Guest Memoir: A Song Brings Back a Memory

By Jade

Editor’s note: Today’s post was provided by a friend of ours who writes under the name of Jade. Jade grew up in an ethnically Chinese family in South Vietnam. After the Communist victory Jade’s family paid in gold for the privilege of fleeing the country in a crowded, rickety fishing boat. After a harrowing voyage during which the boat’s engine broke down and the passengers were extorted by pirates, they reached a refugee camp in Thailand. Eventually Jade was able to emigrate to the United States, settling in Austin, Texas, where she found work in a tech company and met her future husband. Today she and her husband are happily retired grandparents, still living in Austin. Jade is preparing a memoir for her family, and I was allowed to read some excerpts. This chapter, reprinted with her gracious permission, takes place during the war, when Jade was a teenager.

“Traveling Soldier” is a song written and sung by Bruce Robinson. I first heard this song on a CD by The Dixie Chicks in 2002.

It is one of my favorite songs.  The lyrics are touching and remind me of the many young people who lost their loved ones during the Vietnam war. 

I was born in Saigon in 1954 and grew up in the time of the Vietnam war, which is called the “American War” by North Vietnamese historians. This song touched my heart so much. I felt like I was the girl in the song. Every time I play this song, my memory flashes back to the terrible experience I had. It was a sad time. 

One particularly jarring memory I have was of a person I knew in my neighborhood. I would call him Brother Minh. His parents and two siblings, both younger than him, rented two rooms from the owner of a nearby house. Minh’s younger brother worked for my dad; his sister and I were very close friends. Brother Minh was in his early 20s. He was a shy young guy. The war caused a lot of suffering for many young men due to the draft. He did not go out much and did not want to come to the attention of the military or police. He spent most of his time inside a dark room in the house to avoid being drafted. He only had space for the bed and some furniture. 

On January 30, 1968 the North Vietnamese military began the Tet Offensive. Our street was bombed and seven houses on our street were destroyed, including ours. There were eight other homes that were not affected. We got advance notice from government and we left our house before the Tet Offensive started. Luckily, no one in our neighborhood lost their lives.

My father and other neighbors whose homes were destroyed found a builder to rebuild our houses. The builder also designed the floor plans. It took four to six months before we were able to move back to our newly rebuilt house.

During the construction of our house, we lived in a home that was owned by the widow of my father’s best friend. I would call her Auntie Tran. She had three daughters and one son. Auntie Tran was a very successful business woman. She let us stay in one of the rooms in her house. My parents, my brother and I stayed in her house until our place was rebuilt. We were so grateful for her support and kindness.

My brother and I still attended Saint John’s School. Our school was not destroyed during the Tet Offensive. We later learned that the Viet Cong soldiers were hiding inside the school building just prior to the start of the Tet Offensive. We went back to school two weeks after the Tet Offensive bombings. Our temporary residence was too far away from school for us to go back home at lunchtime, so my brother and I ate lunch in the home of one of our neighbors whose house was on the same street as our bombed house, between noon and 2pm.

I never forgot that each school day, as I passed by a dark room in the hallway, Brother Minh was standing on the bed, with a paper fan in his hand (it was hot in the room) and walking around the bed for a little exercise. I should clarify that because of the war and draft, to avoid being drafted into the military, some young men hid in their homes and did not get out too often to avoid the police, who regularly checked identification and were on the lookout for those who were evading the military draft.

Minh was tall, skinny and pale. A few months before the war ended on April 30, 1975, he was found by the police, and they forced him to serve in the ARVN. 

We heard from our neighbors that he was drafted and died a few months after he went into military camp. They did not know what caused his death. “Traveling Soldier” always brought back my memory of the war, and Brother Minh – a kind, quiet, and polite man I can never forget.

Some Unsolicited Meditations on Aging

Evidently I’m getting old. I played a streaming channel recently called “Classic Rock,” and the first song it played was Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Californication.” In other words, some of that new shit I can’t stand.

