Childhood lost

Baker Street opens with a beautiful flute solo that build into a frenzy before the explosion of horns enters with its timeless hook. This 1978 song remains a radio staple, but to me, it is a visceral reminder of the beginning of the end.

My parents separated somewhere around this time and my mother had been taking some classes at Virginia Commonwealth University. She split time between the two cities, but we stayed with our father and continued going to our elementary school.

My life really did not seem so different. Sure, there was yelling and tension in our house, but I could not begin to comprehend how each of my parents were affected. At 8 years old, I was oblivious to what was happening. I still went to the same school, played with my same friends and slept in my own bed.

But not for long. My mother decided to take my sister and I to Richmond to live with her. We lived in an apartment downtown with one of her art school friends. We enrolled in a new school. The classrooms only opened up from the outside where you would walk from one class to the next. This would not be the last time as the “new kid” in school.

I can only imagine how lonely and desolate my father felt when we left, not only losing his wife but his children. But in the words of Billy Pilgrim, “So it Goes”.

We left my father in my mother’s classmates VW Bug with the windows down and Baker Street playing from the radio.

My father loved to fish. These primal roots were established in his youth where you needed to be able to hunt and gather for sustenance. While in Navy housing in Norfolk, we were surrounded by water from creeks, the smaller Willoughby Bay to the seemingly endless Chesapeake Bay. All were fair game for my father to set up shop with his two kids in tow.

We would cast our rods and crab traps off the concrete rip rap at the waters edge and sit in silence.

Sometimes my father would pay the pier fee and we would drive a few minutes to the rickety wooden Oceanview pier jutting out into the Chesapeake Bay. And we would get into the same hypnotic routine…… baiting our crab traps with chicken securing them with twine and heaving them over the pier and baiting our rods with whatever live bait we had and casting them out over the edge. Then we would wait…and wait…and wait…..pull up the traps hand over hand usually to find an empty trap with no bait inside because of my faulty knots. But every once in while, we would be rewarded with a few blue crabs.

Moving to Virginia Beach, the location was different but the routine the same. There were plenty of creeks and bays and the Virginia Beach Pier made a fine substitute. Any chance my father had, he was near the water and we were right there with him.

We took our last and really only vacation to the Blue Ridge Mountains. We had never really taken a family trip before and in retrospect I should have seen this as an ominous sign.

I remember our drive so clearly. The views were breathtaking ……endless mountains as far as you could see. However, you never felt far from death as only inches separated your car from the edge of the mountains.

We finally did get to our destination and just like before…..we fished.

I had 5 dollars and there were two ways to spend it. The first included walking across Independence Boulevard and going to Tinee Giant. My purchases would have likely included a slushie, some candy and Kiss cards. Kiss cards were like baseball cards except with the Kiss Members on the front of the card and facts on the band on the back.

The other option included walking to Pembroke Mall. My two favorite stores included Woolworths and Sears. Since I had so much money, I chose Pembroke Mall.

Woolworths had a little bit of everything and I remember rummaging through a bin of toys and afterwards I couldn’t find my 5 dollar bill. My 8 year old brain backtracked to all places I had been and it was gone.

Panic set in. 5 dollars was a lot back then. I could have bought a couple of KISS 45’s at Sears and still had some change leftover.

That was a long walk home. I didn’t want to face my mom. They had enough money problems without me making it worse.

Fortunately she was not home. Maybe between the stress of her finding out and the long walk home, I decided to take a nap on the couch. Sleep has this way of putting you in a different world to avoid reality even if temporary.

I woke up to simultaneous screaming and the splash of liquid on my face. My mother somehow found out about the lost money and just lost control. She flung a bowl of soup that had been sitting on the ledge of the couch onto my face.

This unmotherly act scared me. She had never reacted this way before. This volatility became the new normal.

There are moments in a relationship that are more impervious to obstacles and include……when you fall in love…when you get married….your honeymoon …….. and the birth of a child.

Once my sister and I entered the world, the cracks of my parents’ marriage began to surface. Their social circles were different and only my father was willing to cross that line. He would go out of his way to ingratiate himself with my mother’s friends. He had this jovial demeanor and loved cooking for them.

