’t very happy about my choices. I chose to wait a month or two, and then, if my feelings for Hanh grew stonger, I would try again more forcefully.

Our relationship grew from August through December. When I was off duty, I would try to get as many eight hour passes I could (my Captain was very understanding) to get into town to see her. I could hop in a Lambretta and be there in a matter of minutes, as the town was easily accessible from the base, and, for the most part, considered very secure. It was that false sense of security that would almost destroy the town during the TET offensive of 1968, and cost the lives of many people.

I would bring gifts for Hanh and Son. Nothing much, just the proverbial chocolate bars and perfume. She was my comfort as I was a stranger in a strange land. We tried to teach each other our respective languages and she fared much better than I did (I think she was getting help from her fellow barmaids). Soon, we were able to talk with each other a little : “I like you. You like me?” “Anh yeu em. Co dep lam.” I still remember the phrases. I once asked an ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam)soldier how to say “I like you very much.” in Vietnamese. He wrote it down and I practiced it, and, when I saw her, I used it, and her puzzled look informed me I was not using the proper inflections. I tried again and this time her face broke out in a heart-stopping smile when she understood: “Toi thich co nhieu lam.”

It was that time when as a young man trying to adapt to a totally strange environment ( did you ever go shopping with an M-14 slung over your shoulder?), I met this wonderful girl, my lifeboat in a sea of contradictions. The Army taught me how to fight and survive but it never taught me about the people and their culture whose land we were blowing up. I consider myself lucky because I had contact with Vietnamese civilians, not just the enemy. I got to know these gentle people and some of their history and culture, and that would have a bearing on the way my life would turn out years later.

I was naive back then. I knew she was a bar girl but I also knew some of the reasons why. In a war torn country full of lonely foreign soldiers, it’s a good paying job for a minimum amount of effort. I never thought about what she was doing at work when I wasn’t there. Maybe I was just stupid or very trusting. But I do know that when I showed up at the bar, she immediately came to me and we stayed together until I left several hours later (provided I brought the owner his tribute).

There was a small back room where employees could eat and take a break. She would take me back there and we would sit alone together and eat and drink cola… and hold hands. Sometimes, another waitress would come back there and, seeing us, would put her hand on Hanhs’ shoulder, say something in Vietnamese, causing her to cover her face with one hand in a modest blush. They would giggle and then the other girl would leave.

There was one time when Hanh went out and bought us this fish sandwich. The Vietnamese would place this fish on a platform six to eight feet high and sun dry it. Then they would smother it in nuoc-mam ( a fish sauce) and place it in french bread. Well, I wasn’t used to this, and I took a bite and pretended to chew and when she wasn’t looking I would take it out of my mouth and place it in my pocket. Several times I left the bar with pockets full of partially masticated meat, tossing it out before I reached camp. How I would like, once more, to sit with her like that and this time I would actually eat the sandwich.

One day when I visited Hanh, she gave me a photograph of herself in an outfit that, for her, was unusual. She was wearing a cowboy type shirt and hat, wearing sunglasses; strumming a guitar. She pointed to the photo and said: “You give one for me.” I promised I would, And then, with a lot of pointing and hand gesturing, I explained I would like a photo of her in the ao-dai, the way she usually dressed. She understood, and the next visit, she gave me the photo I wanted and, on the back, had written something in Vietnamese. At the time, I didn’t have it translated, and, after she died, it would not be translated until 1989…21 years later.

end of part 3

Anomaly of War Pt.2

One of my experiences during the Viet Nam War. Continued.

Her name was Hanh.

I met Hanh at this bar during one of my weekend excursions into town. Now you have to understand that many bar girls were not prostitutes. Some schoolgirls were employed simply to hustle drinks. “No tea, no talk!” was the vernacular at the time. And for the price of about eighty cents, a pretty girl would sit next to you and drink her “Saigon tea”, talk, and stay with you until you stopped buying or ran out of money, usually both.