Demographically, I usually fit now into the highest “and older” category, for the purposes of surveys, scientific studies, and discounts at the bagel shop. I find that a little condescending. It puts me in the same category as centenarians, even though our interests are completely different. For example, I am not terribly broken up over the untimely loss of Rudolf Valentino.

I don’t feel old in my bones. I don’t feel creaky or weak. Even looking in the mirror, I don’t feel so old. I don’t feel like my mental capacity is deteriorating, although I have been getting more impatient with day-to-day chores. Is renewing my car registration going to make me happier, healthier, or more fulfilled? Or is it mainly going to get me an hour closer to the grave, when I could be reading Tolstoy or having a beer?

The times I do feel old is when I’m in the company of young people, even when they’re polite and respectful. Especially when they’re polite and respectful.  “Sir?” Look, man, it’s just me.

It’s interesting how an objectively unchanging artifact changes subjectively over time. For example, “The Girl From Ipanema” used to be just a wistful, breezy bossa nova chestnut about an unobtainably attractive girl. Now it’s a bit sadder than that— it’s a meditation on growing older, feeling the same desire as always but being invisible to the young and beautiful.

I suppose every aging generation thinks the world is going to pot, yet I can’t help but feel that the future of our planet, species and culture is in serious, even existential trouble. The planet is obviously getting dangerously, even fatally hot, and this country has a president who recently told the United Nations that green energy is one of the two greatest dangers facing mankind (the other was immigration). From a cultural and intellectual standpoint, I see a world where young people don’t have the need or desire to pay attention to any bit of music or literature that lasts more than a minute or so (and I feel the same thing happening to myself). All the great works of the past are becoming memes, mashups, cliches. Beethoven, Austen, Dali, Picasso…they’re all jokes now, written in shorthand. Or imitated, with zombies added to spice things up. From a political standpoint, the great American experiment, which I thought had reached a permanently elevated, more secure state of being after two Obama administrations, is now in doubt. Etcetera.

I don’t want to be another tiresome old curmudgeon whining about the loss of some non-existent idealized Great White Christian Father Knows Best America of the mid-fifties, powered by enormous, inefficient gas-guzzling engines and entertained by exactly three TV networks. But I also feel lucky to have experienced a time when you could pick up a newspaper from your driveway in the morning and be surprised by something that happened the day before; where letting a story unfold for one or two or three hours as a play or movie or opera was a typical form of entertainment, not to mention spending hours absorbed in a book without obtrusive ads; where going to school meant spending a day safely sequestered from the outside world, in the hands of an attentive human teacher; and where knowledge of the sordid realities of that adult world was, for many, delayed until actual adulthood. I’ve known the joy of opening my mailbox and finding a letter from someone I loved. And ice skating at night with a friend on a section of the Midway in Chicago, purposely flooded by the university each winter and left to freeze until spring. That age of my childhood and youth had its problems and failures, some of which we’re living with today. But I miss it.

On Donald Trump and Humiliation

Or: Green is the New Orange

Donald Trump is a disaster in terms of running the country and the world (unless you’re a Trump), but he does have some remarkable skills. For instance, he is a past master in the art of humiliation, which he employs both for the sadistic pleasure it gives him, and as a tool for subjugating rivals and opponents. There are many examples we could give, but the most striking one for me is the humiliation he has inflicted on JD Vance.

On September 19, 2022, Trump appeared—apparently uninvited—at a rally in Ohio organized by Vance’s campaign for the U.S. senate. At that rally, in Vance’s presence, he gave a speech—or rather, his customary extemporaneous ramble—during which he declared that “J.D. is kissing my ass, he wants my support so bad.”

J.D. Vance, a Marine Corps veteran who had previously described the draft-dodging Trump as “America’s Hitler,” could have become a legendary hero for all eternity by just stepping up to the microphone and saying something like, “we Ohioans don’t kiss anyone’s ass. If that’s the price of your support, we don’t want it.” Or he could have used saltier language, since Trump started it, so to speak. But he stood by, reacting with nothing stronger than a nervous grin.