My mother’s friends have told me what a loving and kind man he was. Always trying to please everyone and keep them happy.

My mother was not that way. She would keep to herself and didn’t reciprocate like my father. The language, class structure and other cultural divides were too far apart to overcome.

My mother relished the time my auntie would visit from Hong Kong . She would lavish my mother with stories of her travels and life in the city with taxis, her own chauffeur and maid. My auntie would also pay for my mother to visit Hong Kong, Korea and New York City. These excursions reminded my mother of the life she maybe wanted but didn’t have.

It should be remembered that my mother went from this vibrant young emerging artist in Seoul to all of a sudden being a housewife and mother of two children in a new country.

The pull to have some of her old life was too great. She soon started getting back into her art and began painting again. She took classes at Virginia Wesleyan University and eventually produced enough art work to sell.

She sold some of her artwork at the Boardwalk Art Festival in Virginia Beach. I can remember helping her set up her booth. Just blocks and blocks of artists as far as the eye could see.

My father supported my mother’s passion and worked hard to support her education and artistic endeavors. Deep down, I think he wanted what was best for her.

But this support came at a cost. As an enlisted cook in the Navy, his salary was paltry and not enough alone to support these new expenses. That realization hit pretty hard and he took other jobs.

One of these jobs included working at McDonald’s. He would dutifully put on his double arches uniform and head to work after already putting in a full day in the Navy. He would bring home these McDonald’s employee hats. They were rectangular and made out of folded paper. You could slide the hat in and out to fit your head. I remember running around the house with those hats as if we were working at McDonald’s too.

My mother’s artistic awakening could not be contained within the life that she knew. She knew that and it wouldn’t be long before that crack continued to grow.

The beauty of being a child is that you just don’t know any better and your needs are minimal…. Shelter, food and feeling loved.

My sister and I had all of the above. Life was perfect. We had friends in the neighborhood and from our parent’s friends too. We went to nearby Pembroke Elementary School and went fishing with my father.

We had a movie pass for the summer where we walked to Pembroke Mall to the outside theaters. These theaters were unusual in that they were round from the outside. This walk entailed passing by the haunted Thoroughgood House, an old historical building reap with history and lore.

When we had a little money saved up, we would walk into the mall and browse through Sears and Woolworths.

The best was when our auntie would come from Hong Kong to visit us. She would revel us with stories of their maid and driver. And she dressed impeccably always with full make up on and hair done. Best of all, she would bring presents. I clearly remember a Corgi Batmobile that shot little rockets from chrome pipes on the rear trunks. On a other visit, she walked with me to Freewheelin Bike Shop on Independence Boulevard and I got to pick out a skateboard as well as helmet and pads. The skateboard was a transparent maroon board with black grip tape. I would practice 180’s and 360’s in our garage.

So….. that was our life……shelter,food and feeling loved……

My sister and I never felt truly part of either of our parents cultures. Whether perception or not, experience was our truth.

Let’s start with the languages. We could not speak either Tagalog or Korean. Filipinos did not really enforce the language upon their children and were happy to assimilate to English. Koreans, however expected their children to speak both Korean and English.

But even if you are not expected to learn your native language it is spoken enough in the house to absorb and understand what is spoken. We had neither. Our parents could communicate to each other only in English

We looked different. Koreans saw that my eyes were rounder, complexion darker, bigger nose and lips. And Filipinos saw that my eyes were not round enough, my complexion not as dark and my nose and lips not as big.

Religion also played into this divide as most Koreans are Christian and most Filipinos are Catholic. Amazing how Christianity has this one fundamental foundation yet there is so much discord in their beliefs. We would go to mass with my dad and then go to church or even to Kingdom Hall for Jehovah Witness worship with my mom.

All these factors played a role in our feeling of exclusion. We didn’t look like our parents friends, we didn’t speak like our parents friends and we we didn’t worship like our parents friends

We were treated differently. Sort of allowed to come into the house but not all the way.

