life and death...

my yesterday was an overall good...

my mom and eldest sister celebrated their 75th and 46th b-days. cindi even hit the big 5-0 (sounds like it was a blast).

however, i also took my parents to a funeral at Ft. Logan Cemetery. Wong Wah Lui passed away a couple days ago. he was the oldest chinese member of the 'old school' restaurant guys. i guess you could call it a fraternal order of blue collar chinese men who worked/owned restaurants in the denver area in the last 50-60 years. you know, kinda like the tongs...but with a white apron ;)

anyway, Wong Wah was 89. and with his passing, that makes my dad either the oldest or second oldest of the chinese restaurant community. he may be second oldest if Bill Chin (whom we haven't seen since last year) is still alive...

yep. my dad turned 85 last friday. took him to IHOP and watched him eat their rotisserie chicken, chicken noodle soup, and salad w/ blue cheese. it's nice to know that, even though his legs, ears, and heart don't work so good, he still eats well and savors his food; he's still as sharp as a tack and has a helluva sense of humor.

as i mentioned above, my mom is 50% older than cindi ;) this august, mom and dad will celebrate their 57th wedding anniversary. i was meaning to have shared this info on the 14th, but i'm not very good with scheduling...even if i can rant about the perpetual calendar ;)

visiting Ft. Logan today was somewhat of a moving experience for me. i had never been there, nor even witnessed a military funeral service. what moved me wasn't being all those white headstones; i've been to Arlington Nat'l. no, what moved me to some tears and the sniffles was listening to the service and watching the whole procedure (3-gun salute, 13-folded flag, the general military regiment).

of the thirty people in attendance, all were at least 20+ years younger than my father. and watching him salute every time those army guys did, put a lump in my throat. sure, my dad wasn't the only vet present, but he definitely was the 'old guard.'

in the course of my life, i have conversed with dad about his participation in World War II. although he likes to watch war movies, he rarely talks about his experiences.

i don't blame him though. i know my dad was drafted in late 1943 and completed his boot camp in Mississippi. in august of '44, he and his company were deployed to Europe as a radio man. in fact, he landed at Normandy two months after D-Day. to this day, i'm sure he's haunted by the grisly sight of bodies that were still on shore; something he mentions, but won't go into detail - he just shakes his head.

i think the two most vivid memories that my dad has about WWII are selling his rationed cartons of cigarettes (didn't every soldier get two cartons?) in France and nerve wracking guard duty over POWs. staying awake was one thing, but keeping your rifle aimed at another tired and scared soldier, was even worse. oh yeah, Denny, he remembers how grateful he was to not have a defective gas mask when they were doing mustard gas training...eep.

about ten years ago, my brother, Steve, told me the story of what happened to dad at the end of the war. although i'm a little fuzzy on the details, this story occurred sometime in the spring of '45, when the Germans were in a state of panic.

dad was riding on the outside of a tank, with everyone else inside. maybe they drew straws and dad was the odd man out...who knows. anyway, there was a huge flash in the sky. everyone knew that it was a long-range rocket-type (like the tekneecal terms?) thingie...basically something that says 'You're Fu*ked' on the bumper sticker, as it barreled down on yer lame duck ass.

well, the CO ordered everyone out of the tank. sooo, dad jumped first. unfortunately, everyone jumped out and on top of him, effectively breaking his back. the rocket hit and pretty much obliterated everything in the vicinity, including the soldiers on top of dad. drawing the short straw turned out to be a blessing for dad because having a broken back with bodies lying on top of you was still better than being dead.

my dad should have been up for an Oscar at the 1946 Academy Aw*rds for his portrayal of a dead soldier. you see, after (how long though, i don't know) the rocket hit, a German reconaissance team went out to the site and discovered that the WMD had done a doozy on these american GIs. one of them even kicked my dad...in the back...to see if he was dead.

poor dad laid in that field for two days before the Red Cross showed up. they got him to a hospital in France to recover for a couple months. and around the time that the a-bombs were dropped (Aug. 6th and 9th...monday and thursday ;), dad was evac-ed to a military hospital in the U.S. (somewhere in Kansas), where he spent nine months recuperating.

while dad was in this hospital, he was in the care a nurse, named Kathleen. she did a brilliant job with dad, encouraged him, kept his spirits up, etc. she told dad to call her 'Katie' though...to which he gratefully complied. she was so good to him :) dad has never forgotten her...

by the time the summer of '46 rolled around, dad was back in Colorado. he was hanging out and just enjoying the life of a civilian again. however, his dad thought it might be a good time to have him settle down, get married, and raise a family...quite the thing to do after a war ;)

so, the next year, dad went back to China to find a bride. now, no scientific procedure there...your parents arranged whom you met and married. i'm not sure how many gals my dad had met before he chose mom as his bride, but i do know that dad was mom's sixth suitor. and in August '47, they were married.

not much longer, so bear with me...

in January '48, mom and dad arrived in San Francisco, after three weeks on a boat. they get through immigration and start the paperwork. one of the first questions was, "What's the name of your wife, Mr. Wong?" dad started to say, Hung Yu Yee (which would be totally mangled by the immigration officer), when he stopped and decided to give her an English name. he smiled and said, "Katie." hmmm...i wonder where he got that?