I don’t know how Vance can look himself in the mirror every morning, but he hasn’t shown any signs of regret or even just introspection about what his choices have been. I guess it all worked out in…the end. The man is now vice-president of the United States of America. For a best-selling memoirist and U.S. Senator, that position would seem to be a step down, except as a solid rung on his own ladder to the presidency. I can’t think of any other reason why an intelligent person would care to have labial contact with the Trumpian glutes. But I don’t think Vance’s association with Trump will enhance his solo political career, any more than it has helped Rudy Giuliani, Mike Pence, Jeff Sessions, Kristi Noem, or anyone else. In one way or another, those people have all become walking jokes. Meanwhile Trump’s political and financial star keeps rising. (I don’t feel any particular comfort in the press’s constant reminders that his poll numbers are supposedly dropping.)

Trump’s adroit use of humiliation as a political and personal tool inform how I think about Trump’s obsession with putting his own name, signature, and/or likeness on public buildings, institutions, and now U.S. currency. There is a commemorative coin in the works. Now the man who killed the Harriet Tubman twenty-dollar bill wants to create a new $250 note (for the sesquicentennial, get it?) with his own face on it. That would actually be illegal unless Congress changes the law which prohibits the likeness of a living person from appearing on our currency. But this president’s skills include a ruthless ability to do what he wants on the flimsiest legal pretexts (see: tariffs) until the Supreme Courts rules otherwise (or doesn’t).

The $250 bill and the “commemorative” coin serve two purposes: most obviously, they project Trump’s power and glory. But also, it is a pointed way of humiliating the American people. It’s our money, with his face on it, whether we like it or, or want it, or not. The glowering image on the bill is based on a presidential portrait that in turn is based on Trump’s mug shot at the Fulton County, Georgia Sheriff’s office, taken when President Trump was indicted for illegally pressuring the Georgia Secretary of State to flip Georgia’s electoral votes in the 2020 presidential election, and thus flip the election itself. The indictment was dropped after Trump was legitimately re-elected in 2024. The bill thus represents Trump’s disdain for conforming to laws which restrict his use of power, while graphically demonstrating his own absolute authority. The quarter-grand bill thus sits neatly at the intersection of money, power, and injustice.

But its purpose would be better served if it showed a different part of Trump’s anatomy. That’s the point, after all: to rub our faces in it.

10 Things that are keeping me up at night

Trump won’t last forever. But who/what comes next?

Will the economy actually implode, making my savings worthless and forcing me to un-retire and get a job delivering chicken wings to Bitcoin billionaires? 

And if so, what if drones are already delivering the wings?

Have I already seen my last movie in a movie theater?

50 years from now will the Gaza Strip still be an open-air concentration camp?

Why has Kim Jong-Un been so quiet lately?

Ukraine, Sudan

Is Brie going away forever?

Should I have fish for dinner tomorrow because I’ll live longer and better or should I eat a bratwurst because let’s face it I’m gonna go sooner or later anyway and it’s a solid fact that I would really really enjoy a grilled brat with kraut, mustard, and onions and a foaming stein of beer right now.

Is my legacy to the world going to be a few cutesy lists like this?

Tortilla Man: A Memory of Pre-“Woke” Texas

Sometime in the early 1970’s my mother took me to a show put on by the drama department at North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas) in Denton. It was a “Story of Texas” type revue, a collection of skits that were supposed to entertain and educate the audience about the history of our state. I would have been maybe 12 years old.

The show was a forgettable affair. But there was one skit that I recall, and if it weren’t for that skit, I’m sure I would have forgotten the show entirely. A young Latino student in a resplendent mariachi costume delivered a one- or two-minute-long monologue on “the tortilla.” It was meant to celebrate the ingenuity of the Mexican people.

(For the record, what is now the state of Texas was for several hundred years a part of the Spanish colonial empire, and then, after the Mexican war of independence, a part of the republic of Mexico. It was taken over after a revolt led largely by North American settlers who were motivated by a desire to expand slavery into the territory, at a time when slavery was already outlawed in Mexico.)

