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Show I can only imagine what others thought in 1969 when they walked into a room dominated by the Buddha. The tiny jade Buddhas, the Thai puppets, and the antique acupuncture cabinets must have been confusing for those who expected a sunken living room and a bottle-green couch. My parents had arrived in Fairmont having just completed two years of military service in the Philippines. My father enlisted in the military in order to avoid being drafted into Vietnam. I have never asked him why he chose the Navy. Perhaps he had grown tired of living in the landlocked Midwest and sought the sea. Perhaps he knew Naval officers were not the ones dying over there. Perhaps the recruitment officer sold him on the newly established JAG (Judge Advocate General) corps and the work sounded interesting. Maybe the Navy recruitment offices were the closest. Whatever the reason, he joined, and after graduating from Office Candidate School, he and my mother were given their first set of orders to the Philippines, a country that was both foreign and far away. In 1967 they found themselves continents from the Plains living on Subic Bay, a Naval base that more closely resembles a resort where "girls" cooked for them, did their laundry, and cleaned their house. My father wore bermudas and my mother, minidresses in bright colors with heels and handbags to match. I have seen pictures of them riding elephants, standing in front of stony-faced Buddha's, smashed together with friends in rickshaws pulled by very thin men in straw hats, and holding onto the sides of a rusting jeepnee. In every one of these, my mother wears heels and nylons, touring the "third world" in dresses she sewed from Butterick patterns sold at the Exchange. In the stories they tell, their years in the Philippines shine as their happiest. Even 34 |