What first impressed me about Hanh was that the other girls in the bar wore contemporary and American style clothes while Hanh always wore the traditional ao-dai, that ankle- long, flowing dress, split up the sides exposing the pants underneath, that was so feminine and made her look so beautiful. Her hair was also traditional. Most bar girls wore the beehive style with three cans of hairspray to keep it in place. Hanh had the “Prince Valiant” look, a short cut pageboy style worn by schoolgirls at the time. And, without makeup, she looked out of place in that joint, and that is what drew me to her.

Hanh understood very little English except: ” You single, G.I.? You buy me tea?” and a few other phrases she was no doubt taught when she got the job. So, yes, infatuated with her beauty, I bought her Saigon tea in order to sit with her and try to communicate. When I stopped buying the “tea”, she would excuse herself and go on to the next joe who was in need of female companionship, and I would hop back in the jeep and continue on my rounds. It wasn’t until several visits that it seemed as though she was happy to see me, not because I was a big spender, but rather, a familiar face in all those blurred one time stop-ins she was used to. So it came to pass that I looked forward to seeing Hanh and the shoeshine boy, Son, on my visits so much that I stopped going to the other hang outs in order to spend more time with them. I was becoming attached, something you should never do in a war zone.

Every time I ventured into town it was a new experience. There was no karaoke back then, but, in the bar, if a song was played on the record player that we especially liked,, all the soldiers in the place would, in unison, start singing: “We gotta get outta dis place…” or, “If you’re goin’ to San Francisco…” The waitresses enjoyed the interruptions as long as it didn’t turn into a songfest. We did sound kind of bad, come to think about it. Then there was the flag lady.

One day, I think it was in late July, an older woman came into the bar. Under her arm she carried the folded flag of the Republic of South Vietnam. She started approaching different American soldiers sitting at the tables trying to sell the flag. The story was that her son had died in battle, and the flag was signed by members of his company prior to his death, and it had now been given to her. She needed to sell it as a souvenir to get money to buy some food. She unfolded the flag, yellow with three red horizontal stripes, with assorted writing and signatures in Vietnamese inscribed. No one was interested. I thought about buying the flag, feeling compassion for the woman, but one of the waitresses informed me that it was probably a scam and not to waste my money.

I didn’t purchase the flag, and the woman folded it up and slowly left the bar. To this day I wonder if the flag and story she gave was authentic. I knew there were Vietnamese hawking souvenir Viet Cong “battle” flags for us ” rear echelon” troops who wanted to go home with a war story. They would take a home made “V.C.” flag, stick it in a sack with a chicken, or other unfortunate animal, and shoot through the sack with a shotgun or other weapon, to give it that blood and guts authenticity. But the woman’s flag was South Vietnamese, there was no blood stains, only signatures of soldiers. And I wonder what they wrote on that flag. I never saw the flag lady again after that incident. I did, however, return many times to see Hanh.

End part 2

Anomaly of War Pt.1

A story in 4 parts about one of my experiences during the Viet Nam War

Prologue

They were called, in Vietnamese, Cat Bui – Road Dust. They were the street urchins, half Vietnamese and half something else: American, French…whatever. Their father unknown and their mother casting them out because of family disgrace. They were unacceptable to the Vietnamese, unknown or unwanted by the ones who fathered them; left to fend for themselves in the streets, sleeping – living – on the ground and roadways; outcasts from the villages, hamlets and towns where they were born.

I was in country about two months before I finally got to spend some time in the town of Bien Hoa located on the Dong Nai River. We were on the major base just outside town and shortly would be moving our contingent ( I was in the 18th Engineer Brigade) to Long Binh where the Army was constructing a new headquarters. Each day we would be bussed between the bases at Bien Hoa and Long Binh, passing the prisoner of war camp and rubber plantation along the way. Seeing the captured Viet Cong working within the confines of minefield and barbed wire, and acutely aware of the steel mesh covering the windowless openings of our bus, there was no doubt that we were potential targets of an unseen enemy in a war-torn land.

His name was Son. He was around eleven years old and his broken English was limited. He was a shoeshine boy in the town of Bien Hoa and I paid little attention to him at first since there were more bootblacks in town than there were boots and he was just another kid hustling the G.I.s for street change He was always there outside the tin-can shack they called a bar that I used to frequent.