I remember this particular part of the show for two reasons. Firstly, it was easily the best bit. It was short, lively, and funny (punchline: “You don’t need knives and forks, and when you’re finished, you eat the plate!”), a polished performance by an enthusiastic performer. When it ended the audience gave it resounding applause.

But I think I also remember it for another reason. Even at that age I vaguely understood that something very wrong was going on.

The memory of that routine has haunted me over the years. Now, I imagine the decision to include that skit as being made by a couple of faculty members. The discussion was something like this:

Drama professor 1: You know, this show is about Texas history and culture. I was thinking maybe we should include something about the Mexicans.

Drama professor 2: Yeah, they play such a vital role!

DP1: Maybe something about food…

DP2: That’s a great idea! Everybody loves Mexican food! How about…a tribute to the tortilla?

DP1: Yes, aren’t tortillas great?!

DP2: And I just realized, that will give [insert name of Latino drama student here] something to do! I was wondering how we were going to fit him in….

The wildly enthusiastic applause this skit received also has a dark side in my imagination. I think it was tinged with relief. Here was the audience’s opportunity to show that it respected the Mexican people and appreciated their contributions to our great state, without acknowledging any of the awful, unjust atrocities inflicted on Mexican communities after the Texas revolution and eventual annexation of Texas.

Like everyone of my generation there are aspects of pre-Internet, pre-Governor Bush Texas that I am nostalgic for (like Ann Richards). But the pre-“woke” racism, even, or especially, the condescending, self-satisfied kind, is not one of them.

In Which I Study Someone’s Beautiful Ass in Service of My Art

I’ve been trying to master the the graphic arts over the past few months. Recently my brother, the novelist Jonathan Eaton, sent me a photograph of a philosophical-looking donkey, in a pasture bordered by mesquite trees, he saw on a trip to north Texas. I decided to practice my skills, such as they are, in different media, by drawing and painting the fellow.

I used oil pastels for the first attempt. Not successful in my opinion. The colors are gorgeous (a big reason I like the pastels) but details are clumsy or absent. The ear shadow across the animal’s muzzle is ham-handed.

Next I tried the same thing in colored pencil. The medium lends itself to conveying the animal’s hairy, fuzzy qualities. Several problems, though: the colors appear bland and washed out. Also, though I began with a graphite pencil sketch that I thought looked pretty good, now I see that the upper half of the donkey’s head is elongated. From a distance it looks more like a wild boar. But I can’t erase and rework colored pencil.

Next I decided to try something new for me: on outline in felt-tip pen filled in with watercolor:

Ok, now I feel like I’m getting somewhere. The sky is unintentionally blotchy (I’m still having problems with my washes). Also I have a better feel now for the shape of the creature’s head.

What’s next…charcoal? I think I could do a great pencil sketch of this fellow. Nah…I have stared at this ass for long enough already.

Suffer the Children

I remember when I first heard Charlie Kirk’s statement that the death of children in school shootings was the unfortunate but necessary cost of the second amendment. The thought that occurred to me at the time was that that would make the second amendment the most expensive amendment of them all. I can’t think of any other that we so regularly sacrifice our children to.

Having been shown the one altar, I began to recognize so many, many others. I read about children getting sick unto death, because they weren’t vaccinated against preventable diseases. Politicians, and often even the parents of these children, believe that this is the terrible, but inescapable, cost of keeping the government out of decisions that God gave a child’s parents, and only their parents, the right to make.

Next altar, the Epstein files. Trump reportedly stated that his reluctance to release the files was because “friends of mine will get hurt.” Let’s take him at his word (I know, I know). No one wants their friends to get hurt, and if the cost of protecting your friends is to turn a blind eye to the sexual abuse of minors, what choice do you have?

Then there are the children injured or killed in horrific ways by Israel’s military actions in Gaza—the sad but unavoidable toll of the never-ending war against terrorism.

