it's like driving down Havana...

yesterday, we were heading north on Havana, just past Buckingham Square, when i had a flashback (sorry, not drug related). it was about dusk...we passed the massive flag in front of the car dealership near Exposition.

Thawin Kittikunsereekam

huh?

when i was in middle school, Vinh Nguyen was the king of the table tennis courts. this little vietnamese kid just smoked his opponents with his swift reactions and deft flicks of the wrist.

until one day...

a new kid with an unpronounceable name ravaged poor Vinh in his once unpenetratable territory. all we knew was that he stomped the sheeyit outta him...beating him by at least ten points in every set.

who was this new guy?

a week later, while in science class, someone came to the room, looking for a cantonese speaker. well, who do ya think they picked? yep.

apparently, they needed someone to translate in the office for a new kid and his classes/abilities. now, my cantonese is not the best, but it was either me or Lisa, who was mixed and even less fluent.

we walk into Mr. Dreith's office and lo and behold, it's the vinh-dicator. he was about my height and with scrawniness to match. who was this david? did he have a sling with that ping pong paddle?

to be honest with ya, vinh was a head shorter than both of us. i just prefer the sarcastic metaphor ;)

well, i found out that the kid with the unpronounceable name was actually Chinese, but raised in thailand. his name was Thawin (tah-win) and he had a freaky sixteen letter last name - Kittikunsereekam. he was here to attend 8th grade and was living with his uncle...on Galena...just northwest of Buckingham Mall.

fast forward to 1987. Thawin and I were just finishing off our junior year in high school. And before every Calculus study session, we'd head to my house and held the ping pong challenge.

unfortunately, i was a mere mortal to this table tennis juggernaut. even with a ten point advantage, i beat him once out of the dozens of times we played. good thing i still could stomp him in chess...or English (hey, no fair...so what if i was born here).

for some odd reason, i have an image burnt in my mind of walking down Havana at sunset, towards the King Soopers. it was one of the few times i ever studied at his house...but it remains vivid, even after 18 years.

so anytime i pass the huge flag in front of the car dealership near the intersection of Havana and Exposition, i think of Thawin. and if i ever pass it at dusk, the exact 1987 image pops into my head.

funny how the mind works whenever you don't need it (to)...

anyway, after high school, we kept in touch. i went to archaeology and he went to mechanical engineering. in 1994, Thawin returned to his little corner in Hat Yai, Thailand...and i haven't seen him since. other than some emails and a couple xmas cards and photos, i only know that he's married and has a kid and another on the way.

just last week, i reestablished contact with him (after a few years of non-contact). and guess what popped into my head the moment i opened his email? uh-huh...huge flag, Havana traffic, and the oncoming May dusk.

now, if i could figure out some sort of Pavlovian process to make me blog...i could probably market it. as long as it doesn't taste like chinese herbal medicine ;)