Always out front asking: “Shoe shine, G.I.? Your shoes numba ten, I make them shine numba one, okay? Only five “P”.” I saw one soldier shove him down, and that’s when I went over to him and got my first shine. I gave him 10 piasters (the equivalent of nine cents).

Son and I became friends one day as I headed to the bar to visit my girlfriend and caught him in a verbal feud with some other shoeshine boys his age. I came over to where they were squatting and asked what was wrong. Apparently, Son owed one of the boys 100 piasters which he had borrowed some weeks before and was unable to pay back. I interceded and paid his debt. When the other boys left I invited him to come inside with me. He was afraid to do so because bar owners did not want their customers bothered by beggars while inside, but I told him not to worry since he was with me.

Inside, we sat and had a soda, and talked a little bit. The owner came over grabbing Son by the arm, gesturing for him to leave. I jumped up and angrily informed him the boy was with me and to di di mau, get away fast. The owner went back to work and we sat for a while longer until Son left to shine more shoes. I liked the kid a lot and on future trips I would let him come along with me for a while into the different hangouts and I would drink beer while he hustled shoe shines among the patrons. Of course, I always slipped the owner a little something for letting him in. At one point, I wrote home about wanting to adopt him.

It was late December (although it felt like July) when I went to town to visit my girlfriend and Son. It was almost like family, with Dad being gone for a week or two at a time. I brought Christmas gifts for them. Son got sandals, some clothes and what he wanted most of all, a parachute from a M127A1 illumination flare. He had a rubber soldier he played with and wanted the parachute to make an airborne troop since no one else in his group would have one. Needless to say, he was one happy kid that day.

Walking away, tossing the parachute with the rubber soldier attached into the air and catching it, as a passing truck surrounded Son with a swirl of dirt and sand from the road, little did I realize that would be the last time I would see my Em Trai Cat Bui…my Child of the Dust.

It has been said that as long as you remember someone, they haven’t really died; they live in the hearts of those who cannot forget. I would like to introduce you to one such person.

End Part 1

Selling Dead People’s Things

As a slight diversion from youthful experiences, I would like to share with you an interesting and unusual new book I just read written by a friend of mine and available on Amazon. Thank you.

Selling Dead People’s Things by Duane Scott Cerny

I have known Duane for ten years, although probably saw him on numerous occasions prior to my joining the BAM family of Antique and Collectible dealers in 2009. At least I thought I had known him until I read his new book: “Selling Dead People’s Things.”

Being a dealer in collectible ephemera and photography for 60 years (yes, 60), I no doubt ran into him unknowingly at flea markets, yard and estate sales, over the years, never realizing that one day I would be welcomed to the Broadway Antique Market as a dealer. But this missive is not about me, it’s about Duane’s book. I read it. I loved it. I recommend it.

Like Duane, I started out selling things my father brought home from work. As I read the chapters I saw myself, to a degree, with the early-on enthusiasm of a trade discovered but with more faith than business sense; more curiosity than knowledge, but wisdom and knowledge come later and you gotta start somewhere so why not the back yard trash pile.

Duane takes us on a journey, one that doesn’t attempt to define, price and relegate scarcity of items to the reader, no, that’s for other book writers and their guides and manuals. Duane’s purpose is to take us on a trip which defines the normal, as well as occasional para-normal, experiences one may encounter in search of the desirable, resalable items of ages past.

From basements to attics and all the floors (sometimes 12) in between, we walk with the author, careful not to trip over the boxes and trash (and poop) that block our path, to discover, hopefully, that hidden treasure. Many times we are not disappointed but regardless, we always wind up with an interesting story that goes with each quest.

Selling Dead People’s Things is unlike any other book I have read on the buying and selling of antiques and collectibles. It is a poignant, sometimes funny, sometimes a bit eerie, travelogue into someone’s past, a past that is explained in part by the objects that remain behind – pieces of a puzzle for just about all ages to complete. It is a book where the individual’s story is more important than his or her possessions. Duane delivers that intimate relationship between people and their things and, in the process, we are mesmerized by his own personal unfolding story.

It is a book you will enjoy reading whether a collector or not. Take it from a guy who has been selling dead people’s photographs (we call them “vernacular” in the trade) for 60 years. Peace.