The One About the Vietnamese Boat People

Drawn from my memoirs

Boat People — Photo by Vince Gx on Unsplash

Sometimes what you read in the papers or hear on the nightly news confronts you in real time.

This happened to me one summer weekend on Fire Island. Fire Island is a resort barrier reef off the coast of Long Island New York. The reef is 26 miles long and about 3 New York City blocks at its widest point. The Army Corp of Engineers, spends a nice chunk of the federal budget dumping sand the beaches in the spring, especially when much of that sand has been washed and eroded away during the fall and winter storms, hit the are more frequently than ever before.

It was on one of my getaway weekends that I met two extraordinary young Asian brothers. The sons of my friends Isaac and Sarah. Though I had never met the boys before Isaac and Sarah had mentioned that they had two brilliant sons at Harvard. When I finally met the boys, it was clear, or at least likely that Michael, and Steven had been adopted since neither Isaac or Sarah were not Asian, and as far as I knew did not have anything…