He was dead on the sidewalk at 33rd Street and 34th Avenue, outside a place that used to be called Locale but changed its name a while back and has yet to place any signage indicating the new name. Or else it is there and I just do not see it, as I am sometimes wont to do. There were a couple dozen people standing around him as he lay there face down on the sidewalk. Someone who knew him was trying to wake him up, repeatedly saying “Leo. Leo. Wake up. Wake up, Leo.” Maybe he was not dead but he sure looked it to me. I had my DSLR in hand but I just could not bring myself to shoot photos of this. I’d make a lousy paparazzo.

It was a troubling scene, everyone just standing there gawking. But then what were they supposed to do? Look away? Push him aside? I long ago came to disdain the term “rubbernecking” in the cynical spirit it is typically used. A vehicular accident on a highway causes fatalities and the natural inclination to stop and take a look at what happened is looked down upon by traffic reporters and their ilk. But how is one not supposed to slow down and take pause at the sight of such a thing? Are we supposed to callously ignore death when the smooth flow of traffic is infinitely more important? “I DON’T CARE ABOUT THAT CARCASS, I HAVE A POWER LUNCH TO GET TO.”

…

I was out with the DSLR for the first time in almost a month today. My 500px stuff almost always goes “popular” now and I do not readily know why. They must have changed the algorithm. Nothing of mine ever goes wildly popular with thousands of views but it crosses the 80% “like” threshold. The HuffPo story might link to that page, along with many others.

I had to clarify something today that would have made me look pretty stupid had she written it the way she intended. She quoted me as saying that we were forced out of Laos in 1975 when the Vietnam War spread to Laos. Bzzzt. I never said that because it is not true. The Vietnam War never spread to Laos, officially or otherwise. In fact we left Laos in May, 1975, after the Vietnam War had already ended. We were forced out when the Laos Civil War came to an end and the communist Pathet Lao took control of the country.

I was in the first grade but I nevertheless have a number of vivid memories from that time. For some reason my dad was considered special, and so the military ordered us out of the country ahead of the other Americans. My sister and I have no idea what clearance our father had that gave us this privilige. We were memorably plucked out of school in the middle of the day when our mother appeared at the principal’s office and made up some story about having a doctor’s appointment. I’ve said it before and I will say it again: the only way to get things done in life is to lie.

We drove from KM6 through the center of Vientiane where some extremely ugly rallies were in progress. The car was surrounded by people. I don’t know if they were communist or whose side they were on but they surrounded our Dodge Dart and pounded on it, eventually letting my mother drive through. I did not know what drunk was but these people looked it.

Next thing we knew we were back at home throwing everything we had into large wooden crates. Our “household goods”,  as the military referred to them, were taken away from the house. From there they traveled by land and sea over oceans and deserts via military cargo ship and camel caravan. I’m not making that last bit up. The military even transported the piano this way.

After we packed up our stuff into the big wooden crates we got in the car and headed to the Mekong River. In 1975 there was not a single bridge connecting Laos to any other country. Thinking about it now you’d think they could have put us on a chopper, but I guess we intended to keep the car. I don’t know, but the only way out as far as we could tell was a rickety ferry which we would share with dozens upon dozens of Hmong civilians who heeded the word early that the communists were coming. These Hmong who left Laos in May, 1975, might have been among the first to emigrate to the U.S., going on to become something of a cause célèbre in their own right.

We waited for hours to get on a ferry to Thailand. In those hours I discovered that the Hmong women thought I was the cutest thing they had ever seen. My mother said something to the effect that they had probably never seen a white boy before. They played with me in the Mekong River like I was a toy. I remember it as glorious fun. It was as hot as it gets in a Laos summer but the water was cold. The women picked me up and dunked me into the river, passing me around like a sack of potatoes, smiling and laughing like they were born this way: happy.

It was my first memory of breasts. None of the women were topless but they wore gossamer-thin shirts through which I could see massive nipples surrounded by swirls of hair and crinkled by the coldness of the Mekong. I could see their blemishes, too. Giant skin biscuits and black, hairy moles. God it was beautiful. It could be the most golden memory of my childhood.

My father was part of what came to be known as the Secret War in Laos. He was officially designated as having been in the Vietnam Theater of Operations. Virtually all the Americans in SE Asia in the 1970s were part of that theater, whether or not they ever set foot in Vietnam. This was a point of confusion for me after dad died. His tombstone is marked “Vietnam”. In response to me asking wtf the priest from the dad’s funeral informed me of the above “theater” militaryspeak.

In a sense I think putting “Vietnam” on his tombstone does a disservice to his memory. I showed a photo of his tomb to somebody whose reaction was, in substance, no wonder he killed himself. Vietnam vets are some tormented individuals. But he was not a “vet” in that sense since he never even carried a gun much less came anywhere near seeing combat. He was anything but tormented by his military service. I don’t know if I or anyone had authority to change the grave inscription.

I had no expectation of talking about Laos so much with the HP woman but I guess it makes for good copy, and it got my memories cycling back into the current.

…

A behavior I’ve noticed and which I think is idiotic is how people put obnoxious hand written notes on people’s cars when the car alarm in that vehicle went off. I think I posted a picture of one such sign here last week. “SELFISH ASSHOLE TURN OFF YOUR CAR ALARM!” Signs like this accomplish nothing and fail on substance. Does anyone really think that the owner of the car is sitting nearby, enjoying the sound of their car alarm as it torments the neighborhood? The thing to do in the case of an errant car alarm is to call 911, preferably with the license plate number of the car. That way the police can contact the owner of the car and inform them that their alarm is going off — something I would bet vehicle owners rarely know. Leaving obnoxious notes on the windshield might satisfy some need to hurl anger anonymously but it fails to do anything meaningful.