Then there are the schoolgirls killed by the U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran. Undoubtedly, many more children will need to pay up as the war drags on.

Will we ever hear Trump, or Hegseth, or Rubio, or Miller, or anyone in the current administration say about some policy decision, that it’s off the table, because too many children will die?

In fact, is there anything at all that this administration actually values less than the lives of children?

A Real Laugh Riot

If you follow me on Facebook, you know I like to draw and post political cartoons (as opposed to posting other people’s cartoons, which seems to be a common thing now). If you haven’t, here’s a gallery of my recent efforts, starting from around the time we started blowing up open motorboats on the high seas, along with any crew and, it turns out, survivors.

What’s the point? Well, as the authorities keep telling us, “if you see something, say something.” And I’ve been seeing a lot lately. At least I’ll be able to look back on these times (if I live long enough) and tell myself, “I said something.” And if you agree, please do share this.

For what it’s worth (maybe nothing) I created these without any help from AI (pretty obviously), although I did digitally enhance the sharpness of some of these images.

I drew the Hegseth portrait after revelations that the U.S. military had deliberately killed survivors of a boat strike who were in the water.

I was tempted to have Trump telling the survivors in the water, “Kiss my hairy…” as a reference to Nelson’s reputed last words, but I suspected no one would get it…

This cartoon and the next were related to Trump confiscating Venezuelan oil tankers.

I drew this after reading how persistent Trump voters remain in their support even after acknowledging his disastrous leadership

The next two came to me after Trump’s takeover, renaming, and then closing of the Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in DC.

The next three were spurred by the horrible killings in Minneapolis, and the ludicrous smearing of the victims as ‘domestic terrorists’ by Trump and his cabinet

And on it goes…

There…do we feel better now?

Anatomy of a Self Portrait

I’ve recently taken up watercolor painting. A couple of weeks ago I completed a self portrait which came out a bit clumsy looking, then executed a somewhat better portrait of an indulgent friend (thanks RK!). I decided to try portraying myself a second time, and this time to document my progress over the course of the 4 days, on and off, it took me. I hope you find it interesting.

Here’s the so-called reference I’ll be drawing from:

Reference photo
After several erased and redrawn heads, eyes, noses and lips, a sketch I’m happy with
I tape down the edges of the paper to an old cutting board and outline the parts I want to leave unpainted in yellow
I lay a thin wash of yellow on the face. First mistake: the brush was a little ‘dirty,’ as you can see.
I lay a thin diluted wash of red over the yellow. Feelings of despair. I seem to have a blotchy mess. Maybe all I’ve done is to ruin a promising pencil sketch.
I use small brushes to color the mouth, eyes, and whatever those little pink things at the corners of the eyes are called.
Always keeping an eye on the photo I add some reddish highlights to the face. Hmm, this guy is starting to look familiar.
Let’s add the shadows around the nose, and the sides of the face
Shading added around the eyes. Adds a scowl effect I didn’t intend.
Add shading under the nose and mouth. Also a thin watery glaze of the shadow color across the eyes so they’re less spectrally white
Using the end of a flat, pretty dry brush I dab on a beard
Add mustache and eyebrows the same way. Darken the upper lip a little. I definitely know this guy.
Add hair. Definitely looking less brutal.
Add throat. Used wet on wet wash. Worked unexpectedly well, I was able to sort of sculpt the shape of the throat with the wet paint. But I had dipped the brush in the wrong puddle. It looks like a color head on a black and white neck.
I glaze over the throat with a brown tone, looks a bit better
Used wet paper again to fill in the shirt. Came out pretty blotchy. Can I be honest? I’m pleased with the result so far but I’m getting a little tired of this project.
Add a little collar detail, t shirt collar, and shadow on the shoulders.
Add a background, a wet wash of cerulean fading away from top left to bottom right. You know what, I think I’m done.
Peel off the tape and sign and date. What do you think? I believe I’ve actually improved on the original. A low bar, I know!