You learn how to fit in. Only way to survive. That is what our family did. My father definitely had the easier time of it….being Filipino. The Tidewater area of Virginia had and still has one of the largest concentration of Filipinos in the US due to the Navy. He had this luxury and could largely retain his identity and culture.

The Filipino culture is based on food and family. Big gatherings in houses and public parks, lots of great food like lumpia and pancit , eating with your hands and laughing and joking. You are never safe from insults from family and only get respect if you can give it back equally. Adults are referred to as auntie and uncle and friends as cousins. And everyone is welcome. Filipinos do not close their doors to anyone.

My father was kind and warm and had many friends. He was a great cook and lived to please. Whether at our house or at Princess Anne Park, the mood was always festive when he was surrounded by his friends.

My mother had more challenges finding her community. Koreans were scarce but she did manage to find the few that were there.

My interactions with my mothers friends were very proper and civilized…..in other words, very Korean. There was a decorum and you knew your place as a child. Introductions were proper with few words, a short bow and then off playing quietly as to not interfere with the adult conversations. Meals and conversation were muted and orderly. You did not speak unless spoken to.

My sister and I lived between these 2 starkly different cultures never feeling completely comfortable in either as we were never Korean enough or Filipino enough

We moved to neighboring Virginia Beach sometime circa 1975-1976 before my kindergarten year. My parents saved enough to buy a house on Liberty Bell Road. I clearly remember rolling my hot wheel cars in the hall way when we first moved in. And just being excited to be in a new place. We had a front yard, a backyard, a single car garage and kids were always in the street

Small ranch is how I would describe it. 3 beds and 2 baths. My sister and I each had a bedroom in the front of the house and my parents had the bedroom in the back of the house. Probably about 1500 square feet in a working class neighborhood. But still a house to call our own

Best of all, we had Korean neighbors 2 doors down. They owned a series of small businesses and had 3 children, 2 boys and a girl. The boys were super athletes and I was always secretly envious because I was never as good as them. In fact I was usually picked last for street football and other sports. They later became football stars at Princess Anne High School

Not going to lie but I was not terribly athletic and I was a little soft. Not a good combination of traits when trying to find your place in the neighborhood hierarchy. I did try but it always felt like I was on the outside looking in

I clearly remember having these feelings that my father was not proud of me because I was sort of soft and unpopular. He was always the leader of his family and their provider. One event in particular cemented this.

My father loved sports and would often ask me to play catch with a baseball. I missed a ball once as it bounced off my glove. It hit me In my right upper lip. blood was everywhere and soon headed to Boone Navy clinic for some stitches

I can to this day see and feel that scar on my upper lip. A constant reminder of my father’s disappointment in me

My parent’s maiden voyage landed them in San Diego where my sister came into the world in 1966 and I followed 3 years later in Brunswick, Ga.

These frequent transfers were part and parcel of being an enlisted US Navy sailor. My father’s final orders sent him to Norfolk,VA where my first memories occurred

We lived in Willoughby Naval housing, subsidized living quarters for enlisted Navy personnel.

There were plenty of Filipino sailors fresh off the boat and this provided a sense of home and culture for my father. My neighbors soon became my “aunties and uncles”. My godfather from back home lived there too

I can recall buying aviator goggles for pennies at a yard sale only to find out they were not waterproof at the base pool. Other memories include a large storm grate falling on my toe and tactile feeling of the feces “squishing” between my toes running across the grass in front of our house.

My first memories of my father occurred when he would hide cap gun rolls on top of one of my mom’s paintings. I had this immeasurable excitement when he would reach up there to hand me some

What I remember about my mother were all her paintings hanging around the house and giving me a prize at my own birthday party that I didn’t deserve.

These times were perfect because I knew I was loved.

Culture clashes be damned. I am not sure how long my dad was stationed in Korea before they married. I think very few people on either side knew. And if they did know there would have been certain condemnation from the Koreans. The Filipino side would have been completely fine and would have welcomed my mother.

I don’t even know what kind of ceremony took place. Likely a courthouse with a friend from the ship and art school as witnesses.

My mother turned her back on her family and never looked back. Or rather her family turned their back on her. They were soon bound for San Diego courtesy of the US Navy