sixties | sixties
Mar.19.2009
The holiday break gave me a chance to escape both school and Thailand. I was ready for it. I was entering my “stupid Thais” phase.
We had been warned. Thousands of Volunteers had served in dozens of cultures around the globe by the time I joined and Peace Corps discovered a recurring pattern....
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Mar.18.2009
Christmas snuck up on us without much warning.
The weather didn’t get frosty, storefronts didn’t get decorated, the airwaves didn’t fill with Silent Night, Christmas tree lots didn’t sprout up all over Bangkok. Nothing changed in Buddha-land. Major bummer.
I could forgive the 75 and sunny, but I...
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Mar.17.2009
The night before they drew my draft lottery number, I dreamed of Khun Mae.
In my dream, I was back in Thonburi sitting on her floor with Peerachat and Mr. Pipe Wrench. She finished my reading and I asked her for a betel nut to take home with my chilies. She reached into her woven basket, pulled...
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Mar.16.2009
While I hallucinated in a Bangkok hospital that summer, the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Vietnam reached 45,000.
Stuck in Thailand, I missed the Big One. On October 15, 1969, a million Americans across the nation joined in "Vietnam Moratorium" demonstrations, rallies and prayer...
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Mar.12.2009
“Khun Maitri hiu cow mai?” Sunee asked me.
She stood next to my bed with a plate of gai yaang. Aren’t you hungry? She was worried.
“Mai ao,” I replied. No. I turned away.
The Peace Corps Manual called dengue fever “break-bone fever,” and that’s how it felt to me. Our pond was filled with...
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Mar.11.2009
I wasn’t always a teacher in Thailand. Sometimes I was a 747 pilot.
When I flagged down a tuk-tuk or a taxi in Bangkok, I always bargained in Thai to get the local rate instead of the G.I. rate. That would spark the inevitable questions. Why was I in Thailand? What did I do for a living? In the...
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Mar.08.2009
Peerachat, Denjit and I usually lunched at a nearby raan ahaan that offered cheap noodles and cold beer to cool you off when the 90-degree heat and shirt-sopping humidity started to wilt you.
Like most, it was a hole in the wall; a cement box with a few plastic tables, a Sanyo refrigerator, a...
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Mar.05.2009
Ajaan Denjit liked massage parlors but he loved muay Thai.
He worked every weekend as a Thai boxing referee at Lumpini stadium over on Rama IV Road. James Bond did his famous kick-boxing in The Man With the Golden Gun at rival Rajdamnern Stadium but Thailand’s best nak muay strutted their stuff at...
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Mar.03.2009
By night I was a writer. By day I was a discontented school teacher. The monsoon weather matched my pissy personal life.
From May through October, most afternoons brought an intense, tropical downpour which usually cleared by evening, but not before Bangkok filled up like an overflowing bathtub....
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Feb.26.2009
Ajaan Peerachat was my best friend at Wat Bovornives.
He was what I would never be – a professional teacher. He taught me jai yen yen, cool heart, the relaxed, easy-going attitude Thai people excel at. Between my relaxing a bit and the public caning of Terdsak, Maw Saw 5 became tolerable.
We were...
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