Read the New Translation of Luigi Pirandello’s short story “Ignare” / “Oblivious”

I’ve been lucky enough to be one of the translators participating in the Pirandello Society of America’s ambitious project to eventually provide English versions of every one of the 300 or so short stories written by the master. The latest one from me is a translation of Pirandello’s grim account of the aftermath of a barbaric assault on a Catholic mission, “Ignare,” or, “Oblivious.” (“Ignare” literally means the ignorant, unknowing, unaware, naïve, or oblivious ones.) You can read it here. Enjoy.

While you’re there I encourage you to check out other stories by Pirandello, translated by me as well as others. It is truly a labor of love on all our parts.

My thanks to Lisa Sarti and Michael Subialka of the PSA for driving this project and for their attention to and suggestions for my translation, and to their reader Nicole Trigg for her suggestions and corrections as well, and also to the Pirandello scholar Daniela Bini for her reading and suggestions.

On High School P.E. and Fake Scholarship

In my Denton, Texas high school years, not belonging to an actual sports team, I had to endure, along with the other losers, something called “Physical Education,” taught by an instructor who was burdened with the task as a condition of their real job, coaching football. In my sophomore year that instructor was the beloved Coach Collins, for whom a high-school football stadium was later named. This would have been the 1974-1975 school year.

There was a physical aspect to Physical Education. On any given day we might be issued a badminton racket, or directed to run around a field. But I would say the educational element was basically absent.

But one day we were instructed to “write a report” on some sport. I don’t know why. It was probably a state requirement. What this meant in practice was that you went to the school library, looked up the entry for, say, “basketball” in the World Book Encyclopedia (which was basically the same as the Encyclopedia Britannica, except for idiots), and copied a page or so of text by hand onto a sheet of paper. Then on the appointed date you’d stand up in front of the other kids and read “your” “report.”

But it occurred to me that this was all a charade. No one was really interested in whether or not we actually did research, or in learning something. So I decided to just make something up, and have some fun with it.

And going through a box of old letters and scribblings some fifty years later, I found my “report” (thanks, Mom!). Here it is, in its entirety.

Basketball was started in 1897 by William Johnson, son of a cantaloupe plantation owner. While tossing one of his father’s fruit [sic] into a wastepaper basket, suddenly the idea of what is now basketball popped into his head. Although he was soon punished by an angry father, his friends started a now popular game. Five years later a plastic ball was substituted for the cantaloupe, because constant dribbling made it rather soggy and hard to handle, and also made it taste bad. It was also rather expensive, as that particular species of fruit was fairly rare at that time. Two years later, in 1904, a basket, with no bottom, was substituted for the wastebasket, thus freeing the latter for trash.

But the really basic origins of basketballs go back much further than this. Descriptions on walls of ancient Mayan temples reveal a ball-through loop rite for fertility. It had many sexual implications, and one historian hints that “It was a sort of primitive girlie show.”[1] [Yes, I included an actual (bogus) footnote.] The basketball itself (which was not named a “basketball” until its incorporation into that sport in 1902) has had many other earlier uses. Many prominent historians contend that it was not a pumpkin that Cinderella’s famed fairy godmother changed into a coach (despite popular belief) but what is now called a basketball. The coach she rode in she thus named a basketball coach. The social gathering she went to was also called a basket-ball, as the fashions of the time dictated that all dancers dance veiled in fine, net-like baskets.

[1] Nightclubs through the ages, vol. 1 pg. [illegible] by John Sorcy.

I did in fact get up in front of the class and read the above. I made no outward indication that it was satirical. I think I was a little nervous. No one laughed, no one cracked a smile. I don’t think anyone was really listening. I was the egghead of the class, it was totally expected that I would actually go to the trouble of doing serious research and come up with a long (or at least longer than necessary) paper. In fact, I think I heard another kid who hadn’t even bothered to consult World Book quote my report in his completely improvised lecture later on in the hour. I was a trusted source, after all.

Coach Collins was in the audience too, of course. What did he think? Well, you can see from the photo the grade he assigned it. If he thought anything funny was going on…he never let on.