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One day during our first winter in the US, our little house could not keep us warm. Hà was about one-year-old, and she came down with a severe fever. My Mom put vapor rub medicine (dầu cù là) on her, and gave her aspirin, but that didn’t help. Hà's fever kept getting worse and the whole family was very concerned. My Dad and I went to the Eckerd Drug store next to the old Winn-Dixie late at night when the store was about to close. Dad struggled hard to tell the clerk what he needed, but the lack of vocabulary was so overwhelming that the clerk became frustrated and treated us like troublemakers he wanted to get rid of.

 

My Dad, now forty-five-years old, a former commander of thousands of men, was on the verge of tears trying to communicate to save his daughter, while I could only stand there helplessly. All he wanted was to purchase a drug for Hà's fever. An old lady walked by and stopped to listen in on the conversation. Somehow she understood, and she told the clerk to give us what we were looking for. My Dad bought the medicine and we both walked home in silence. I knew he was thanking God for sending him an angel.

 

Shortly thereafter, my Dad bought our first car. It was a very used white Plymouth Alliance for $200 cash. The old beat-up car had rusted all around the outside and inside there was only the driver’s seat. The trunk opened right into the inside of the car, so we put plywood on the passenger side and backseat floor areas. On top of the plywood, we laid blankets so the dust would not stream into the car when going down the dirt road. Gasoline was only 29 cents a gallon at the time and the old car was a true blessing for our family. We no longer had to walk to the grocery stores in the freezing weather anymore, and my Dad did not have to wait in the cold every morning for the white truck. He now could drive to work.

 

With my Dad making $2.10 an hour, our family of ten was truly struggling. We worked and saved every penny. On the weekends, some parish folks would pick me up to do yard work. After I had cut the grass, trimmed the edges and weeded the flower beds, they would give me five dollars and perhaps a can of Coke. I would gulp down the soft drink and when I got home I gave my Mom the five bucks that I had earned. My brothers and sisters did the same thing. We gave her everything, even the tips in coins.

 

We were poor, but my Mom made sure we had enough to eat. Not fancy and expensive food, but we ate lots of fish and chicken. One time Sister Carol took my Mom to the supermarket and my Mom picked up a package of steaks to see how much they were, and then she lightly put it back down. Sister Carol saw that and insisted that she buy it for us. That act of kindness and so many other good deeds on our behalf are forever etched in our minds, and we owe much to the Bishop of Charleston, the Most–Reverend Ernest Unterkoefler and the good people of Charleston, South Carolina.

 

Bishop Ernest, as we called this gentle giant of a man, had mobilized his people, sponsored us and opened up his heart. He and his diocese paid our electric, gas, water, telephone and educational bills. They helped us completely and unconditionally. Their love and kindness taught us volumes about American generosity.

 

Later that winter, my Dad got a better paying job. The Public Works Department Solid Waste Plant outside of town needed a trash sorter, and they paid $2.44 an hour. Language skills were not needed, so my Dad signed up and got the job. His job was to sort out the garbage that the big trash trucks collected from people’s houses. His workplace was stinky, and his station at the feeding end of the conveyor belt was smelly, sticky and disgusting. Everyday after work, he went directly to the shower upon getting home to wash up before dinner; otherwise no one could eat because the stench lingering on his clothes was so bad. But that was my Dad. He sacrificed so all of us could get ahead.

 

One morning, Dan Rather, the CBS-Television national news anchorman, showed up at our house with his entourage of cameramen to do a report on my Dad. He called it: “Former Lieutenant Colonel of South Vietnam became a trash pickup man in the US”.

 

They filmed us in the little house as we were eating a breakfast of bran cereal before school, then they followed my Dad’s beat-up car to work. They videoed him sorting putrid trash and it was such an ordeal that several times during the shoot the crew ran outside to vomit. On the 5 o’clock news on TV the next day, I saw a determined and proud man, my Dad, doing his work without shame to feed our family. I also saw Dan Rather’s moist eyes reporting our struggle, and I wondered if he was touched by what we were going through. Did the stink of my Dad’s workplace, where he went day after day without complaint, get to the great newsman?

 

After the report was aired, my Dad was promoted to a better position at the Solid Waste Department and he was allowed to drive the big bulldozer at a landfill. While the smell from the landfill was no less offensive than that of his previous job, the open air made it somewhat more bearable.

 

Our first Christmas in the US was humble. Instead of a lighted Christmas tree with presents underneath as we always had back in Vietnam, we ate fried chicken and watched wrestling on a small black and white TV after church. My Mom and Dad promised us better days ahead and we believed them.