Do Nut Go There...

   Quite often those simple word plays are the stuff of children's jokes such as the one that went, "What did the grape say when it got stepped on?...Nothing, it just let out a little wine."  It was one of the most memorable jokes I had heard but I heard it when I was a tiny lad of about 8 and one who didn't grasp what it meant, only that all the adults seemed to laugh at it and so somehow it stuck in my head decade after decade.  Little has changed of course, as noted by one of the tee shirts at Northern Sun which features in bright and bold letters: Chicken Pot Pie...my three favorite things.  So it was a bit of a surprise to hear about what has changed in Los Angeles, a city which one would view as cosmopolitan, congested, changed and...Cambodian?  Turns out that that segment of the Asian population has blossomed in LA, and has helped earn LA yet another distinctive title, the Donut Capital.  With over 1500 donut shops, many of them small family-run operations, the Cambodian-American ownership can trace most of its roots back to just one man, Ted Ngoy.  He arrived in the 70s after fleeing the spreading Vietnam war, was intrigued by a donut shop operating across from the gas station where he worked as a janitor; soon was learning all that he could about making donuts and before long he began showing others how to open their own shops (by this time he was making $100,000 per month).  Said National Geographic: "Donut shops were Cambodians' link to being able to make it in America, their key to opportunity" says Mayly Tao, owner and CEO of DK's Donuts.  "I love that donuts can unite a community that no borders, race, or differences can take away."  But a gambling addiction did take almost every penny away from Ted Ngoy, and then...he vanished.  It all makes for an interesting story, one the Sporkful podcast tells in a detective-like effort to find out what happened...and was he still alive?  By the way, it was National Donut Day just a few days ago.

   But the true term of hearing D-Day conjures up something vastly different than donuts.  75 years ago troops stormed several beaches in Normandy, often heading directly into the oncoming bullets of German soldiers shooting at them form bunkers embedded in the hills above and so frightenliy captured by Stephen Spielberg's movie, Saving Private Ryan.  Many soldiers were killed before even leaving their boats, or while swimming in the waters; bodies became so many in number that they added to the difficulty of just getting through the wooden barricades and barbed wire already planted in the sandy shores.  By the end, nearly 4500 soldiers would have given their lives in taking the five beaches, a number that would climb to nearly ten times that number by the time the Germans had fully retreated back across the Seine two months later, said author Barrett Tillman in his D-Day Encyclopedia.  Perhaps more shocking than those numbers was a piece in the Washington Post showing that by March 6th of this year, more people had been shot in the U.S. this year than had been killed on D-Day.  That followed an even more disturbing piece in Bloomberg Businessweek about gun sales and with them, the worldwide target for memberships by the National Rifle Association.  Said part of the article: In the recent past, mass shootings and the backlash against guns that typically follows have been major boons to the NRA.  The most significant was the December 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., which left 26 people dead, including 20 students under age 8. (The gunman also killed his mother.)  The next year, NRA member dues reached a 10-year high of $175.6 million...With Republicans in charge of Congress and the White House, fundraising slowed on average.  The exception was after the February 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Fla., which sparked nationwide demonstrations for gun safety laws. (Parkland involved a lone 19-year old gunman killing 17 high school students with an assault rifle; 2 other students who survived recently took their own lives).  Some of the NRA’s longtime corporate partners severed their ties, and two weeks after the shooting, Trump said he’d “stand up” to the organization. ( He reversed himself a week later.)  In the meantime, the NRA’s political action committee prospered: It took in a record $2.4 million the month after the massacre.  Trump was the main speaker at this year's NRA convention...

   There was D-Day 75 years ago, and 30 years ago there were the Tiananmen Square protests, and 50 years ago there was the Vietnam war, and Laos...and Cambodia.  Jane Goodall has been quoted as saying, "Only if we understand, can we care.  Only if we care, will we help."  I'm currently reading the Moth collections, Occasional Magic (and next on my list will be their previous collection, All These Wonders).  And I'll admit that I'm not one to cry much when hearing a story or reading one.  Okay, the sad movie or the sentimental ending will often make my lip begin to quiver and tears begin to fall (my wife is used to it); but rarely --very rarely-- would I ever cry in front of my friends or family.  But then there was this Moth Podcast recently presented by a shy, almost introverted husband and new father, Warren Holleman.  His story of how uncomfortable he was with showing emotion through hugs and touch, was so moving that I found myself both identifying with his words and becoming quite emotional.  Ah well, I thought, I'll have to relay that story to my wife when I get home, which I did, and discovered that I could barely get through the story, openly crying and choking up almost as often as the speaker.  This was not like me...so a few days pass and we're at a friend's house with another couple and my wife asks me to tell all of them that story.  I quietly point out to her how that story emotionally affects me but she rebutted that more people needed to hear that story, especially now.  So I gulped, took a light breath, and began...but again, tears began to fall and my story stuttered as I tried to "gather myself."  Warren Holleman's story was that of the power of touch, the fighting against all odds to just have a small measure of compassion, a shoulder to cry on, a hand to grip tightly, a person to just grab and hug as if you want to never let go.

   For many soldiers, youths really, that chance never came; death came to many of them and likely so did the loneliness.   And not only soldiers but many people now just waiting for their own lonely death in rest homes, or people trapped in rehabilitation from a disease or an accident, or those lacking self-esteem, or those perhaps just afraid to get out and be part of the world and meet actual people.  A study asking homeless people what they noticed the most about those who passed by was that the majority of those people's avoided eye contact.  Perhaps one of those homeless just wants a smile or an acknowledgement...or a sincere clasping of their hand. Maybe it'd be as simple as handing them a fresh donut.